(laid-back music)
- Everyone is fascinated
with men fucking men.
One.
The way our bodies come together,
the rhythmic slap of thigh on buttock
is a sound effect that must by now
have moved to the top drawer
of the BBC sound effects department.
I wonder how they make the sound
of two men fucking,
and it is fucking, not making love.
Is it by punching an arm
until it goes numb
by slapping two raw steaks into each other
with force?
Or is it with cabbages?
I remember once someone telling me
that the sound effect for decapitation
is the captured moment of a
cleaver through a cabbage.
Is that how it's done?
Holding taught green meat
in each hand and clapping.
'Til you get that
just right sound
of two men fucking?
Two.
Stepping outside afterwards,
we all have an argument about it.
Friends reflect the question onto us
or ask around it until they
think they have the answer
or wear it in their eyes.
We know, they say,
we've worked you out,
and we laugh.
Join in 'cause my friend Anushka,
she's a top for sure.
And we both know that Kate's boyfriend
couldn't be a hungrier power bottom.
And I feel powerful and guilty
for a while.
Three.
In Broke Back Mountain,
and God's Own Country, they spit once,
and fuck.
And the only way that would have worked
is if Jake Gyllenhaal and
that vet had the shits.
I wonder how many of these directors
have had periods sex
or put a towel down,
but that's not what we
want to watch, is it?
Sitting in an art cinema,
eating wasabi popcorn.
Hello, and welcome.
My name is Tom Denbigh.
And I'm your host tonight.
I'd like to start with an apology.
Some of you will never be
able to eat wasabi popcorn,
or look Jake Gyllenhaal
in the eye ever again.
And that is my fault.
Welcome to Poetry with Pride.
All of our prides got cancelled this year
and we thought that was really shit.
So here we are to give you
some of that queer goodness.
We have an incredible lineup tonight.
Some of the country's
best spoken word artists,
and often, because a lot of
the best moments in poetry
are those unrehearsed ones,
the chat at the bar,
or the discussion 'round
a table afterwards,
in between the sets tonight,
we'll be talking about all things queer
and setting the world to rights.
The first poet we have for
you tonight is Keith Jarrett.
Sometimes people say
someone just gets it, you know?
And I think he is absolutely
one of those people.
He gets it.
With his poetry,
he'll pull out the shape
of an idea into the room
and then he'll mould it into something
that suddenly strikes you as true,
whether it's your truth or a new truth.
And he does it with the most
charming wit and humour.
I'd like to welcome to the virtual stage,
the amazing Keith Jarrett,
who comes to you tonight
from his trampoline.
Keith.
(thudding on trampoline)
- Happy Pride, everyone.
This is my,
my pride jump.
And wherever I am,
it is always pride.
And it doesn't matter
what time of the year it is.
There is always a lot
to celebrate about queerness.
And I would like to start
with a poem,
which is from my collection
and it is called Acknowledgment.
And it's kind of like my pride anthem.
We who have survived.
We who have queered, fagged,
and poofed our way through
the school systems.
We, the survivors of
oppressive institutions
and the sticklers and
stone hearts that run them.
We who have survived.
We with glitter-proof ribs
that once caved under the shadow
of a parents' disapproval,
we with pockets made
of hand me down wounds.
We, of pursed lips
and handbag humour and zones
four, five, and six commutes.
We, who once knew these streets
by their bus shelters
who still know these
streets by their old names,
Racism Road, Homophobia Grove, Bigot Hill.
We who know history's desire to repeat,
who know progress is
neither linear, nor neat.
We who never take for granted.
We who have survived
the gentrifier's claw.
We have seen our media, our companies,
our governments parade
around rainbow flags and diversity awards
at their fashionable convenience.
We, who have journeyed past this cluster
of colonising avenues
who have learned to sip
heavily accented wine
who have washed our tongues
in its morning after.
We have loved beyond borders,
as we do not fear the other,
though fear, it's not foreign to us.
