Relay

There you have it: the last week of my internship has begun. After fourteen weeks of promoting, writing and teaching my colleagues Dutch phrases, I will soon pack my bags and go back to the Netherlands.

But before I go, I still have some work to do: next Saturday, Writing West Midlands organises The Great West Midlands Poetry Relay, to celebrate the Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend. Poets will be passing a poem instead of a batton…

At the first location, a poet will write and perform to an audience the first segment of a collective poem, before jumping on our minibus to be taken to the next stop. Subsequently, at each location, a new poet will join the team, read the collective poem so far and write and perform a segment about their own location. The team of performing poets during the events and segments of the poem will grow until ten segments and ten events are completed. Venues include libraries, a hill top and a motorway service station…

As for the big finale, the entire collective poem will be read by all ten poets in the Pie & Ale house in Stafford. In addition, ten racing pigeons from Project Pigeon will carry the segments of the poem back to their Birmingham loft. The order in which they arrive back will determine the final manifestation of the poem. All the poems will be recorded on location by Peter Leslie Wild and the team from Monty Funk, and will be permanently accessible on a specially designed interactive map.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, I won’t be there – I’ll be enjoying my final British weekend in the Sussex Countryside… Nevertheless, I urge you all to keep an eye on the Writing West Midlands Facebook Page, or follow the Relay on Twitter (@GWMPR), because it is going to be great.

You’ll be hearing more from me this week!

Anouk’s Official List of Ledbury Poetry Moments

After ten days of poetic shenanigans I emerged from Ledbury a new woman. It was a festival of “firsts”: I had never gone to a poetry festival before, to begin with. Next to that, I had my first curry, my first fish and chips wrapped in greasy paper and my first taste of Hungarian, Syrian and Zimbabwean poetry. For the first time, I introduced an event, translated a poem from French to Dutch (and subsequently put it to music with the help of grip Harry) and had a local pub that knew my order.

So, how do I describe my first experience at a poetry festival? “Lots poetry and lots of sandwiches”, is the thing that comes to mind. But it was so much more, thanks to all the poets and the lovely volunteers and workers. To give you a taste of how the festival was for me, I proudly present Anouk’s Official List of Ledbury Poetry Moments! In no particular order…

1)  A Couch, Some Poets, an Intern and a lot of Tiny Books

Imagine an orange couch, covered in poets, a Dutch intern and little strips of paper, on a cobbled street in the sunshine. During the first weekend, Tony Walsh and Jill Abram helped me by folding about fifty books for me, ready to be glued, finished and hidden. For the festival, I made a great number of small books, each containing one of five different poems. I hid them in shops, pubs, galleries, rooms and other places, for people to take, read, love and take home. The little book making session we had on that couch made me a very happy intern. 

2)  Ballads Both Beautiful and Cynical

On the Festival’s first Saturday, the wonderful Bristol-based band The Wraiths took over our heads and hearts. Within the magical surroundings of Ledbury’s Baptist Church, the group echoed the words of famous poets like Dickinson and Blake to cello, violin, guitar and bass fuelled music (occasionally strengthened by ukulele, bass drum or banjo). Their poetic ballads still move me every time I give them a listen.

Luke Wright’s Cynical Ballads couldn’t be more different. On the second Friday of the Festival, Luke filled our ears with ballads about British tragedies, humouristic and sad, and our eyes with illustrations to accompany his words. Despite three walkouts, I also met an elderly pair afterwards who told me they had planned to see the Ledbury Choral Society. When this event was cancelled due to unforseen circumstances, they decided to attend an event they normally wouldn’t go to – i.e. Luke Wright – and guess what? They absolutely loved it. Me too.

