Here’s your monthly review of Write a Note, a spoken word open mic, which takes place at MAST Mayflower Studios, Southampton. This was another wonderful evening of poetry, fairy tales and pandas. Yes, you read that right. These were two of the brilliant poets who attended the event and shared some of their work.
Andy Buchanan
Andy Buchanan’s work is quiet, thoughtful, and has an immediate appeal which speaks directly to us all. These beautiful and often short poems capture what it is to be alive, and in or out of love, as we pass through the days of our lives.
As a poet he has five books out – the most recent being “Love And Other Stories” available on Amazon or at readings. His writing has also been translated and published in Korean and Mandarin Chinese.
He has in the past promoted many leading national and international poets, including a Nobel Prize nominee. However he is particularly proud to have supported many local Southampton poets in the “New Southampton Poets” collection, also available.
She appeared in the early evening
She appeared
in the early evening
seemingly out of nowhere
As if she had fallen
out of the half light of
the early evening sky
But you know
love is fierce
she comes and goes
doesn’t take advice or
wait for what you decide
She comes and goes
in her own time
And sadly not
yours or mine
All the light in the room
She captures
all the light in the room
And bends it around herself
Without even trying
Because, like you and me,
it wants to be near her
As if it too cannot escape
the gravity of her beauty
Poem “She appeared in the early evening” from the book “Love And Other Stories ”Poem “All the light in the room” from the book “Nine Changes of The Watery Star” All poems ©Andrew Buchanan.
Click here for the Amazon link.
Deborah Gearing
Deborah (pictured top) writes plays, work with groups and mentor young playwrights. She also works with the Fuse collective, a group of Southampton actors, to put on shows in non-theatre spaces. They’ve put on plays in a house, in God’s House Tower, The Gurkha Museum and a promenade to a popup pub. There’s always poetry somewhere. (The Turnkey’s Wife is available in God’s House Tower). And printmaking. And water. The river runs through so much of her work. She lives in Southampton near the Itchen, where she has just launched The Eel Run, a new project about eels. If you have a memory or story about eels you’d like to share (especially around the Itchen) please email her: eelrunproject@gmail.com
Bad Daughters
There’s a gun in the drawer and that money was meant for you.
The cherry tree at the end of the garden
waves and I know the river
by the bulrush patch is boiling.
He needs his medication.
If I were at Epidaurus I might hear a god speak but
this one’s just going to blame us for the politics.
Grey gabardine, pistachio green or signal red –
makes no odds,
Bobby Dog. (Yeah, I’m talking to you).
This sun will burn us up.
Monarch
For Homero Gómez González and Raúl Hernández Romero
He worked among the pines,
tapped the nails in gently,
leaving the the bark undamaged as
he secured the notices calling for silence.
Across the sky in Canada the atmosphere thickens, roiling rust-coloured,
as the fourth generation of an entire species
tracks some unlocated compass across
the continent, returning to the oyamel forest,
where they have never been.
For two weeks there was no sign of him.
His wife went out among the sacred trees.
At each sign she stopped to touch the words:
‘guardia silencio’. She called out his name.
I do not know if he cried out when
his attacker hit him on the head, when
he fell to meet his own shadow, when
they threw his body into the pond.
As long as there are oyamel in Michoacán
the butterflies will come. The thin air will quicken, your
heart will beat faster as the waterfall of wings begins and
branches, trunks, the forest entire – all is clothed
in ancestral majesty.
Here is what you have waited for. Only here
Panda-monium
Panda-monium brough music, spoken word and took us to another dimension. In case this is making you puzzled, Panda-monium are Hampshire’s Leading Panda Harmonium Duo. There were squeaky toys, running crazy horse(s), beatboxing, and so much more wonderful madness.
A Panda-monium gig cannot be put in words, so what I highly recommend is make sure you don’t miss them next time they play live.
Check their webpage and Facebook page for updates on coming gigs,
Panda-monium – Hampshire’s Leading Panda Harmonium Duo
A huge thank you to all the poets, audience, MAST staff members and to Artfulscribe for the constant support and appreciation, you are an integral part of Write a Note.
The next Write a Note will take place on the 7th of November. See you there.
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