We were born on an Island
and whose parents were born
on another Island.
We have learned to build bridges
and we have learned to
cross those bridges,
even as they burn with the fuel,
the politicians provided.
We...
Who never take for granted.
We stand in love
and in fury
and in power.
Mood change, outfit change.
And this one is called Mercury.
And...
I don't really read it out often,
but it has
a kind of tender moment,
which I think a lot of us are in need of.
Mercury.
You are lying next to me.
We are reciting (speaking
a foreign language).
It is Wednesday.
Mercredi.
88 days since I shrugged myself single
and I am here
in a shrunken room.
And you do not ask me
what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking of Icarus
because lately I've been burning to fly.
And sometimes my desire for freedom
scorches a hole in my bed.
So I am imagining
that flying is burning
and I spark another half-crushed cigarette
I fished out from a mug on the floor
and hold it to your mouth.
I'm overly late again, going somewhere.
And I could use a pair of winged feet
or a smaller orbit,
but on this particular Wednesday,
all that matters,
are my sweaty armpits.
Your legs intertwined with mine
and the infinite passing of time.
So I had this dream,
which was really about
heteronormativity and patriarchy
and all of that bullshit.
And it ended up being a poem.
Again, I don't think I've
read this out more than once.
The Game Show Host.
The game show host,
teeth whitened to buggery,
pulls back the screen,
the carousel spins.
This is what you could have had.
Four box sets of toilet brushes,
a pristine oven
and matching marigold gloves.
A dozen carving knives,
a pair of waving wives.
One follows the other.
A mother who accidentally calls
the second by the first's name,
but calls her, all the same.
Outside the camera frame,
the sly host gooses the assistant
who is bent to spin the wheel
for the remaining contestants.
And now I realise this is the nineties.
How fucked up,
we all need a place in the past to return
a fire meeting point.
This is what you coulda...
From the corner of my eye,
a succession of exes,
lined up like spares
in diminishing height,
their unread texts
with all possible
interpretations underlined.
I'm out of play
but I buzz in anyway.
I know this one so well,
I shout.
But it's not my turn.
And the usher gruffly grabs me by the arm.
We walk away
and the studio starts to burn.
Thank you so much for watching
and I will leave you with one more poem.
I grew up on lots of really gory,
biblical stories from the Old Testament.
And I really had to write a poem
about one of them in particular.
And I also
have been follicly challenged for a while,
which is great during lockdown.
There's been loads of people with bed hair
and I've just been shaving my hair
the same as I have done
for the last decade.
That's enough preamble.
Thanks again.
And take care of yourselves.
Receding since 24,
I think of all the thin skinned profits
with even thinner hair.
How, in other circumstances,
I might have been president.
The midwife who delivered me,
according to my mother said,
I cried like a leader.
Or maybe I would have inherited
a double portion of the spirit.
It's a myth that male pattern baldness
runs in the mother's genes.
Her father died with a full head of grey.
I will die with my cap on,
I don't recognise myself
in the mirror without one.
And apart from that one moment
of lucidity in the yard,
my grandfather didn't recognise me either.
When teaching in schools,
I get called far worse things than Baldy.
I wouldn't wish for my pupils' deaths,
but in the Bible,
Second Kings 2 ends with two she-bears
mauling the prophet
Elijah's young tormentors.
In the King James version,
they say, go up,
thou baldhead.
It's funny as hell.
And then it isn't.
They're not even named.
42 kids killed at God's bidding.
Since becoming a full time faggot,
I've been rethinking power imbalances.
All the strands that tie
structural oppressions together.
When I was a child,
handing my mother her rollers
one by one at night,
I didn't question God this way.
Then one day I became too old
to stand so close to her parted scalp.
I still don't question my mother
or rarely.
This, I would venture,
does run in our genes.
Her mother was twice as spirited.
I peel my head every fourth day
with zero fade clipper.
