Blog to Blog

While this blog is intended to keep you in touch with the John and Ella at THE SOUTH’s office and their weekly activities and plans, Friends of THE SOUTH have their own blog at www.friendsofthesouth.wordpress.com. Here Friends can contribute your own news and views, as well as publishing your won creative work. So sign up as a user and express yourself!

If anyone is interested in being the volunteer Moderator for the Friends blog, please let us know.

Normal blogging service…

…will be resumed as soon as possible I hope.

We’ve had a very exciting period since December with lots of developments – and very little time for blogging it seems…!

Many thanks to Laura Kayne who left us in November after eighteen months hard work. Ella Burns joined as a volunteer in January but quickly moved on to being our Workshop Co-ordinator for two days a week and is now our Co-ordinator, coming in Tuesday to Friday so the office is now manned most days. We’ve also had support from Fany Chassaing, a young French student, courtesy of Pighog Press and Messenger Communications Ltd. With Ella, Fany has been doing a fantastic job, getting the website upto date and sorting out our database.

In February, in partnership with Royal Holloway, London University and Runnymede Borough Council we were involved in the second successful Runnymede Literary Festival and its associated CO-ED activities.

In April we successfully launched the first Brighton Children’s Book Festival with Laura Atkins and the University of Brighton and sponsored by The Salariya Book Company.

We’re grateful to have received an organisational development grant from Arts Council England South East.

Children – and grown ups

A good day in the company of Laura Atkins – a true professional who’s organising THE SOUTH’s first Brighton Children’s Book Festival, planned for April 21st, although we’re just waiting on final confirmation. We should launch the project in January with great support from the University of Brighton. Laura is an expert on children’s literature and she’s lined up a fantastic programme. You kind find out more about Laura here.

Tomorrow and Wednesday (5/6 December) I’m in Addlestone, Chertsey and Egham working on Runnymede International Literary Festival, talking to local community groups, schools and bookshops and attending a festival committee meeting at Royal Holloway, University of London – our main partners in the project alongside Runnymede Literary Association and Runnymede Borough Council.

These two universities – Brighton and Royal Holloway – are fantastic to work with. They really understand the idea of partnership in a grown-up 21st century kind of way.

Thank you…

…to John O’Donoghue, Maria Jastrzebska and Jackie Wills for helping put together the Cultural Leadership Network Funding Bid over the last few days. John was emailing me at 2.30 am Friday with helpful hints. That’s the kind of commitment getting these proposals together takes, when we have no secured funding, every day is a hand to mouth existence, and we’re all busy with other work. I feel a Friday evening ramble coming on so here goes…

THE SOUTH is now operating at the level of a regional agency, but getting the funders to appreciate this and to understand just how innovative and different our approach is seems to be taking an eternity. That suggests a problem of communication, but is it our mode of expression, or others’ mode of listening that’s the problem. A bit of both probably. I’m certainly very keen to improve our communication on all kinds of issues. If you feel you could help, please let us know. We especially need people who are used to filling in applications and writing kultur-spik. I’m sure major changes in arts funding and arts infrastructure are on the way. They’re certainly long overdue. I’m confident that THE SOUTH is in a very good position to make the most of that change and even take part in the change-making process itself. Always having been a little subversive myself, that appeals. I think the next few months could be the most interesting yet in THE SOUTH’s development. A leading poet a little unkindly described it as ‘one man’s pipe dream’. Thanks. Pipe dream? I don’t think so. I have a dream, certainly, but it’s not in my pipe. I have a dream of a flourishing and active literature network, channels of communication sparkling with interchange and reciprocation. I have a dream of young people reclaiming language for themselves, rediscovering its beauty and power. I have a dream that the discipline of poetry, the curious straitening of its forms and its spellbinding power, are important and significant for modern society to deal with itself honestly, justly and precisely. I have a dream of a vibrant multi-faceted southern culture freed from bigotry, a social dance to the music of words. I have a dream that one day, maybe, someone will realise just what we’re trying to nurture, offer, give. An interconnecting energy, giving voice to the region’s voiceless heart.

Wo! Must have stayed up too late last night working on that proposal. Good night!

