Category Archives: Spoken word

Paulie C

Paulie C

Paulie C is an enthusiastic participant in the utterly inexplicable experiment whereupon matter really attempts to know itself. He has been writing poetry for the majority of his 38 years and gibbers it infrequently to anyone who cares to listen. His influences include Philip K Dick, woozy psychedelia, the sneezing panda video and various beatnik types.​

Human Robber

Human Robber

Human Robber (aka Brother Gush, Frater Null, Uncle Big Balls, Pope Margaret Minge XXIII etc) is a 53 year old work in progress………word mangler, wand maker, definite wizard or warlock but unsure witch. Former teacher he now attempts to explain this humans condition via the medium of poems, silly songs and impossibly true stories…..rumoured to actually be an alien from the star system sirius c……maybe….

In telling gents their agency..MI5, MI6 MI joking?

Now we hide in the open
Pop-up black ops
Immutable shogun
Mutated cyclops
Intelligence agents
Semiotic transhuman
Cast by dice that
know not who threw them.

Dave Pepper

Dave Pepper

Dave Pepper has been performing his own style of performance poetry since 2002. It began with a slot at Moksha Medicine. A cabaret night at The 491 Gallery in Leytonstone, that was, in part, the heart of the incredibly bright and beautifuly bonkers community that had produced ‘The Warp’ only a few years before.
Since then a whole universe has opened up with performances up and down the UK, suporting many community events.
From the Galactic Federation to receiving a Bardship and apearing at Stone Henge and Glastonbury many times. Performing to thousands at demonstrations or working one to one in communication training with Marie Curie.

He has appeared with some of the country’s finest: Salena Godden, Kate Tempest, Yap,
Daisy Eris Campbell… At many fine and reputable establishments: BBC R4, Resonance FM, ILL FM, NTS Radio, Reel Rebel Radio, Reprezent Radio. Bimble Bandada, Secret Garden Party, Sunrise, Small World, Buddha Fields, Hackney Wicked, Magic Garden Pub, The Others.. As a solo artist, and with his band Vibe Machine.

http://poetpepper.wix.com/mysite

Mr Vast and the Vast Minority

“Jesus,  you’re not easy to describe, you know? Okay, let me think.. You’re like a Muppet version of a Philip K. Dick novel… A Mr Vast gig is similar to that moment when you realise you’ve been secretly filmed by Derren Brown for the last six weeks…One of my mates thought you were well dodgy while the other insisted on paying you double for your CD!? How’s that?” John Higgs.

“He’s a preacher, a screecher, an Archie Leacher An artless dodger, a limelight hogger, a dead horse flogger. He‘s the genial game-show host whose mind is toast. The quiz-master with all the wrong answers. The life coach on the National Express. The high-street shaman in the sequinned dress. This is his sweat lodge seminar, his powerpoint aberration, the shotgun in his shell suit, the seamonkey on his back A burnt-out, blurted-out, beercan-touting carry-out cabaret.”

Henry Sargeant trained as an actor and “dark clown” before veering off into music as frontman of the legendary Wevie Stonder, dubbed by the BBC as ‘the Monty Python of electronic music’ They went on to record 5 albums and two Maida Vale sessions. Mr Vast is his solo project and without the band he has heightened the theatrical/comedy elements to new bewilderingly ecstatic levels.

http://mrvast.com/

Salena Godden

Salena Godden is one of Britain’s foremost spoken word artists and poets. A regular performer at
literary festivals in a career that is now entering its third decade, Salena tops the bill at literary
events both nationally and internationally. She’s appeared as a guest and writer for many BBC
Radio programmes including The Verb, Saturday Live, Loose Ends and Fact To Fiction and she
has written and presented several arts documentaries and a play for the BBC too. Burning Eye
Books published her first full collection ‘Fishing In The Aftermath: Poems 1994 ­ 2014’ marking
twenty years of poetry and performance, with the majority of the work included previously
unpublished in book form. Her literary childhood memoir ‘Springfield Road’ was successfully
crowd funded and published with Unbound Books in 2014. Widely recognised as a trailblazer for
fellow performers, Salena has also dedicated herself to mentoring newcomers to the scene. Her
voice is distinctive and unique, her performances are electrifying, hilarious, intensely powerful and full of warmth.