Less hair lands on the
bathroom floor, each time.
A mixed blessing.
Though I now seldom pray.
I call her more.
Trying...
To let go.
- Hi everyone.
So as well as your stunning sets,
We wanted to have a discussion today.
The most interesting
part of the night for me
is the themes we tap into in our work.
And particularly here,
I always find it really interesting
looking at the commonalities
and differences in the queer experience.
I want to start by asking you,
I guess the obvious question,
right now, which is,
how has the pandemic affected you?
And particularly, how has it affected
your access to your queerness?
- It's just affected my options.
I felt, like, physically cut off
from my queer friends...
And yeah.
And queer spaces, in particular.
Although I found some online queer spaces,
it's not the same.
And so it's just the,
having the immediacy of people around me.
My queerness to me is very people-focused,
it's being around other people.
And so, yeah, so that's been difficult,
but on the other hand, I've,
I've still found that
through social media,
through conversations like this as well.
- Like when you go into poetry space,
often it's a space
where you don't have to argue
for your identity.
You can just go in there,
like you're safe, you're
valid, you're cool.
You don't have to worry,
which is rare,
which can be rare,
if you don't,
which you kind of,
luckily kind of start to forget sometimes,
if you go to enough poetry events,
(laughing)
I've been looking into it,
I've been turning into it a lot,
doing a lot of internal stuff.
And some of that is also,
I've been having like random epiphanies
about stuff, not to do with
being queer or whatever,
but also it's meant
I've also had a look at my
own sort of identity as well.
I just...
I've had a bit of space to like think,
or think, okay, I've got
more to explore here.
I'm watching a lot of
trans TikTok compilations.
(laughing)
They just came up as like
this recommended thing.
And they're like my
favourite thing to watch,
after like, a hard day
of JK Rowling tweets, you know?
- So I've kind of been turning to, like,
natural spaces a little bit more
like really trying to
be present in nature.
I love kind of been like reading a lot
about nature writing.
I've been reading Braiding
Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
recently, there's a lot
of queer stuff in there,
even though it's not a book
necessarily about queer
plants or queer plant science
or anything like that,
(laughing)
it's in there.
And I'm just like, cool.
I'm kind of seeing queerness
in lots of other spaces
that don't have the queer label on it.
I've kind of called it
a bit of a hippy route
where I'm kind of like,
I'm in a time of transformation,
and this lockdown has definitely
offered me that,
which I'm incredibly grateful for that.
That's what I'm getting from it.
- I think it's really interesting
that everyone's like
touched on the internet.
'Cause I think when I first realised,
I dunno, found my identity or whatever,
that's where I got everything
and now I don't use it as much to find,
to validate myself.
But I do find that I...
Feel a bit mad sometimes
if I don't get to talk to someone else
other than my partner
who's queer.
(laughing)
And I also really miss that group thing,
'cause you kind of,
you can solve those kind of...
Queer...
Ah, well, anything.
Any identity problems
that no one else in the world
seems to be listening to
or talking about.
Only by doing a proper
group dissection of it.
And I kind of need that.
- What I have heard
is people are more willing to have,
like, deeper conversations,
because we can't talk
for an hour over a coffee
about how your day went
or what your week was like,
because we know what your week was like.
(laughing)
So it's like, hey, how are you?
I'm having a really tough day,
and my mental health isn't great.
Let's talk about that.
And I just find it really
interesting that that's where
we're going to straight away.
It feels a bit more...
We've gotten a lot of
clutter out of the way
and that kind of day to day conversation.
- I think a lot of people have been...
Trapped with themselves
or trapped with their partner.
That's maybe a negative word,
but I think a lot of
people have been thinking
about how they present
to themselves or to
their partner a lot more
and their own self identity.
I just wondered, yeah.
Do you want to talk a bit more
about how you've kind of...
Been finding or changing your own identity
as, like, a writer,
as a result of the pandemic?
