I have two very different performances coming up in May. Different, because my natural comfort zone is dark bar with people drinking = I aim to hold their attention or small studio theatre = other poets listen politely. What I am not used to is full on gospel choirs and wind swept moors. So my current bookings show that I am either a fascinatingly versatile performer or that I blindly sieze any flotsum of opportunity that flows down the river of my artistic career.
The first performance is this Saturday at St Michael’s, Mytholmroyd, 7:30pm. Three poets and a gospel choir for a fiver – you can’t go wrong. Now, I don’t know if this counts as a dark secret for a performance poet but I’ve never performed with musicians. And to be honest, I’m a little bit nervous because music trumps words doesn’t it? Come on, you know it’s true; I don’t like admitting it either but poetry does not boom boom shake the room. After the hand clapping and stomping is unaccompnied verbage going to cut it? Against an 18-man hallelujah there’s little me and a mic. And that of course, is why I am doing it; to feel the audience’s shift when I start, either a shifting of bottoms as they hunker down and zone out or a shift into another key, a new and deeper tuning in.
And as for invoking the elements on Oxenhope moor, in the pouring rain – that, I think, I’ll save for another blog post.