3)  The Antipoet and the Ledbury Crowd

When I saw the crowd gathering in the venue for the Antipoet and Matt Harvey, I got slightly worried: would this group, mainly consisting of people that passed the age of sixty-five, appreciate the saucy poetry performed by the PVC clad duo the Antipoet? I watched in amazement as the Ledbury audience fully embraced poet Paul Eccentric and bassist Ian Newman, as they played songs with titles like “Tights, Not Stockings” and “I Like Girls (Though we look a bit like one)”. As Brenda Read-Brown pointed out to me: I am an age-ist. I should have known they’d like it! And oh yes: Matt Harvey was amazing. Anybody writing a love song for the potato is a hero in my book.

4)  An Evening Ruled by Silurian Morrismen

Have I ever walked into a room only to find myself surrounded by a group of men wearing black facepaint? As a matter of fact, yes. Just look up the Dutch holiday “Sinterklaas” on Wikipedia. However, it has never happened to me in the summer time before, until last week in Ledbury. After the Dutch poetry event on Monday, I stumbled upon a group of musicians and dancers, each of them sporting a blackened face. Apparently, I was in for the ancient British tradition of the Silurian Morrismen. There was music, there was wine and there was this dizzy intern being spun around about twenty times by one of the black faced dancers. What a night.

5)   The Three Glasto Poets in Residence… In Ledbury

If there is one thing I discovered during Ledbury, it’s that I really like Glastonbury’s Poets in Residence. Next to working close and having a lot of fun with Ledbury co-programmer Jo Bell, Glasto poet of 2010, I had the pleasure of meeting Adam Horovitz, 2009′s Glasto Poet. To top it off, I met Tony Walsh, this year’s Glastonbury Poet in Residence. I had a great time with each of them – and oh yeah, they are all absolutely brilliant poets.

6)  Ten Issues of the Cider Press

Every morning I got up early – well, when I say “got up”, I mean I took my laptop out of its bag and up on my lap, whilst staying in bed – to write the festival’s daily newsletter, The Cider Press. I had interviewed several people beforehand, so I had one article finished for each day beforehand. However, I had to write the rest during the festival. It was a challenge, but it was so much fun. I especially enjoyed writing my “Writing Dutchwoman” column, which actually got people talking about important issues like my lemon dress. The best moment of each day was walking up to the town centre, knowing I finished a new edition. I already miss it…

7)  Cranberry Jam

Ticket seller John Rose brought his guitar in. He played. Grip Harry played. I played. We called ourselves The Cranberry Jam and we played on and around the orange couch on Church Lane. We hope to reunite sometime next year… Maybe in July?

8)  A Flash! in the Heart

During the festival, I saw poet Sara-Jane Arbury perform three times. One of these performances, Flash!, really stood out for me. During this show, Sara-Jane, Lucy English and Anna Freeman told us about their lives through poetry and projected images and videos – Glenn Carmichael assisted them as the fourth poet. Sara-Jane’s recounted her own brain surgery, Lucy told us about her handicapped sister and Anna looked back on her previous life on the streets. These incredibly sad stories were told in a brilliant way and anybody who has the chance to see this show, should definitely do it.

10) I ‘Ate It

Meeting Tim Turnbull can be quite confusing for a foreign person like me. Tim was talking about the people he was staying with, and about how they served him breakfast. It took me about five minutes and four excuse me’s before I realised he didn’t hate being served breakfast; he simply ate it. I love Yorkshire accents, but they can be quite hard to understand…

So there you have it, the ten most memorable moments of the festival. See you there next year, perhaps…?

Fuzz

I always think of Hot Fuzz when I go to Ledbury. It is a  tiny village with these typically British characters walking in and around the pubs, the local muffin shop and the little flower market – all I can do is hope that none of them have a dark hidden agenda such as villainous village inhabitants in that movie did.

Last week I went to Ledbury again – my main task was to talk to local pub, cafe and shopholders about the little extra “event” I am organising for the festival. What is this event, you say? Well, we are making these really tiny poetry books, each of them containing just one poem (or in one case, four haiku’s). There will be five different editions, each with a different poem in it. During the festival, these little books will be put in random places throughout the village: so make sure to doublecheck your festival programme, your menu card at the tea room or the stacks of the stationery shop, because you might just find one.

