PERFORMANCE & COMEDY

Bristol Old Vic Basement (Mon 21 Nov)

PERFORMANCE POETRY Back to the Basement we go for our third and final event in this autumn season of all things spoken word. “What is spoken word?” asks my husband, whom I often think needs to get out of Nailsea more. “It’s a bit like poetry but angrier. Just wait and see. You will like it,” I reply, this last sounding more like a Dalek command than a reassurance.

Byron Vincent, our host with the most, wryly shares a few gems with us about the daily activities list at a secure psychiatric unit where he was a recent guest, and where the library consisted solely of Lonely Planet guidebooks. Thank god for the insane, for where would the world and poetry be without them?

First up is Tom Phillips, playwright, journo, old rocker and scarified warhorse of the poetry slam scene since, ooo, bloody ages ago. (He also sub-edits this organ and although he’s a tad untidy in his personal dress, he’s a real stickler when it comes to the correct use of apostrophe’s, commas,, and those handy little: semi-colons. I hope he notices my use of them here, along with (brackets)). He’s soon ankle-deep in paper as he gives us a pick n’mix of, ooo, bloody years of wordsmithing, all spat out at breakneck speed with much nasal alacrity: “I spent more than an hour preparing this,”, he says.  And it shows. There are good ones about 700,000 concrete bunkers in Albania, post-coital breakfast at the Southville Deli, poetry being the new rock n’ roll (well, new in 1995), and his wife (“To my wife - who isn’t here”), who eschewed “what passes for life in Portishead” for a life in Bristol as Mrs Tom Phillips. She’s got her work cut out for her there, then.

Byron returns. His hair is on fire: “Every time you heckle a poet, a Guardian reader dies,” he warns us. And: “I don’t really have a life. Most of my friends are poets – unstable, neurotic, self-obsessed alcoholics who can’t communicate things we haven’t written down first.” He also tells us about his friend Tim Clare who is writing 101 poems a day in November for MIND, and who therefore urgently needs donated titles (www.timclare.co.uk).

And then, and then… Byron’s favourite poet, Luke Kennard (pictured). He looks and speaks like a kindly, bumbling family GP from the 60s, he’s very very clever indeed and sounds frightfully posh but isn’t really (“I learned my posh accent from Famous 5 audio books”). He ums and ahs a lot and over-explains his poems marvellously, many of which have intricate OCD footnotes (one by a wolf, who berates him later in another poem for his ‘U’ accent). Luke is a one-man class war who has “a chip AND an inverted chip” on his shoulder. His poems are astounding, none of us wants them to end: “I make a cup of tea for each of the 68 cups in the house...” Kennard’s set is an artistic triumph, though he’s nearly blinded by the end of it - why does Bristol Old Vic want to burn out poets' retinas with a barrage of spotlights? Is that any way to show gratitude?

The Dalek in me says: YOU – WILL – BUY Luke Kennard’s collection ‘The Harbour Beyond The Moon’ and give it to everyone you know for Xmas so they can read ‘The Murderer’.  I loved every minute of WOM… and yes, HE – DID – LIKE – IT a lot too. (Rina Vergano)

Copyright Rina Vergano 2011

The first WOM of 2012 will be on Mon 16 Jan at BOV and monthly thereafter. NB: Get your tickets quick for Byron Vincent and the legendary John Cooper Clarke at the Fleece, Bristol on Fri 27 Jan.