Our permanent new website is now online, please go to www.cb1poetry.org.uk
This blog (poetrycb1) will no longer be updated.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
CB1 Poetry at Michaelhouse
The new CB1 Poetry website will be online soon, but meanwhile here is a preview of the Michaelhouse programme for 2007-2008. Our poster to advertise the series is reproduced below (please click the image for a larger version).
Acclaimed novelist and award winning poet Tobias Hill has agreed to become a patron of CB1 Poetry, and is headlining the launch event on Tuesday 9th October. We've secured a fantastic line-up of readings with well-known guest poets, all at 8pm on the second Tuesday of the month:
Tue 9 Oct : Tobias Hill (CB1 Poetry Patron; PBS Next Generation poet, Times Young Writer of the Year shortlisted)
Tue 13 Nov : Michael Laskey (Aldeburgh Poetry Festival founder, Smiths Knoll founder/co-editor)
Tue 11 Dec : Esther Morgan, Joanne Limberg & Helen Ivory (Eric Gregory Award winners, Aldeburgh best first collection / Forward prize shortlist / Poetry Archive Editor)
Tue 8 Jan : Matthew Hollis (Wordsworth trust writer in residence, F&F editor, Whitbread Prize & Guardian First Book Award shortlisted)
Tue 12 Feb : Frances Leviston (Eric Gregory Award, PBS Bulletin pamphlet choice)
Tue 11 Mar : Matthew Caley (Forward Best First Collection nominee, Poetry Café writer in residence)
Tue 8 Apr : Pat Borthwick (Hawthornden Fellow, Blue Nose Poet of Year, 2007 Templar competition)
Tue 13 May : Susan Utting (Peterloo Poetry Prize 2007 winner, Poetry Business prize, Forward Best Single Poem commendation)
Each event will also offer a short open mike floor spot and support readings from rising stars of the Cambridge and UK poetry scene – the launch event features recent Cambridge graduate and Eric Gregory national award winner Helen Mort.
The Michaelhouse offers a beautiful, large and accessible city-centre venue (note free parking by The Backs). Books by the readers will be for sale at each event, and a licensed bar will be open till 11pm.
Our traditional venue at the book-lined CB1 Café is of course irreplaceable, and we will continue to hold Open Mike evenings there, some with guest poets, every fourth Tuesday of the month at 8pm. We hope to see you soon at both venues to hear some amazing poetry.
Michaelhouse Trinity Street Cambridge CB2 1SU
www.michaelhouse.org.uk
CB1 Café 32 Mill Road Cambridge CB1 2AD
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
CB1 Poetry - the future
Dear CB1 Poetry supporters
Since Michael & Christine have sadly had to pull out of the co-ordination of CB1 Poetry due to other commitments, a group of us have gathered to discuss the future format and have come up with what we feel is an exciting and workable proposal (financially and artistically).
We propose to keep to our current twice-monthly programme of events but as follows:
- to introduce a new, larger venue (the Michaelhouse Centre on Trinity St) for more well-known/guest poet evenings (which will include some Open Mike slots at each event) on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, starting on 9th October.
- with a separate/specific Open Mike evening continuing at CB1 on the 4th Tuesday of each month, starting on 23rd October.
Both the CB1 and Michaelhouse evenings will contain longer slots where one or two poets will ‘headline’ and be able to showcase more of their work. In this way, at both venues, we want to continue to give local poets regular opportunities to read and develop in front of responsive, supportive audiences – an important part of CB1 Poetry’s ethos since it began.
We are confident this format will offer both stimulation for each audience and the chance for many more local writers to read and progress.
The size of CB1 places a serious limitation on our ability to pay for more well-known poets (and their travel expenses) from the entry fee – and to give enough people access to hear these guest writers. This, in turn, limits what we can provide to you, the local writing community.
Another issue is that CB1 does not have full disability access throughout which again can deter a number of people who might otherwise like to come to these events. Disability access is also a prerequisite for any future grant application. So on several fronts, we don't believe that standing still is a viable option.
There are several reasons for choosing the Michaelhouse venue:
- its manager is keen to hold more literary events after some successful one-off readings, and is therefore very supportive of our plans
- the central venue: this gives more chance of students, tourists and the general public who frequent the cafe and central area to see our posters/publicity and come to sample our events, read out a poem, etc. (We also intend to include listings of CB1/Michaelhouse events in many more on-line & print ‘What’s On’ publications – eg Local Secrets, We’re All Neighbours, Explorer etc).
- in order to attract – and to be able to accommodate – significantly larger audiences as awareness of these events spreads. In turn, larger audiences/total door receipts (along with the existing entry fees charged at the monthly CB1 Open Mike events) will help us to support Michaelhouse venue hire and visiting poet costs.
- parking: by mid-evening it’s usually possible to park for free on The Backs & surrounding roads rather than having to use the Lion Yard or other charging carparks. From there it is quite a short walk to Trinity St. There is a disabled drop-off and collection point directly outside the venue.
We hope you will support our plans and look forward to seeing you at the launch event on 9th October with guest poet Tobias Hill. As soon as details are finalised we will let you know the full programme of guest readers for the year ahead and about an updated CB1 website where all future information on forthcoming events and writers will be posted.