Our Tiny Books Project gave me the chance to explore Ledbury just a little bit further. I spent my sunny Tuesday afternoon knocking at the doors of eighteen different establishments, meeting a lot of people that definitely had a Hot Fuzzian quality to them. I am happy to let you know that seventeen of the visited places were absolutely delighted by the teeny book I had brought with me and told me they would definitely help me to hide the little literary works. So far, Ledbury has made me feel incredibly welcome. No need for the Fuzz here, I’d say!

 

 

The Road to Ledbury

It’s been a while, but I am back in the office. For the last couple of weeks, I spent most of my time showing around family members in Birmingham and staring at my dissertation on a computer screen. However, I’ve also had the chance to experience British culture as part of the audience instead of the organisation; I’ve been reading some great books (I read the fabulous Ten Stories about Smoking by Stuart Evers and enjoyed the work of the amazing Neil Gaiman), I visited Stratford-upon-Avon to submerge myself in Shakespearen times and I went to the theatre four times (I saw an amazing rendition of Sweeney Todd in Birmingham’s Crescent Theatre and got to see Much Ado About Nothing featuring Catherine Tate and David Tennant). Even though my dissertation is long from finished, I’d say I have just returned from a hiatus well spent.

Now, I have taken on my intern identity once more. And it’s good to be back, especially because I get to sink my teeth into the Ledbury Poetry Festival. There is lots going on on my personal road to Ledbury; I get to manage and organise things I am truly exited about. For example, I am the chief writer for the Ledbury Poetry Festival’s fist ever newspaper: The Cider Press. It is an opportunity for me to stretch my writing muscles as they have never been stretched before, as I am putting together ten issues in total, filled to the brim with interviews, reviews, columns and possibly more. All in all, fans of the Daily Spring Thing (the Spring Thing’s official newspaper, which you can still read on the Birmingham Book Festival Website) might like what they’ll see!

Over the next few weeks, I will be interviewing loads of writers and prepare a number of articles. In addition, I will be working on some smaller tasks that I cannot tell you about just yet. Just keep your eye on this blog to follow me on the road to Ledbury: it is going to be an interesting month, to say the least…

 

 

Hiatus

It’s such a weird feeling: after seven weeks of anticipation, hard work and weekly increasing stress, the Spring Thing (for those of you that missed it: the best literature festival of the season) is behind us. It was a great weekend and I got to see some amazing people take the stage. Highlights included an afternoon of cake, crime and comedy with the lovely Sophie Hannah, wonderful city poetry from (amongst others) Roz Goddard, Bohdan Piasecki and Roy McFarlane, pigeons, and John Hegley with his mandolin. What a weekend.

Also, just one week to go before I go on my little hiatus – I’ll be taking a month and a half off to work on my MA dissertation. This all means that I’m basically halfway through my internship… But also that I have another three months left in Britain. Yay.

But what am I to do in that free period without my daily 10am to 5.30pm job at the Custard Factory? Is it still possible for me to concentrate on just the one dissertation, or am I only able to do work when I am expected to be a multitasker, working on newspapers, phone calls, blogs and administration? Sure, the prospect of regular lie-ins is quite reassuring, but still, I’m getting slighty nervous about this whole dissertation thing. Thankfully, there’s a lot to look forward to as well – some of my favourite Dutchies will be visiting me during the weekends and I have also got trips planned to Manchester, Liverpool, Stratford upon Avon and London. Of course, there will be some work I’ll be doing for my dissertation. And I won’t leave all you blog-readers in the dark about my aventures either.

I’ve got my work (and my fun) cut out for me. I’ll keep you updated, so until next time… Over and out.

Poetry

Those of you that keep an eye on my blog might have read about my patriotic urges last week. Well, the gods of Birmingham have apparently heard my plea; yesterday I attended a performance poetry night, featuring two Dutch poets. During a fantastic evening at the Victoria Pub, Daan Doesborgh and Ellen Deckwitz did their incredible thing, not only in Dutch, but also in French, German and English. Everyone loved them – and so did I.

