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 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