Many thanks,
CB1 Steering Group (Andre Mangeot, Ian Cartland, Emily Dening, Helen Mort, Anne Berkeley, Andrea Porter, Trish Harewood)
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
12 June: Simmonds, Jones, Williams
Tuesday 12th June, 8pm, CB1 Cafe, Mill Road
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
KATHRYN SIMMONDS was born in Hertfordshire in 1972 and now lives in north London where she works as an editor. She won the 2006 Poetry London competition, her pamphlet Snug came out recently from Smith Doorstop, and her first collection will be published next year.
On the Day that you were Born
The angels got together and decided to create
a dream come true.
Sorry, no, that wasn’t you.
On the day that you were born
it rained incessantly.
Three potholers were carried to their deaths
by flashfloods in north Wales.
In Manchester a man came home
and set about his wife
with woodwork tools.
Everywhere the sky was dark by four o’clock.
There might have been an air disaster too -
in fact there was,
two hundred people dropped into a field.
HUW JONES was born in Birmingham in 1973 to Welsh parents. He moved first to Manchester, then to Cambridge in 1997. His poetry has been published in Coffee House Poetry, Anon, and more recently in Poetry Wales. A selection of his work appeared in Seren Selections, published by Seren in 2006.
Beneath the apple tree
Reduce: we must guess nothing still,
as if there were a store diminished,
this, my final thing for her:
crouch and fill my hands with water,
push them to her slack white lips
beneath the high white arch of fever,
smudged, her face a mushroom pulse,
lost to sweat. The fields are powder,
standing at the wood's grey edge
standing with my back towards her;
what she hopes for does not answer,
now that she is gone and summer over
I must lay my long white back
into the longer grass
beneath the apple tree
and listen to the river;
learn to trust my hands
to welcome back my autumn thoughts,
an awkward cousin, waiting strict
against the weather,
thinking, is it now?
DEBBIE (KEARAN) WILLIAMS was born in Flintshire, North Wales in 1960. She now lives in Cottenham, and works in Cambridge as a librarian. Under the name Kearan Williams, her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Critical Quarterly, and she has been a Bridport prizewinner.
Tremor
‘I immediately took up my pencil to record for the Reverend Johnson the strange shiftings of the world this Friday last.’
Reverend, the weather has been perfectly calm,
though an hour ago, I thought I heard a door slam in the yard.
The moon was up, lighting the ships at Glan-y-Don —
(I have no recollection what shape was the moon);
there had been ice. It slipped from the roof,
the creak of thaw discerned across the quiet of the night.
I fancied I heard — a thunderbolt? a rupture of the air?
(Peg says a rough hand shook her awake.)
The walls of my room trembled with urgency,
the candle slid to the counterpane — I quickly snuffed it out.
I, who was in my bed, was frequently moved up and down,
my head was filled with hot breath, singing in my ears,
and the bed, having castors, removed a small space
while I gripped the mattress, Reverend. Some say these phenomena
are but surface instability — I shall not know till morning
what sights may yet greet us in this once neutral tract.
Will the bodies of our pit men be pitched again in the tree tops?
Lines 11 and 13 come from Thomas Pennant’s History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell, 1796.
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
KATHRYN SIMMONDS was born in Hertfordshire in 1972 and now lives in north London where she works as an editor. She won the 2006 Poetry London competition, her pamphlet Snug came out recently from Smith Doorstop, and her first collection will be published next year.
On the Day that you were Born
The angels got together and decided to create
a dream come true.
Sorry, no, that wasn’t you.
On the day that you were born
it rained incessantly.
Three potholers were carried to their deaths
by flashfloods in north Wales.
In Manchester a man came home
and set about his wife
with woodwork tools.
Everywhere the sky was dark by four o’clock.
There might have been an air disaster too -
in fact there was,
two hundred people dropped into a field.
HUW JONES was born in Birmingham in 1973 to Welsh parents. He moved first to Manchester, then to Cambridge in 1997. His poetry has been published in Coffee House Poetry, Anon, and more recently in Poetry Wales. A selection of his work appeared in Seren Selections, published by Seren in 2006.
Beneath the apple tree
Reduce: we must guess nothing still,
as if there were a store diminished,
this, my final thing for her:
crouch and fill my hands with water,
push them to her slack white lips
beneath the high white arch of fever,
smudged, her face a mushroom pulse,
lost to sweat. The fields are powder,
standing at the wood's grey edge
standing with my back towards her;
what she hopes for does not answer,
now that she is gone and summer over
I must lay my long white back
into the longer grass
beneath the apple tree
and listen to the river;
learn to trust my hands
to welcome back my autumn thoughts,
an awkward cousin, waiting strict
against the weather,
thinking, is it now?
DEBBIE (KEARAN) WILLIAMS was born in Flintshire, North Wales in 1960. She now lives in Cottenham, and works in Cambridge as a librarian. Under the name Kearan Williams, her poems have appeared in Poetry Wales, The Rialto and Critical Quarterly, and she has been a Bridport prizewinner.
Tremor
‘I immediately took up my pencil to record for the Reverend Johnson the strange shiftings of the world this Friday last.’
Reverend, the weather has been perfectly calm,
though an hour ago, I thought I heard a door slam in the yard.
The moon was up, lighting the ships at Glan-y-Don —
(I have no recollection what shape was the moon);
there had been ice. It slipped from the roof,
the creak of thaw discerned across the quiet of the night.
I fancied I heard — a thunderbolt? a rupture of the air?
(Peg says a rough hand shook her awake.)
The walls of my room trembled with urgency,
the candle slid to the counterpane — I quickly snuffed it out.