When I got home, I told one of my housemates about the incredible performance I had seen that night. He seemed quite surprised about my enthusiasm. His experiences with poetry were limited to disecting Carol Ann Duffy poems in school – the image he had of poetry performance was that of men reciting high brow words in a dull manner from a piece of paper. He had never heard of poetry slams, had never seen a poetry performance and was not aware of the fact that Birmingham has a Poet Laureate. I do have to tell you that this housemate is a physics student and is obviously not involved in literary subjects on a daily basis, as I am. Still, this conversation restated for me the outdated and wrong image most people of my age have of poetry.

Actually, not too long ago, I did not really enjoy poetry either. I remember choosing to study Dutch especially because I liked reading novels – poems, on the other hand, were a strange and abstract thing I never really thought about or particularly liked. This all changed during one particular course, where we focussed on Temple and Cross, an epic 1939 poem by Utrecht-based author Hendrik Marsman. Our professor asked each of us to memorise a part of the poem and recite it without the book in front of us. At the time, I felt a little cross: last time I had to learn something by heart was back when I had to learn my German and French in the first years of secundary school! Wasn’t I getting a little too old for this kind of shenanigans? However, during my practice, Marsman’s poem started to grow on me. For some reason, as I was reciting it, the metaphors and allegories rose from the page and changed into real places, events and people. It bloomed and came to life. It wasn’t like I was just reading it – I was performing it. For a moment, I was the poetry slammer channelling the works of Hendrik Marsman on an imaginary stage in my bedroom. It was the first time I loved poetry.

Four years later, I enjoy written poetry as well as spoken word – even though I have a special place in my heart for performance poetry. People like my housemate should see the spoken side of poetry to discover that it does not deserve the negative reputation it has gained. I’m not sure if I could convince my housemate to come with me to a poetry event. Please tell me if you hear about a poetry night with a physics theme… I might just be able to convince him to join me. And he might just love it.

The Patriot

I am midway through my fourth week of being a Brummie and I just realised I have never been outside of my own country for this long in one go. You would think that being abroad for merely a month would not change a person that much. However, I’ve noticed quite a remarkable result of my expatriation: I feel a previously undiscovered sense of patriotism. Back home, I tend to complain about Dutch rudeness, the lack of quality in the national music scene and the pettiness of some of our politicians. However, my time abroad has turned me into a chauvinistic Dutchwoman, declaring to everyone how the Dutch language, literature and poetry are fabulous and simply underappreciated by the rest of the universe.

Fortunately, this does not mean that I am sick of all things British – thank god, because I have another four months to spend on this island. I still enjoy everything, the humour, the pies, the silly television programmes and the double decker busses. I also enjoy speaking English all day. During the first week after my arrival, this constant acting in my second language was quite exhausting. Thankfully, it has become easier by the day. The only extra language-hurdle I have created for myself in my day-to-day life has to do with the master thesis I have to work on during my stay. Since I’m writing about a nineteenth-century German play, I’ve added a third language to my daily lingo. This has resulted into some comic moments: as I was re-reading my play, my housemate asked me something and I answered him in what seemed to be a lovely mixture of German, Dutch and English.

My newly found patriotic pride triggers me to hold on to my roots whilst German and English are slowly taking over my mind – I’m keeping up a Dutch blog, I frequently listen to music by the Dutch duo Acda & De Munnik and I’ve picked up the one Dutch novel I brought with me. As for my work, I’m quite happy about the three Dutch writers that will attend our Ledbury Poetry Festival in July. Could this be the first step towards Dutch becoming a world language or not? Either way, my inner patriot is cheering.