- That's a hard one.
I'm not sure I know yet.
I definitely know that I am kind of like,
a lot of change or at
least a lot of, like,
things going on inside.
A bit of a chrysalis state, I reckon.
(laughing)
I think I'm in the mush state.
(laughing)
Caterpillar turns to mush.
But I'm kind of in that state,
but I'm okay with that.
I like that.
I'm not even in my final form.
(laughing)
I definitely need a haircut.
(laughing)
You know, your hair's looking great.
I don't know how you do it.
- I feed off people.
I do a lot of work with schools
with young people,
and not turning up face to
face to schools affects me.
You know, like,
often I'll be running workshops
and in those workshops
that will give me kind of,
I'll have to create prompts
and in turn that sort of helps
with my writing for poetry anyway.
I guess that will have an effect
on the writing that comes out
in the next few more months.
But I always like to see things
in a longer,
I try and take comfort from like,
just saying that this is six months
out of a lifetime,
which may be
another 60 years, you know, who knows?
So I am just going to...
Just go with it.
You know, we're all...
Poets who are new to,
are used to like,
doing things on stages.
I find that helps with my editing process
without me realising it.
And so I'm...
I'm not having that editing,
invisible editing process of,
you know, of having
hundreds of ears.
- A lot of the growth
that I've been doing,
a lot of it is realising, like,
it's going back to...
To trusting your own instincts,
which is interesting.
Or trusting things before...
Everything else was imposed...
Upon...
You...
- A friend of mine gave
me a really great quote
that was after conversation
about butterflies, Jasmine.
So there's a little,
there's a few signs telling me
that I need to tell you this quote.
I don't know where she got it from,
but basically it's just
'let go or be dragged'.
(gasp)
That is like,
that's kind of been a
bit of a motto for me,
I'm not going to just...
You know what?
Let it go.
It's not dragging me anymore.
I'm letting it go.
(laughing)
- Who even knew,
you don't need a few pints
around a pub table together,
to get poets philosophising.
It's like-
(laughing)
Instinct.
(laughing)
And you'll be hearing way more
of that high quality interrogation
of the very fundamentals of core identity
later on tonight.
Our next poet is Jasmine Gardosi.
Jasmine is a writer who is
always pushing her practise
to new heights,
through incredible innovation and drive.
Asa such, she's pretty inspiring.
I remember the first time
I saw her live, thinking,
oh, you can do poetry like this.
She really does hold the audience
in the palm of her hand
and is a woman of many talents,
even learning beatboxing in quarantine.
And I think
we might get to see that skill tonight.
Please welcome to the stage,
the immeasurably
creative, and effervescent
Jasmine Gardosi.
- Hey everyone.
My name is Jasmine Gardosi.
Welcome to my set.
I'm going to start off with a bit of fun.
(beatboxing)
♪ Pretending ♪
♪ To be straight ♪
(beatboxing)
♪ Pretending ♪
♪ To be straight ♪
♪ Pretending ♪
♪ To be straight ♪
(beatboxing)
♪ Pretending ♪
♪ To be straight ♪
(beatboxing on harmonica)
♪ Pretending ♪
♪ To be straight ♪
♪ It's like dancing to music you hate ♪
(beatboxing)
♪ It's like dancing to music you hate ♪
♪ It ♪
♪ It's like dancing to music you hate ♪
(beatboxing)
♪ Pretending to be straight ♪
♪ It's like dancing to music you hate ♪
♪ It's like dancing to music you hate ♪
♪ It ♪
♪ It's like dancing to music you hate ♪
(beatboxing on harmonica)
♪ And it fuckin' sucks ♪
Hey there.
Yes.
I am in my closet.
Ha ha.
You got the joke.
Yeah, I think it's especially interesting
considering what's been
going on in the past month,
also on social media,
you know what I'm talking about.