I, who was in my bed, was frequently moved up and down,
my head was filled with hot breath, singing in my ears,
and the bed, having castors, removed a small space
while I gripped the mattress, Reverend. Some say these phenomena
are but surface instability — I shall not know till morning
what sights may yet greet us in this once neutral tract.
Will the bodies of our pit men be pitched again in the tree tops?
Lines 11 and 13 come from Thomas Pennant’s History of the Parishes of Whiteford and Holywell, 1796.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Open Mic at CB1 - Tuesday 22 May, 8pm
Come along and sign up to read on arrival. Bring 2-3 poems (no epics please!) in case we have time for more than one each. There will be aprize for the poem/poet voted 'best on the night'!
Whether you are an experienced reader or have never read a poem in public before, please do support these Open Mic evenings. They are intriguing, unpredictable and an opportunity for anyone to read in front of a supportive and welcoming audience.
Over the last ten years CB1 Open Mics have provided the initial platform from which many talented writers and poets have progressed to 10-15 minute slots supporting our visiting/guest poets - and from there on to publication and wider recognition. Helen Mort is just one recent example. You never know -you may find yourself listening to other stars of the future!
£3/£2 concessions
Whether you are an experienced reader or have never read a poem in public before, please do support these Open Mic evenings. They are intriguing, unpredictable and an opportunity for anyone to read in front of a supportive and welcoming audience.
Over the last ten years CB1 Open Mics have provided the initial platform from which many talented writers and poets have progressed to 10-15 minute slots supporting our visiting/guest poets - and from there on to publication and wider recognition. Helen Mort is just one recent example. You never know -you may find yourself listening to other stars of the future!
£3/£2 concessions
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Tues 8 May - Holland, Doran, Jones
8pm, Tuesday 8th May
CB1 Cafe - Mill Road
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
Jane Holland is an English poet, novelist, editor and former professional snooker player, born in Essex in 1966. She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1996. Her first collection, The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman, was published by Bloodaxe in 1997. A first novel, Kissing the Pink, followed from Sceptre in 1999.
Jane’s new collection, Boudicca & Co. (published by Salt in 2006) is a provocative and vibrant exploration of women and their roles in society. The perennial themes of motherhood, love and sex jostle for space here with elegies, poetry written for performance, and Celtic-inspired mythological pieces. Richly allusive, these poems create networks between each other, tell stories, make music and ask unexpected questions of the reader.
One of the best poetry performers around, Jane lives in Warwickshire with her husband and five children.
HOT DAYS IN THE EIGHTIES
On hot days in the eighties, you stopped
for ices at Taunton Services. Little
did you know then, twenty-something
in the white Ford Escort Estate —
radio on full, heater too, blasting out
to keep the engine cool — the traffic jams
from Portishead to Liverpool.
That was the decade of the motorway.
You chopped your locks in the back
of the car one day, dyke-short.
Kept dental dams in the glove box,
grew the hair under your arms
to a mousey fuzz. Purchased
a map of the highways, went native.
You wore a suede jacket and a crucifix
in the ‘V’ of your chest, strode
like a man (and the rest). Drove
a Lancia Delta into the dirt.
Years later it was a Mercedes camper van,
seven berth, and beads, hippy skirts,
needing to get close to the earth.
These days you don’t get out much,
stuck in with a husband and kids.
But the road’s strong, it hauls on you
like a blackbird on the worm,
and you find excuses — friends ill,
time alone — for the grip
of the wheel, a licence to roam.
Phil Doran, Liverpool born, now living in Cambridge, is a veteran of stand-up comedy in the 1990s. Highlights include appearances at the Comedy Store, Jongleurs and Edinburgh Fringe. Phil has shared the bill with Mark Lamarr, Harry Hill, Peter Kay, Jo Caufield & Eddie Izzard and supported John Cooper Clarke at the Birminghan Literary Festival.
He now concentrates on teaching English and (humorous) poetry/spoken word and more reflective/serious (but still comedic) work focusing on social surrealism and political (meta)fiction. His poetry pamphlets include: Foul-Mouthed Diatribe, Sex & Drugs & Uncle Frank, and Magic Mushroom Chilli Con Carne. Spaghetti Fiction 2007 is a new collection of 60+ short stories.
SOCIAL CONTRACT KILLING
A series of micro-relationships, a fleet of abused cars, a garage full of Sierra
Leones, seventy-two deep-fried Mars Bars. The fat, horny, reckless Scottish
mercenary was writing out his wish list, when MI5 knocked.
When they said they wanted him to take someone out, they hadn't envisaged
six cans of Tennent's Super, a carry out from the chippy, 40 Regal and a
social housing scheme in the East End of Glasgow. The effect had been the
same: it'd just taken a bit longer that's all.
Nick Jones is currently a Physics teacher at a school near Kettering. Prior to this he served 24 years in the RAF as an airman on Nimrod aircraft during the first Gulf War and the conflicts across the former Yugoslavia.
“The topics I tend to write about are love, my children, women and war. Chiefly, I’ve come to discover, because I understand none of them. I like wit, cadence and rhyme in a poem. This one arose from my 6-year old daughter coming home from school and saying she’d been playing ‘kiss-chase.’ I was horrified - and this is how the story unfolded…”
The playtime bell rings aloud,
and boys, not yet like Englishmen,
rush out in an untidy crowd.Annie’s chasing after them!
Annie’s playing Kiss-chase,
a Porpoise in a flashing shoal,
darting boys with breathless pace
look out for Miss on Break Patrol.