New Worlds

Living in another country has been a big experience for me so far. Of course, there is the strange currency; I have had some confusing moments at the supermarket checkout, trying to figure out which coins to use while the people queueing up behind me got slightly annoyed whilst glancing at their watches. Also, I get in trouble because the people of Britain do everything on the left side of the road. I tend to get myself into life threatening situations every time I try to cross the street and I almost fell prey to a stampede when I walked on the right side of a flight of stairs during rush hour. However, the biggest change in my life is not the British Pound or the necessity to look left – in fact, it has nothing to do with Britishness per se. It has to do with my work for Writing West Midlands.

As a student, I am used to irregular hours: having a lie-in, get breakfast at noon, go to class and sometimes study in the library until midnight. Working from 10 to 6 is quite something else: after the first day, I was absolutely exhausted. Still, I am very happy to be here, especially because it is such an interesting job. Even though I have acquired a lot of knowledge about literature and the industry of literature through my studies, actually working in the literature industry is new to me. As a frequent visitor of festivals, I had never given much thought to the amount of work that goes into organising everything. The work is really interesting, though – for example, I am now working on a project called “Bodies in the Library” which will start during the Spring Thing festival in April. People can come over to Birmingham’s Central Library for an audio tour. However, this is not your average “this building was built in this and this year”-factual audio tour. On the contrary, the tour is a piece of literature itself, written by Sibyl Ruth. It shows the listener the building through different eyes by using an actual storyline. A similar thing is happening in Nottingham: Andy Barrett has written an audio tour for the city’s Lace Market. I actually went to Nottingham yesterday and got to see the route of that tour and hear about Andy Barrett’s story. I won’t tell you anything about it, because you should definitely go and do it without knowing anything beforehand. However, I can tell you that it is a touching story that is also very interesting for people that want to know more about the city. I have not heard Sibyl Ruth’s story yet, but if it is going to be anything like the Lace Market tour, it is going to be amazing.

Basically, I am just as much a foreigner in this work field as I am in Britain. Strange thing is that, even though I am the stranger, I do feel very at ease here, especially because I think the things we organise are so exiting. It might not always be as easy at the start – whether it has to do with working out the ways of currency or working out how WordPress works – but I am definitely part of two entire new and interesting worlds.

The Big Move

Last week I moved to Birmingham. This might not sound very exiting, but for me it definitely is – as a student from the Netherlands, I am fascinated by several aspects of the British culture. Now, I have the chance to experience it up close: during the five months that I will spend here, I will be doing an internship at Writing West Midlands, a Birmingham-based company managing all sorts of projects in the West Midlands concerning creative writing and literature. Working for a company like this is a dream for a culture buff like me. Next to an extreme passion for music I love all things that have something to do with literature and writing. I am an MA student in Literary Studies, I like to write lyrics to my own songs and I try to read as many books as I can: needless to say, I am very happy to be here.

However, I have little knowledge about West Midlands culture, let alone West Midlands writing. Nevertheless, I cannot wait to indulge in the unknown and discover what this area of the country has to offer. As a matter of fact, I have already spent my first week in Birmingham wandering around like a tourist. I have seen wonderful paintings in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, enjoyed the shops in the Bull Ring and a trip to the Cadbury Factory is already in the works. However, I have spent most of my time just walking around the city and experiencing what can only be discribed as the most diverse city I have ever seen. If you take a walk through the city centre, you will see how multicultural Brum society actually is: the shopping mass in the Bull Ring represents wonderful collection of people of different cultures, religions and origins. However, it is Birmingham’s architecture that fascinates me the most. Wonderful ancient buildings stand next to monstrous structures of concrete and the old church of St. Martin is surrounded by the ultramodern atmosphere of the Bull Ring.

I am aware of the fact that this architectual diversity has given Birmingham quite the bad reputation – some of my British friends warned me before coming here about the ugliness of the city. Nevertheless, I think I have to disagree with them. It is Birmingham’s diversity, within the population as well as the city itself, that fascinates me. I wanted to live in Britain to experience a culture that is unknown to me and I think that Birmingham can offer me just that. I don’t know what the next five months will bring me, but one thing is certain: it is going to be different and it is going to be fabulous.