What with gender recognition
and a certain famous author,
a lot of the stuff
that we've seen there on social media
is enough to stuff someone
back into their closet
for a while.
Even halfway, you know?
I remember this poem.
I remember walking
around Birmingham City Centre last year,
seeing a lot of rainbow flags
on banks and corporate buildings.
I'm like, cool, thanks guys.
When shit hits the fan
and supporting us is no longer
fashionable or convenient,
will you still support us?
All of us?
So this poem is a reminder
about when support isn't
quite as convenient
as it might be now.
They sold oxygen
in bottles.
They sold oxygen in
bottles with screw caps.
They sold oxygen
in bottles with flip lids.
They sold oxygen in bottles priced
89 P.
They sold oxygen in bottles priced
one pound 50.
They sold
still oxygen.
They sold
sparkling.
They sold oxygen
containing Welsh Valley
minerals and compounds.
They sold oxygen
with a cool, distinctive, crisp taste.
They sold oxygen
with something...
Filtered out.
They sold oxygen
refined by section 28,
they sold this only
naturally occurring oxygen.
They sold this
only age appropriate oxygen.
They sold pre watersheds oxygen.
They sold traditional
family values, oxygen.
They sold oxygen that made us choke
from ceilings and called it safe
for human consumption.
But they sold oxygen
that most people
could breathe.
(sigh)
Now.
Years later.
They bottle
new oxygen.
They bottle
proud oxygen.
They bottle
rainbow oxygen.
They bottle me
bank holiday weekend oxygen.
They bottle Sky vodka,
sponsorship, oxygen.
They trap it in taut glass
awaiting gasped lips,
pent like champagne.
They prime it with foil.
They put it on sale.
We do not buy it.
So.
On average,
just over...
35 minutes...
Oof mathematics class...
Per day.
Yeah, just over 35 minutes
of mathematics class per day,
times five equals...
Three hours of math class per week,
three hours of math class per week,
times 12 equals...
36 hours of maths per term.
(laughing)
Yeah, of course it's easy.
36 hours of math
puts up, 36 hours of maths per term,
times three equals 108 hours
of maths per year,
108 hours of maths per year.
Now the third term is shorter.
So rounding that down.
That's 100 hours of maths in a year,
100 hours of maths in a year.
Now the years for a child
from 11 to 16 equals five
years of learning for GCSE,
five years of learning for GCSE.
100 hours times five years of learning.
That's 500 hours
of maths in your teens, and...
My relationships...
Are unbalanced equations.
And...
I know trigonometry, just...
Not my own triggers.
And...
I get the rule of binary, just...
Not my gender identity.
And I...
Am a...
Fraction.
Now.
Walking around....
With a whole...
University degree.
500 hours of maths in your teens.
500 Hours of maths in your teens.
500 hours of maths
in your teens equals...
Three exams.
One GCSE.
(car engines roaring)
This one...
Is called:
Maybe We Don't Hear That Many
Same Sex Love Stories Told
in the Third Person, Because
It's Hard to Tell Who's Who,
Since They Share the Same Pronouns.
She.
Is munching cereal.
While staring at her girlfriend
across the kitchen table.
She'd like to tell her
that she loves her.
She, as in the first she,
and her, as in, the girlfriend.
Obviously.
So.
She would like to tell her girlfriend,
(laughing)
that she loves her.
She doesn't know
how to tell her girlfriend
that she loves her.
Not for the first time.
Her teeth balance an oat cluster.
It's just right.
The cereal, that is.
Not the situation.
'Cause you should not
tell someone you love them
for the first time over breakfast.
Mornings are too anticlimactic.
Plus, she's about to
go out and see people.
She, as in,
her girlfriend, is about
to go out and see people.
She's about to go out and see people too,
but that's not what she means.
So she is about to go out and see people
and she will have the space and time
to not feel pressured to say it back.
And she wouldn't want that.
She, as in...
The first she,
wouldn't want that.