But, Annie, here’s a lesson for you.
Every time you kiss a boy,
it would be wrong, not to warn you;
a fluffy kitten is destroyed!
So save your hugs for Mum and Dad,
Aunties, Uncles, friends in class
whose hearts are made forever glad,
and do not grow up quite so fast.
For there will be sufficient time
(it breaks my heart to tell you so)
to kiss all the men in Lichstenstein,
and rub noses with an Eskimo.
“And this short poem was written about an event that occurred after I had left the Royal Air Force, but one that significantly affected my former comrades”.
A small boy looks up in Fullajah,
sees red, white and blue on their armour
and waits for his beard.
A life commandeered,
the children don’t play in Fullajah.
Patrick Sheil has played bass and other instruments for Moth Conspiracy, in which he is currently the main writer. He is inspired by early Motown and British indie. Free mp3 downloads of Moth Conspiracy are available at http://www.wedontcarerecords.com/songs2.html and 'First Among the Small' is for sale at http://www.invisiblehands.co.uk/shop/tracks.asp?artistid=6 for just 79p (scroll down to the 'Fretwork 3' compilation album).
CB1 Cafe - Mill Road
Entrance: £4 / £3 concessions
Jane Holland is an English poet, novelist, editor and former professional snooker player, born in Essex in 1966. She won an Eric Gregory Award for her poetry in 1996. Her first collection, The Brief History of a Disreputable Woman, was published by Bloodaxe in 1997. A first novel, Kissing the Pink, followed from Sceptre in 1999.
Jane’s new collection, Boudicca & Co. (published by Salt in 2006) is a provocative and vibrant exploration of women and their roles in society. The perennial themes of motherhood, love and sex jostle for space here with elegies, poetry written for performance, and Celtic-inspired mythological pieces. Richly allusive, these poems create networks between each other, tell stories, make music and ask unexpected questions of the reader.
One of the best poetry performers around, Jane lives in Warwickshire with her husband and five children.
HOT DAYS IN THE EIGHTIES
On hot days in the eighties, you stopped
for ices at Taunton Services. Little
did you know then, twenty-something
in the white Ford Escort Estate —
radio on full, heater too, blasting out
to keep the engine cool — the traffic jams
from Portishead to Liverpool.
That was the decade of the motorway.
You chopped your locks in the back
of the car one day, dyke-short.
Kept dental dams in the glove box,
grew the hair under your arms
to a mousey fuzz. Purchased
a map of the highways, went native.
You wore a suede jacket and a crucifix
in the ‘V’ of your chest, strode
like a man (and the rest). Drove
a Lancia Delta into the dirt.
Years later it was a Mercedes camper van,
seven berth, and beads, hippy skirts,
needing to get close to the earth.
These days you don’t get out much,
stuck in with a husband and kids.
But the road’s strong, it hauls on you
like a blackbird on the worm,
and you find excuses — friends ill,
time alone — for the grip
of the wheel, a licence to roam.
Phil Doran, Liverpool born, now living in Cambridge, is a veteran of stand-up comedy in the 1990s. Highlights include appearances at the Comedy Store, Jongleurs and Edinburgh Fringe. Phil has shared the bill with Mark Lamarr, Harry Hill, Peter Kay, Jo Caufield & Eddie Izzard and supported John Cooper Clarke at the Birminghan Literary Festival.
He now concentrates on teaching English and (humorous) poetry/spoken word and more reflective/serious (but still comedic) work focusing on social surrealism and political (meta)fiction. His poetry pamphlets include: Foul-Mouthed Diatribe, Sex & Drugs & Uncle Frank, and Magic Mushroom Chilli Con Carne. Spaghetti Fiction 2007 is a new collection of 60+ short stories.
SOCIAL CONTRACT KILLING
A series of micro-relationships, a fleet of abused cars, a garage full of Sierra
Leones, seventy-two deep-fried Mars Bars. The fat, horny, reckless Scottish
mercenary was writing out his wish list, when MI5 knocked.
When they said they wanted him to take someone out, they hadn't envisaged
six cans of Tennent's Super, a carry out from the chippy, 40 Regal and a
social housing scheme in the East End of Glasgow. The effect had been the
same: it'd just taken a bit longer that's all.
Nick Jones is currently a Physics teacher at a school near Kettering. Prior to this he served 24 years in the RAF as an airman on Nimrod aircraft during the first Gulf War and the conflicts across the former Yugoslavia.
“The topics I tend to write about are love, my children, women and war. Chiefly, I’ve come to discover, because I understand none of them. I like wit, cadence and rhyme in a poem. This one arose from my 6-year old daughter coming home from school and saying she’d been playing ‘kiss-chase.’ I was horrified - and this is how the story unfolded…”
The playtime bell rings aloud,
and boys, not yet like Englishmen,
rush out in an untidy crowd.Annie’s chasing after them!
Annie’s playing Kiss-chase,
a Porpoise in a flashing shoal,
darting boys with breathless pace
look out for Miss on Break Patrol.
But, Annie, here’s a lesson for you.
Every time you kiss a boy,
it would be wrong, not to warn you;
a fluffy kitten is destroyed!
So save your hugs for Mum and Dad,
Aunties, Uncles, friends in class
whose hearts are made forever glad,
and do not grow up quite so fast.
For there will be sufficient time
(it breaks my heart to tell you so)
to kiss all the men in Lichstenstein,
and rub noses with an Eskimo.