Waiting For Godden: www.salenagodden.com
Poetry here >> ‘Fishing In The Aftermath poems 1994­2014’ published by Burning Eye Books
Memoir here >> ‘Springfield Road’ published by Unbound Books
Poems and songs >> https://soundcloud.com/salena­godden
BBC Radio and audio archives >> https://www.mixcloud.com/salenagodden

Salena Godden 2

Dolly Turing

Dolly Turing may be a poet, party organiser, transformation instigator, collection of entities, dancer, experimental musician, process, git wizard, joke. She has read poems as part of Veer to Athens, at the Sussex Poetry Festival, at Supernormal Festival as part of the Archbishops of Banterbury, Hi Zero and in various pub gardens. She recently had some poems published by Datableed. At the moment she musicks with Four Manatees and Thee Hairee Kuntz, creates parties, playtimes and worlds as part of 3EYE.SPACE, explores and rambles with future Zen group Chapter Perilous, writes occasional blog posts at Outside Inroads and has a monthly allsorts music show BANG! on Totally Radio. She is also RIGHT NOW conducting research into personal apocalyptic/illumination experiences.

https://outsideinroads.wordpress.com/

Verity Spott

Verity Spott is a poet and musician from Brighton. Verity has had poetry published in several journals, magazines and anthologies. Her work has been translated into Greek, Korean, Spanish, Czech and Portuguese. Verity’s books include “Effort to No”, “Dear Nothing and No One in it” (Iodine Press), “Balconette” (Veer Books), “Gideon” (Barque Press) and most recently a selection of essays / prosody called “Trans* Manifestos” (Shit Valley). Whereas “Gideon” was a very direct hex against the UK chancellor and gut pincer commonly called George Osborne, Verity’s Manifestos are attempts at destabilising the language of law, prescription and assumed “natural” order; a narrative of conscious terror, police violence, gender dysphoria and magical decay. Verity is also working on a long poem, which is a set of suites / lyrics aimed at entirely dismantling the private mental health sector. And if you don’t think that’s a good idea, well, you’re part of the problem, and you’d better fuck off.

http://www.barquepress.com/publications.php?i=97

http://www.veerbooks.com/Verity-Spott- Balconette

http://twotornhalves.blogspot.co.uk/

Ben Graham

Ben Graham is a poet, writer, performer, counter-culture historian and music journalist, whose work has appeared in the Quietus, the Stool Pigeon and Shindig magazine, among other publications. He is the author of ‘A Gathering of Promises: The Battle for Texas’s Psychedelic Music, from the 13th Floor Elevators to the Black Angels and Beyond’ (Zero Books, 2015). He has also self-published two novels and several collections of poetry. His work has been compared at various times to that of Lester Bangs, Julian Cope, John Sinclair, Hunter S Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Tom Wolfe and Colin Wilson. He grew up in West Yorkshire but is now firmly ensconced in Brighton.

Ben Graham

Binnsclagg

Binnsclagg mix spoken word and electro-acoustic sound sources, often creating deliberately, provocatively unpleasant audio events. Past performances have seen them using industrial cutting equipment, filling cramped venues with showers of incandescent sparks and grating metallic shrieks [Wire Magazine]

Binnsclagg are idiots.

https://binnsclagg.bandcamp.com/album/live-april- may-2015

FOUR MANATEES

FOUR MANATEES: Backlight Dreams

Four Manatees will explore, expose, explode, merge and destroy boundaries between composition, improvisation, play and ritual. We will fool around with the idea of a “game”, or a “ritual” of a “piece of music” or “poetry” in five written pieces, each using a different compositional method and including elements of ritual and play. We will invite others to join us, and if you are in the audience you will become involved too.

Four Manatees are Dolly Turing and Verity Spott. They met five years ago in a whirl of free improvisation and live together in Brighton. They are in love and spend their time making and shaping dialogues, friendships, schemes, play, poetics. Both are musicians, using improvisation and composition. They play together using instruments, toys and electronics. Both are writers. Through different stresses and spheres their writing has in common queer love, transformation, bathos and a distrust for power games and established and arbitrary formalities.

Both hold a deep burning love for ritual, symbolism and process, a light hearted tendency to “make shit up” and a practical cynicism in the face of life and death.

Verity and Dolly have a fascination with exploring / exploding the boundaries between music/sound, magical ritual, poetry and play, using this as a tool. They have continually developed these ideas, for example composing a piece “Rocket Science” for Cage Rattling, a tribute to John Cage, Kings Palace, London; collaborating with each other and others on soundscapes, poetry and ritual at the poetry press’s “Veer to Athens” event last year, and creating a music/poetry/ritual for 2015’s Brighton Alternative Jazz Festival’s aftershow.