Well, both of them really.
In fact...
These days, she takes...
Back flips over sentences
in order to avoid
the exact combination of words,
because words tend to fail.
Like when she
introduces her...
To her acquaintances as her...
Friend.
Or when they walk through the voltage
of strangers' stares,
holding hands and she wants
to say something like,
yeah, we love each other.
Is there something wrong with that?
But words...
Still...
Fail.
Her...
Words...
Didn't always fail her.
She said I love you
before to someone else.
Just that time she feels like maybe,
she failed the word.
And she knows what the problem is.
Sitting here, munching
cereal across the table
from her girlfriend.
She doesn't fully...
Trust her...
Yet.
Her.
As in...
Herself.
She feels like maybe she'd
like to get to know her
a little better, first.
Her.
As in...
Herself.
But we already know,
don't we?
That she loves her.
She now being the girlfriend
and her now being the she.
As in the first, original she.
What I mean is,
she obviously loves her back
and she knows this.
She as in the first she.
She knows this because
she has never needed
an I love you from her.
Come to think about it,
she, as in, the first she,
has never needed an I love you from her.
And that's what shows her.
That's what she shows her.
So she knows therefore that she loves her.
And she knows
that she loves her.
And she can see that.
And she can see that.
So she don't need to say it,
and she don't need to say it,
'cause words don't
always hold up, do they?
So she doesn't say,
but then she does say it,
'cause she wants to say it,
but then she can't say it,
because there's still an
oat cluster in the way
and it's spurts from her mouth,
as a comment of milk and love, and spit.
And she sees it.
And she sees it.
Land on the varnished wood.
And she shrugs.
(breathing heavily)
And she shrugs.
And they don't bother
with words, because...
Words...
Fail...
Them.
(breathing heavily)
- Oh, we mostly talked a
lot about the pandemic.
But if I'm honest,
if another person tells me
they've written a 10,000,
50,000, 100,000 word
novel about the pandemic,
I think I might scream.
So I wanted to ask you guys specifically
what you might be working
on or thinking about,
you don't have to disclose your secrets,
that has absolutely nothing
to do with pandemic?
- I've been working on...
Learning beatboxing.
(laughing)
Yeah.
You may laugh now, Tom.
- Are you gonna show us?
(laughing)
- But just you wait, until...
No.
(laughing)
So I've been doing that.
I'm actually getting all right.
I think that the aim
is to combine it with...
Poetry.
And it's just like,
this creative constipation
that I've been talking about,
hasn't helped.
It's like, oh, look at this lovely,
big chunk of time to write.
However.
It's not happening.
I think mostly because
what really drives me
are, like, events, and,
like, community things happening.
I'm like, so a bit blocked on that front,
but don't you,
don't you worry,
things will happen!
- Don't count you out.
I like the idea of constipation
because it implies
there's something coming.
It's not like nothing's happening.
There is something kind of-
(laughing)
- It's coming.
(laughing)
Just gonna be a bit painful,
(laughing)
bit painful when it comes up.
(laughing)
- Most people have like,
really interesting, like,
cool punk teenage years' experience.
Experiences.
Whereas mine is like,
me and my friends packing our bikes
and heading off
to a deserted forest,
to light some candles
and add some incense or like...
Hitchhike through the dark
on Halloween night
and find an abandoned cottage
to go do tarot cards, and like,
so I feel like I'm kind
of being called back
to some of that kind of spiritual stuff
that I would have explored
in my teenage years.
So kind of seeing it through
the lens, the returning
back to that.
Almost like what Jazz
was saying at the start
about returning pre-conditioning, almost.
And also what it means
to be an artist in this age.
What does landscape
poetry, which is, you know,
traditionally a very sort of a,
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.
What does that mean to be
updated as a spoken word,
art form in this particular time?
- My mental capacity
has just been reduced
(laughing)
by the time I've sent two emails,
that's it for the day.