“And this short poem was written about an event that occurred after I had left the Royal Air Force, but one that significantly affected my former comrades”.
A small boy looks up in Fullajah,
sees red, white and blue on their armour
and waits for his beard.
A life commandeered,
the children don’t play in Fullajah.
Patrick Sheil has played bass and other instruments for Moth Conspiracy, in which he is currently the main writer. He is inspired by early Motown and British indie. Free mp3 downloads of Moth Conspiracy are available at http://www.wedontcarerecords.com/songs2.html and 'First Among the Small' is for sale at http://www.invisiblehands.co.uk/shop/tracks.asp?artistid=6 for just 79p (scroll down to the 'Fretwork 3' compilation album).
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
CB1 Poetry Programme – Spring/Summer 2007
April 24th
Music and poetry with Tom Sheerin, Glen Hutchinson and friends, featuring Dodie Carter on celtic harp and Grace Lemon on uillean pipes. (Continuing at the Six Bells pub).
May 8th
Jane Holland (guest poet) with support readings by Phil McSweeney & Nick Jones + music by Patrick Sheil
May 22nd
Open Mic
June 12th
Seren Press guest poets Kathryn Simmonds and Huw Jones + Debbie Williams
June 26th
David Swann (guest poet) & Simon Finch (guest musician) introduced by Trish Harewood
Preview of two autumn events:
October 9th Susan Utting (guest poet)
October 23rd Escalator fiction evening – hosted by Andrea Porter
Music and poetry with Tom Sheerin, Glen Hutchinson and friends, featuring Dodie Carter on celtic harp and Grace Lemon on uillean pipes. (Continuing at the Six Bells pub).
May 8th
Jane Holland (guest poet) with support readings by Phil McSweeney & Nick Jones + music by Patrick Sheil
May 22nd
Open Mic
June 12th
Seren Press guest poets Kathryn Simmonds and Huw Jones + Debbie Williams
June 26th
David Swann (guest poet) & Simon Finch (guest musician) introduced by Trish Harewood
Preview of two autumn events:
October 9th Susan Utting (guest poet)
October 23rd Escalator fiction evening – hosted by Andrea Porter
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Open Mic - Tuesday 13th March at 8pm
CB1 Poetry
Open Mic- Tuesday 13th March at 8pm
in CB1 cafe on Mill Road
Live Music
Entrance: £2 (£1 concessions)
Open Mic- Tuesday 13th March at 8pm
in CB1 cafe on Mill Road
Live Music
Entrance: £2 (£1 concessions)
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Hisham Matar & Andre Mangeot - ‘CB1 visits the Michaelhouse Café’ – Tues 27 Mar
Fiction & Poetry Evening
Tuesday 27 March 2007 @ 8pm
Hisham Matar and André Mangeot
with music from Andrea Cockerton
www.michaelhouse.org.uk
Michaelhouse Café, Trinity St, Cambridge CB2 1SU, 01223 309167
Tickets £5 / £4 (tickets on the door)
Hisham Matar was born in New York City in 1970 to Libyan parents and spent his childhood first in Tripoli, then in Cairo. He has lived in London since 1986.
His first novel, IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN (Viking, 2006), was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize and The Guardian First Book Award and translated into 22 languages. Hisham’s essays have appeared in The Independent and The Guardian. He is currently working on his second novel.
Hisham was a loyal supporter of the CB1 Café reading series in its early days and gave several memorable readings of his poetry there in the late 1990’s. We are delighted to welcome him back to Cambridge for his first reading here since his Booker shortlisting.
'Glowing with emotional truth… Extraordinary… One of the most brilliant literary debuts of recent years.' The Times
André Mangeot lives and works in Cambridge. His two poetry collections to date are Natural Causes (Shoestring, 2003) and Mixer (Egg Box, 2005). He was runner-up in the 2006 Wigtown/Scottish National poetry competition and is also a member of the performance group, The Joy of Six. The recent recipient of an Arts Council ‘Escalator’ award, he is currently writing a novel set in Romania.
Hisham and André will be reading from their novels, as well as related poems, during the evening.
Andrea Cockerton, a local musician with an exceptional voice, is based just outside Cambridge. She is influenced by a mixture of choral, acoustic, dance music and plainsong. Formerly a chorister at Trinity College Cambridge and a classically trained pianist under Margie Todd, Andrea now devotes her time to writing songs, acoustic sets and, soon, dj-ing…
Tuesday 27 March 2007 @ 8pm
Hisham Matar and André Mangeot
with music from Andrea Cockerton
www.michaelhouse.org.uk
Michaelhouse Café, Trinity St, Cambridge CB2 1SU, 01223 309167
Tickets £5 / £4 (tickets on the door)
Hisham Matar was born in New York City in 1970 to Libyan parents and spent his childhood first in Tripoli, then in Cairo. He has lived in London since 1986.
His first novel, IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN (Viking, 2006), was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize and The Guardian First Book Award and translated into 22 languages. Hisham’s essays have appeared in The Independent and The Guardian. He is currently working on his second novel.
Hisham was a loyal supporter of the CB1 Café reading series in its early days and gave several memorable readings of his poetry there in the late 1990’s. We are delighted to welcome him back to Cambridge for his first reading here since his Booker shortlisting.