Errors of Email

People ask me why I write my email address as john*at*thesouth.org.uk. To avoid spam harvesters, is the answer which is good coming from me since I committed an unforgivable error when we sent out the network email on Tuesday 28/11. My apologies to everyone for the fact that we didn’t drop the distribution group lists into BCC but sent them for all the world to see – and potentially take advantage of, as one cowardly dark lord of southern writing promptly did to express his opinions about THE SOUTH and me to all and sundry. Serves me right, I know. My aim is to use this blog to keep you up to date with news and activities in THE SOUTH and so reduce the level of email which I know many of you have complained about. And remember you can send comments and news yourself. A poem just arrived from Jackie Wills for example!

Live poetry!

Last Friday (24/11) I was invited to Poetry Live! at Central Hall Westminster, the first time I had ever attended an event on this famous tour. It’s a powerhouse of poetry presentation, curriculum momentum and reader development. Poetry Live! brings poetry in English to around 75,000 GCSE students every year at whole day events that are packed. Over ten years or so that means that getting on for a million students have been brought into direct contact with poets like (our own) John Agard and Grace Nichols who live in Lewes, Simon Armitage, Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke, to name a few. That’s an amazing achievement. It delivers results in that poets now meet adults buying their books who say “I first heard you on Poetry Live!” How’s that for audience development. It also demonstrates the benefit of thinking big but also thinking simply. Identifying a need for poetry presentation and satisfying it professionally. This is stadium poetry, and very enjoyable it was too.

I think if you said to most people that 2000 plus 15-16 year olds would sit through a day of contemporary English poets presenting and talking about their poetry, they would laugh with that peculiar hollow laugh they reserve for occasions when the word ‘poetry’ is heard. But they didn’t just sit through it. London students of just about any and every cultural and ethnic background positively enjoyed their interaction with poetic language.  For me it reinforced again the raw power of rhythmed language heard aloud to spellbind and energise.

The organisers have generously invited THE SOUTH to have a booth at the Brighton event at The Dome on January 18th when we can make contact with teachers and students alike. So if you’re going look out for the man by THE SOUTH’s display – it’ll be me, though hopefully not too much like the Ancient Mariner. By the way if you’d like to volunteer to help man the stand at this event and get a chance to see some of the poets in action, please get in touch with me – john*at*thesouth.org.uk. I’d say we need about three people.

A couple of moments stood out. A girl in front of me had blacked out Gillian Clarke’s teeth on her picture in the event booklet. The student also added an eye patch and a scar to create a very credible pirate.

Simon Armitage said when he was at school there was a boy with a glass eye. For 50p he’d take it out and you could look into his brains. Or did he say mind. For a quid, said Simon, he’d let you poke your finger in. Simon Armitage told this story as if it were his own but I’ll swear this is an old music hall joke. During question time one of the students asked if Simon had ever thought about being a comedian. The rest of the audience erupted, some with glee, some with disapproval. Simon chewed the cud for a while and let the uproar subside. He pushed his chin toward the microphone, angled his head toward the student and said in a flat tone, “No.”

SAQI

Beautifully presented promotional material from ‘fiercely independent’ Saqi Books. I sense a kindred spirit here and like what they’re doing. If the books are as good as the promo we’re in for a treat. And what a beautifully written and printed letter, not hyped, pushy or patronising.

As one time student of Islam, I’ve been amazed at the way Arabic poetry gets so overlooked, so little translated. Thank you SAQI. Keep it coming.

More: www.saquibooks.com and www.telegrambooks.com

Sealion needs voluntary support

Not as slippy as you might imagine! Our regional live lit listings web site has been a great success and we’re now seeking to recruit a team of voluntary updaters. The benefits include getting to know about every brilliant spoken word and literature event before anyone else and a year’s subscription to THE SOUTH’s active literature network.

If you can help working from home or at THE SOUTH’s office please get in touch.

Fancy a different night out? Try SEALION. South East Live Literature On Line. www.sealion.org.uk

Room with a view

Only connect was Howard’s End, but never mind. THE SOUTH has a well-equipped meeting room ready for you to use for any type of connecting – workshops, seminars, rehearsals, committee meetings. And it does have a wonderful view over Grand Parade and the Old Steine…

You can find full information here.

Attention!

There’s nothing better than focussed attention. Sadly, resources don’t permit THE SOUTH to be open all hours, so please bear with us if your email or phone call isn’t answered as promptly as you would wish. Everyone involved in THE SOUTH is either trying to write or hold down a full time job and usually both! As our resources develop I hope we’ll be able to offer a full time office and meeting area. At present THE SOUTH office is usually open on Tuesday and Thursday from 10am until 5pm, with a lunchbreak around 1pm.