And I do have a mini trampoline here.
So I've been disturbing
the downstairs neighbours.
(laughing)
'Cause that gives me joy,
a bit o' trampolinin'.
- One of the things I really like,
enjoy is there's a Facebook groups,
they're called stuff like
accidental queer representation
or queer spotting.
And a good example of that for me
would be at the end of the alley,
outside my house, there
is a bit of graffiti,
which just says 'cheesy tights',
just that alone.
And it always reminds me of drag queens.
And I wondered
if any of you had a similar kind of yeah,
accidental spotting that
you've seen recently,
that made you laugh.
- Seeing all these rainbows in the window.
And especially now,
like some people have kept them up and,
you know, during pride.
So I just ended up
writing this poem about,
you know, my mum and being
really disappointed that I'm gay,
but happy that, you know,
like with the pandemic, we've locked down,
that, you know,
there's no one sleeping in my bed tonight,
but God's planting
rainbows in every window,
like a warning.
(laughing)
- Promise.
(laughing)
- Yeah, it's a promise.
(laughing)
So yeah.
That's my, like, accidental queerness.
All these rainbows comin' up.
- Dunno if it's accidental,
but like Duolingo comes out
with some really queer sentences
(laughing)
to like, translate.
They are very inclusive
and I'm just like, you know what?
Duolingo?
You go.
- So one of the things
I'm really interested in,
people's strong memories
and nice to know time, like, recently ish
that you felt really immersed
in your queerness.
For me that is,
I said, Bristol Pride was on the downs,
which is actually a place
that's this big common ground
where I guess
gay men used to often gather
for some good old fashioned fun.
But now when we're pride on the downs,
it means that
I was sitting with friends
underneath the tree
and a bit of sun
and that kind of quiet-loud
you get with a lot of people around.
I'm just sitting there
and breathing, and like,
breathing out and feeling very like,
oh yeah, these are all...
People here.
And that's great.
- I think Ciaran's...
Frozen a bit, again.
- Oh no.
- I bet he's just pretending to freeze.
(laughing)
I've got the one, it's
a great memory, it's-
(laughing)
- I'm not much of a clubber,
but there have been a couple of clubs
where I've felt like that.
And I could have been wearing anything
or doing anything, and there's loads of...
People who are like me
and wish me no ill.
(laughing)
And again, like I've found
that with black pride,
it's it was, you know,
growing up, it was...
Really necessary for, for me to,
you know, to see that there were,
that it was possible to be black and gay.
And even from a,
from to have the kind
of background that I did
with parents who, you know,
grew up in the Caribbean.
Yeah.
And dancing to like, Bashman,
and Soca, and all of that.
And me not feeling...
Having to feel a way,
but also a lot of poetry spaces like that.
Yeah.
Places where I'm able to perform
without having to perform.
'Cause usually it's the other way around.
- Like where either your
otherness has lifted
or there's so much other in the room,
that it doesn't,
it doesn't feel like it's that.
- Yeah.
More the former, I'd say,
but also where I'm just
giving room to breathe,
and I could be anything or anyone.
- Our final poets of the
night is Ciaran Hodgers.
Normally with spoken word,
I first experience a
poet through the stage.
But with Ciaran,
I was passed his book on recommendation
and absolutely fell in love
with the way he writes.
His writing is gentle,
but deeply immersive
and filled with reflection,
but in a very honest tone.
His performance is the perfect pair
to this writing.
It is my delight
to welcome to the stage the wonderful
Ciaran Hodgers.
- Hey guys,
my name is Ciaran Hodgers,
and I'm really pleased and
delighted to be with you
for this pride event,
with Milk Poetry and Bristol Pride,
I always have the best times
when I'm going in Bristol,
whether I'm performing
or just travelling or seeing friends.
So I'm really sad not
to be with you for this.
But hopefully it will be too long
before I got to come back.
And we can celebrate,
party and hang out and catch up.