'Glowing with emotional truth… Extraordinary… One of the most brilliant literary debuts of recent years.' The Times
André Mangeot lives and works in Cambridge. His two poetry collections to date are Natural Causes (Shoestring, 2003) and Mixer (Egg Box, 2005). He was runner-up in the 2006 Wigtown/Scottish National poetry competition and is also a member of the performance group, The Joy of Six. The recent recipient of an Arts Council ‘Escalator’ award, he is currently writing a novel set in Romania.
Hisham and André will be reading from their novels, as well as related poems, during the evening.
Andrea Cockerton, a local musician with an exceptional voice, is based just outside Cambridge. She is influenced by a mixture of choral, acoustic, dance music and plainsong. Formerly a chorister at Trinity College Cambridge and a classically trained pianist under Margie Todd, Andrea now devotes her time to writing songs, acoustic sets and, soon, dj-ing…
Monday, February 19, 2007
Launch of Seam Magazine’s latest issue: Tuesday 27th February
Readings from contributors to the latest issue of Seam: Frank Dullaghan,
Daniel Healy, Stuart Henson, Martin Figura and Helen Ivory. Introduced by Anne Berkeley.
8pm in CB1 Cafe, Mill Road.
Entrance £3 / £2 concessions.
Frank Dullaghan is Consulting Editor of Seam. He has been widely published in magazines including The Honest Ulsterman, London Magazine, Magma, The New Welsh Review, Poetry London, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Printer's Devil, Quadrant (Australia), Reactions, The Rialto, The Shop, Smiths Knoll, Thumbscrew, Verse. His first collection is due from Cinnamon Press. He works in Dubai.
A Walk in a Field
For Thomas
I remember you telling it -
home from the Leb, wife in the other room -
how your friend stepped on a mine,
how he froze, knowing not to move,
his scarecrow shadow stretching
while you followed your footprints back
to gather rocks, piled them round his feet
adding pressure, back and forth,
each placed gently like gifts for a king
until the second click gave warning -
seconds to move: sprinting, shouting,
diving as the ground ripped open,
the world folding over you, raining.
Frank Dullaghan
* * *
Martin Figura is a photographer. His second collection Ahem (Eggbox) was published in 2005. He has just completed an MA in Writing The Visual at Norwich School of Art and Design.
Silesia
A wife and three children; then
you can visit. It's twenty years
and there are still bomb holes
in the road. You bring back
Polish crystal for the cabinet,
brass inlaid wooden boxes, tankards
carved out of coal, a thousand
photographs; one of a fallen horse
being flogged, not making a sound.
Martin Figura
(from Seam 26)
* * *
Daniel Healy was born in 1972 in Wales. He lives in Cambridge. He's had
poems published in a variety of magazines: The Journal, HQ, Chimera, The Rialto, Envoi, etc. He works in a bookshop.
Thaw
Black ice
in white snow
uncovered in the rain
unable to stop
the gaze returning
to that jagged line
of footprints
tracing the way.
Daniel Healy
(from Seam 26)
* * *
Stuart Henson is widely published. A selection of his work appeared in
Oxford Poets 2002 (Carcanet). His most recent collection is A Place Apart (Shoestring 2004).
Theatre of the Absurd
The cushions have begun to multiply like fungi,
propagating quietly there on the sofa, against
the backs of chairs, the chaise, the ottoman -
The rugs lay traps. In the bathroom, a tap drips
insidiously, the shower lies to him that hot is cold.
At night the fridge groans with its heavy breathing,
the curtains open and close at the moon's whim.
Mirrors have started to conduct interrogations.
All he can do is laugh like a maniac and trim his nails,
write finely worded letters on the backs of bills.
The paintwork crackles like a glacier and when
it rains a yellow stain spreads down the walls.
The telephone withholds his number when he calls himself.
Outside, white bottles pile against his door
like graveyard skulls.
Stuart Henson
(from Seam 26)
* * *
Helen Ivory's second Bloodaxe collection, The Dog in the Sky, was published last year. She is Academic Director and teacher of Creative Writing for Continuing Education at UEA.
Shelter
A grid of windows
rises up to be counted
above the frozen street.
Rooms like empty boxes
wait for a heartbeat
to shiver inside them.
The woman in the bus shelter
waits, and is waitng.
Helen Ivory
(from The Dog in the Sky, Bloodaxe 2006)
Daniel Healy, Stuart Henson, Martin Figura and Helen Ivory. Introduced by Anne Berkeley.
8pm in CB1 Cafe, Mill Road.
Entrance £3 / £2 concessions.
Frank Dullaghan is Consulting Editor of Seam. He has been widely published in magazines including The Honest Ulsterman, London Magazine, Magma, The New Welsh Review, Poetry London, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Printer's Devil, Quadrant (Australia), Reactions, The Rialto, The Shop, Smiths Knoll, Thumbscrew, Verse. His first collection is due from Cinnamon Press. He works in Dubai.
A Walk in a Field
For Thomas
I remember you telling it -
home from the Leb, wife in the other room -
how your friend stepped on a mine,
how he froze, knowing not to move,
his scarecrow shadow stretching
while you followed your footprints back
to gather rocks, piled them round his feet
adding pressure, back and forth,
each placed gently like gifts for a king
until the second click gave warning -
seconds to move: sprinting, shouting,
diving as the ground ripped open,
the world folding over you, raining.
Frank Dullaghan
* * *
Martin Figura is a photographer. His second collection Ahem (Eggbox) was published in 2005. He has just completed an MA in Writing The Visual at Norwich School of Art and Design.
