Literal idioms: under the weather

Literally.

Literal Idioms (16) – I ran a mile

Continuing my stubbornly literal look at figurative phrases:

This guy looks like he’d be handy in a race.

End Of The Road festival: impromptu poetry/music collision

Special things can happen out of the blue. At The End of The Road festival, I was happily watching three of the boys from The Mountaineering Club sharing some of their musical talent on the Living Room Stage. I went on to read some of my poems on the same stage, and before any of us really knew what had hit us, we were creating a live collision of improvised music and poetry. Some of it was caught on camera, so I thought it only polite to share.

By the way – If you havent heard any of their stuff yet then enjoy them at their magical best via http://themountaineeringclub.bandcamp.com/.

THE MOON: This is my most recent poem, written for the Moon festival in China (which is on the 12th september), accompanied by “moon music” from Tom Adams (Piano), Leo Plunkett (Sop Sax.) and Richard Blake (Trumpet).

AGE: This is actually two poems collided together, both about the joy of getting older, accompanied by “growing older music” from the same mighty trio.

Celebrating ‘United Verses 译站’

One of the most exciting things I have been part of in a while is United Verses 译站, an exciting cross-cultural poetry project in Shanghai (all hail mighty conspirators: Andrea Fassolas, Tom Mangione and Laura McCrae).

The basic idea is that, working alongside translators, Chinese and English speaking poets mutually interpret each others’ work to share with the world in both languages. I was paired with 周海明 / Zhou Haiming, a wonderful Shanghainese poet who taught me a lot. Translation came from 黄佩佩/Huang Peipei and 杨希/Yang Xi.

Here is a short celebration of our encounters:

And live footage from the showcase:

Email me if you want copies of any of the poems.

the city earth (United Verses 译站)

As part of the United Verses 译站 project, I had the pleasure of working with chinese poet Zhou Haiming (周海明). One of his poems that really struck me was Abandon (废弃) which is about throwing away things you have written down. This is the line I love the most:

The whole poem:

Abandoning ideas embodies my struggle,
Unable to resist what is superficial,
Unable to prevent my neighbours’ judgement -
Them who just live to see the air around
While my old print sinks into the soil to decay,
Summer’s ghost breathing like a carp.
The city earth is looking for our wasted thoughts.
We are in the dark, and tomorrow also has a night,
But I rush though crowded days, working to get paid.

废弃的思想凝聚着挣扎
拦不住的抵制肤浅
顺便拦不住随处可见的邻居
随便居住的人们到处看见空气
悠久的打印垃圾 沉入泥土
夏季的幽灵开始比目鱼的呼吸
大地在城市中寻找废弃
我们从黑夜迎接盲目的夜晚
瞬间奔驰在拥挤的人从中思考就业

Literal Idioms (15) – water under the bridge

Here I continue my look at literal dimensions to figurative phrases. This time i’m looking from the top of a bridge.

Thinking of all that water under the bridge blows my mind.

Small Change 零钱 (a short film)

I’m delighted to announce my first foray into film accompanied by the talented Yang Xi who represents for her city, Shanghai, where we filmed:

Poetry at 2666Library and on the BBC

First up: This coming Friday I’m performing at 2666 Library, a wonderful venue in Shanghai dedicated to culture, books and great coffee. Also performing is acclaimed Indian poet Panchali Mukerji.
Detrails: 1025 Nanjing Road, Jing’an Villa No.136 at 730pm on Friday 15th – rsvp via info@2666library.com.

In other news: Two of my poems about London have been selected to feature in a new primetime BBC drama called One Night. More details to follow.

United Verses 译站

I love what happens when people share food together - a few months ago, what started as a conversation over dinner with three other Shanghai based poets, bloomed into a trememndously exciting collaborative project.

Andrea Fassolas, Laura McCrae, Tom Mangione and I shared a frustration that the expat and Chinese poetry scenes were so far apart, so decided to make a tiny step towards bringing them together. This became United Verses (译站 in Mandarin which means ‘Translation Place’ and is pronounced the same as ‘Together’) a project where 6 Chinese language poets and 6 English language poets pair up with translators to mutually interpret each others’ work. What this means is that at 7pm on the 23rd of July at Anar (129 Xingfu Lu, near Fahauzhen Lu) everyone who attends will be able to enjoy every word spoken in both languages.

Some people get very stressed about the difficulties of “translating” poetry, worried that what you get won’t be a perfect expression of the original. As for me, sharing words accross cultural boundries is so much more powerful than any pedantic quest for perfection.

Chinese feature poets: 白羽/Bai Yu, 王晟/Jonathan Wang, 周海明/Zhou Haiming, 叶青/Ye Qing, 杜刚 / Du Gang, 赵霞 / Zhao Xia

And English poets: Richard Watkins, W.M. Butler, Tom Mangione, Andrea Fassolas, Laura McCrae, Susie Gordon

Flyer photo credit: dobrych on flickr

Naked Retreats By Candlelight

Whilst Shanghai doesn’t quite have the developed poetry scene of London, since arriving here 4 months ago I have managed to stay quite busy with performances and along the way met some kindred spirits. As for now, I wanted to share this video of me opening a candlelit lakeside festival in the beautiful bamboo mountains of Morganshan hosted by the marvelous Naked Retreats.

It’s also a good minute to mention that you should check out Sister Fay, a Swedish folkster who also performed, stealing hearts as she went with her delightful melodies.

Photo credit: Jonny Weston