Silesia
A wife and three children; then
you can visit. It's twenty years
and there are still bomb holes
in the road. You bring back
Polish crystal for the cabinet,
brass inlaid wooden boxes, tankards
carved out of coal, a thousand
photographs; one of a fallen horse
being flogged, not making a sound.
Martin Figura
(from Seam 26)
* * *
Daniel Healy was born in 1972 in Wales. He lives in Cambridge. He's had
poems published in a variety of magazines: The Journal, HQ, Chimera, The Rialto, Envoi, etc. He works in a bookshop.
Thaw
Black ice
in white snow
uncovered in the rain
unable to stop
the gaze returning
to that jagged line
of footprints
tracing the way.
Daniel Healy
(from Seam 26)
* * *
Stuart Henson is widely published. A selection of his work appeared in
Oxford Poets 2002 (Carcanet). His most recent collection is A Place Apart (Shoestring 2004).
Theatre of the Absurd
The cushions have begun to multiply like fungi,
propagating quietly there on the sofa, against
the backs of chairs, the chaise, the ottoman -
The rugs lay traps. In the bathroom, a tap drips
insidiously, the shower lies to him that hot is cold.
At night the fridge groans with its heavy breathing,
the curtains open and close at the moon's whim.
Mirrors have started to conduct interrogations.
All he can do is laugh like a maniac and trim his nails,
write finely worded letters on the backs of bills.
The paintwork crackles like a glacier and when
it rains a yellow stain spreads down the walls.
The telephone withholds his number when he calls himself.
Outside, white bottles pile against his door
like graveyard skulls.
Stuart Henson
(from Seam 26)
* * *
Helen Ivory's second Bloodaxe collection, The Dog in the Sky, was published last year. She is Academic Director and teacher of Creative Writing for Continuing Education at UEA.
Shelter
A grid of windows
rises up to be counted
above the frozen street.
Rooms like empty boxes
wait for a heartbeat
to shiver inside them.
The woman in the bus shelter
waits, and is waitng.
Helen Ivory
(from The Dog in the Sky, Bloodaxe 2006)
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
February 13th Young Blood: Sandeep Parmar, Helen Mort and James Byrne.
Presented by Emily Dening. With music from Josh Navon.
CB1 Café, Mill Road, 8pm. Entrance is £3 or £2 concessions.
Further details about the poets, with examples of their work, can be found below.
James Byrne
Editor and founder of The Wolf poetry magazine, James Byrne’s debut collection, 'Passages of Time', was published by Waterways in 2003 and a second book is forthcoming. James has recited his poems across the UK and America, most recently at The Green Mill (Chicago) and The Groucho Club (London). He has helped to organise the World Poets' Tour for the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS and is currently editing two anthologies whilst facilitating a European tour to mark five years of The Wolf magazine.
The Child
The pathway becomes a mess of brambles.
I stumble along in the dark as if blindfolded,
my two arms outstretched like a sleepwalker.
The church-bells peal into a long sequence
of echoes that make multiples of midnight.
At uneven distances, a succession of howls
whines through the forest. I catch my breath.
Ahead, the tall spire splits a scurry of cloud.
The church gate is covered with ice. Inside,
miniature graves are stubbled with frost:
lives of children who died in the accidents
that come from love. A wind nudges itself
through the black fingertips of branches.
The air is so cold it crackles inside my lungs.
Under the moon my face is a broken ghost.
I stoop forward to check for names and dates.
Sandeep Parmar
Sandeep Parmar was born in England and raised in California. She received an MA in creative writing from UEA in 2003 and is currently finishing a PhD in literature at UCL on the modernist poet Mina Loy.
June 16, 1956. The Church of St. George the Martyr, London
It will be fifty years soon.
And yet it seems the preparations have not begun,
for there are still thoughts of winter
in the boughs above Queen’s Square.
A drake flies overhead. I think he is lost.
His cry is like a man who is to wed.
And what a day it must have been,
the stones of the old church have not forgotten,
though the preparations for your wedding
do not feel as though they have begun.
And yet too late, and so, too late,
the couple that hurries in through the parish gate
welcomes the spirits in empty pews that are to be
their only guests. So, it is the same as it was then.
But it is not the same and yet it is, time will make
much of this and much of you and yet it cannot be the same.
A man, bustles into the square in a black raincoat
like someone in a scare, frightens the cashmere
gentlemen that back away from him
and his immortal packages. In each arm he carries ten
or more Styrofoam boxes labelled ‘human organ’
and runs and runs, hoping to arrive before the knowledge
of their death blackens the skins of his beating carriage.
The preparations have arrived and gone.
We hustle the dead around and imagine
somehow that they are alive, that time could still ferry you
back and transplant you untarnished in this beginning.
The sky is late, later than it was fifty years ago that day
when you, having married, were carried out hurriedly
in something pink and knitted with one summer rose,
that blossomed in your hand in Bloomsbury on Bloomsday.
Helen Mort
Helen Mort was born in Sheffield and now divides her time between Cambridge, where she studies, and Derbyshire, where she is mainly found running on the fells. She is President of the University Writers' Guild, and a 'Stanza' representative for the Poetry Society in London. Helen is a previous winner of the Foyle National Young Poets competition and her first short collection, 'The Shape of Every Box' will be released in April.
Tinsley Towers
They prop themselves up
against the sky; two shift workers
taking a breather, letting their smoke
uncoil above the terraces.
By clocking-off time,
evening has them suited black;
square-jawed bouncers at the city’s door,
guarding a fringe of dimmed lights, and
nearing home
in a slur of traffic, they greet you –
two fingers raised at the M1, at cars going
nowhere in particular.
You scan the future
in a service station newsagents.
Holes in your skyline, fingers crumpled
in a fist of clean air.
CB1 Café, Mill Road, 8pm. Entrance is £3 or £2 concessions.
Further details about the poets, with examples of their work, can be found below.
James Byrne
Editor and founder of The Wolf poetry magazine, James Byrne’s debut collection, 'Passages of Time', was published by Waterways in 2003 and a second book is forthcoming. James has recited his poems across the UK and America, most recently at The Green Mill (Chicago) and The Groucho Club (London). He has helped to organise the World Poets' Tour for the Poetry Translation Centre at SOAS and is currently editing two anthologies whilst facilitating a European tour to mark five years of The Wolf magazine.
The Child
The pathway becomes a mess of brambles.
I stumble along in the dark as if blindfolded,
my two arms outstretched like a sleepwalker.
The church-bells peal into a long sequence
of echoes that make multiples of midnight.
At uneven distances, a succession of howls
whines through the forest. I catch my breath.
Ahead, the tall spire splits a scurry of cloud.
The church gate is covered with ice. Inside,
miniature graves are stubbled with frost:
lives of children who died in the accidents
that come from love. A wind nudges itself
through the black fingertips of branches.
The air is so cold it crackles inside my lungs.
Under the moon my face is a broken ghost.
I stoop forward to check for names and dates.
Sandeep Parmar
Sandeep Parmar was born in England and raised in California. She received an MA in creative writing from UEA in 2003 and is currently finishing a PhD in literature at UCL on the modernist poet Mina Loy.
June 16, 1956. The Church of St. George the Martyr, London
It will be fifty years soon.
And yet it seems the preparations have not begun,
for there are still thoughts of winter
in the boughs above Queen’s Square.
A drake flies overhead. I think he is lost.
His cry is like a man who is to wed.
And what a day it must have been,
the stones of the old church have not forgotten,
though the preparations for your wedding
do not feel as though they have begun.
And yet too late, and so, too late,
the couple that hurries in through the parish gate
welcomes the spirits in empty pews that are to be
their only guests. So, it is the same as it was then.
But it is not the same and yet it is, time will make
much of this and much of you and yet it cannot be the same.
A man, bustles into the square in a black raincoat
like someone in a scare, frightens the cashmere
gentlemen that back away from him
and his immortal packages. In each arm he carries ten
or more Styrofoam boxes labelled ‘human organ’
and runs and runs, hoping to arrive before the knowledge
of their death blackens the skins of his beating carriage.
The preparations have arrived and gone.
We hustle the dead around and imagine
somehow that they are alive, that time could still ferry you
back and transplant you untarnished in this beginning.
The sky is late, later than it was fifty years ago that day
when you, having married, were carried out hurriedly
in something pink and knitted with one summer rose,
that blossomed in your hand in Bloomsbury on Bloomsday.
Helen Mort
Helen Mort was born in Sheffield and now divides her time between Cambridge, where she studies, and Derbyshire, where she is mainly found running on the fells. She is President of the University Writers' Guild, and a 'Stanza' representative for the Poetry Society in London. Helen is a previous winner of the Foyle National Young Poets competition and her first short collection, 'The Shape of Every Box' will be released in April.
Tinsley Towers
They prop themselves up
against the sky; two shift workers
taking a breather, letting their smoke
uncoil above the terraces.
By clocking-off time,
evening has them suited black;
square-jawed bouncers at the city’s door,
guarding a fringe of dimmed lights, and
nearing home
in a slur of traffic, they greet you –
two fingers raised at the M1, at cars going
nowhere in particular.
You scan the future
in a service station newsagents.
Holes in your skyline, fingers crumpled
in a fist of clean air.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
CB1 Poetry Programme – Winter/Spring 2007
All events at CB1 Café on Mill Road at 8pm.
Open Mic is £2 or £1 concessions.
Other events are usually £3 or £2 concessions.
Everybody welcome!
February 13th Young Blood: Sandeep Parmar, Helen Mort and James Byrne presented by Emily Dening
February 27th Anne Berkeley reads with contributors of Seam magazine
March 13th Open Mic
March 27th Hisham Matar and Andre Mangeot
April 10th John Lyons (with music by Angelo)
April 24th Open Mic
Open Mic is £2 or £1 concessions.
Other events are usually £3 or £2 concessions.
Everybody welcome!
February 13th Young Blood: Sandeep Parmar, Helen Mort and James Byrne presented by Emily Dening
February 27th Anne Berkeley reads with contributors of Seam magazine
March 13th Open Mic
March 27th Hisham Matar and Andre Mangeot
April 10th John Lyons (with music by Angelo)
April 24th Open Mic
Related Upcoming Events!
Cambridge Wordfest, 27-29 April includes poetry events with the following:
Tony Harrison, Mike Rosen, Jacob Polley, Helen Farish, Ruth Padel, Moniza Alvi, Imtiaz Dharker, Dean Parkin, Matt Harvey. See http://www.cambridgewordfest.co.uk/
Tony Harrison, Mike Rosen, Jacob Polley, Helen Farish, Ruth Padel, Moniza Alvi, Imtiaz Dharker, Dean Parkin, Matt Harvey. See http://www.cambridgewordfest.co.uk/
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