I've been writing a lot
about the environment
and our relationship to landscape,
what it means to be alive at this time
of increased climate crisis,
increased concern, and increased action.
And this first poem
is kind of about how
these big issues that can
be really hard to comprehend
actually kind of affect
us in the day to day.
And the title of it is Soulastalgia,
which is a phrase coined by a philosopher
a couple of years ago.
And that relates to the
psychological existential dread
that we experience from
our changing landscape
and our impacted environment.
I hope you like it.
I open my mouth to describe
how my nerves are rusted nails
down a blackboard, and
an iceberg falls out.
Sits there, stubbornly melting
in the middle of my counsellors box room.
Her pursed lips loosen,
eyebrows rise like a tide.
Hold it like an inner child, she suggests,
with the tip of her pen.
I lean in from the foldout sofa bed
with the kind of tentative hug you'd give
at an office party you weren't invited to.
Clocks tick deadlines on both walls
and the patterns of lost continents
surface in drips on my shirt until...
Having claimed surface area,
the water crawls up the
shorelines of the room.
Passing marks of a child's
growth on the doorframe,
reading Venice,
Amsterdam,
London,
New York.
We laugh about '90s disaster movies
like we weren't in one.
Her smile falls to rest.
And I wonder,
do you see, do counsellors
get CPD for stuff like this?
How safe can she make this space, really?
Is it triggering to know
it's not just the world
inside my head that's on fire anymore?
Can she hear the whipping
permafrost crack,
guns slinging across the room as well?
Does she smell the same
billowing popping candy
from forest fires snapped from downstairs?
Is she woken to the harmonium drone
of bulldozers marching in the street
echoing like tinnitus?
Her curt note advises me to go home.
To line up my thoughts.
Where in the comfort of privacy,
I plucked them from the thaw.
Face wipes, cotton buds,
toothbrushes,
straws,
bags for life,
bearing other smaller bags for life.
Cigarette butts crusted with glitter,
mismatched Tupperware lids,
containers filled with
Christmas cracker junk.
I hold them
like outgrown baby's clothes
and stack them into a scrapped silhouette.
An artificial me of striking resemblance.
Sits there, in my writing chair,
his egg carton jowl swings to say,
how does it feel to have discarded
something more meaningful
than that which you've sat down to make?
You cannot prevent me, he smirks,
but at least you can
afford to be so wasteful.
Now I know what it is to be nothing
beyond what someone will leave,
but my mind is a glacier.
Saving it can feel like an endless job
until it all starts to melt.
This next poem
looks at how
we might find solutions.
By getting lost in nature.
By kind of allowing ourselves
to become queered by nature in some way.
And it uses a singular, they them pronoun
inspired by The Fool's
Journey in the tarot cards.
And by the end of his journey,
he becomes a non binary character,
which I really liked
how that relates to...
The...
How nature and the environment
is kind of naturally non-gendered.
Naturally moves between...
Binaries of that.
And it's called Incentivizing
Falling to the Dead Weight.
Slowly, over time,
but realised suddenly,
their tongue stopped doing the thing
they'd now forgotten the word for.
In searching for it,
they lost themselves in the forest,
plucks the nerves from their wrists,
wrapped them around the roots,
grouped each as a guest of the other.
The soil dug deep as it does.
Found it wasn't a misplaced mouth,
but a heart so close to exploding
that if they gave it breath,
it'd blow into a sinew-splattered
sweep of branches.
Veins having burst into wings,
proof, maybe, that a world this harsh
can turn you inside out after all.
Instead...
They got dew drunk and suckered.
Felt the beauty of each dutiful ache,
incentivizing falling to
the dead weight unsacked,
the spider's web
sold as safety net.
Dropped the deceit and debt of power
sweetened to the bitter
of never being told
souls don't glow
on the underside.
They found a new levity in letting go,
allowing the winds to hoist
them to a mumbling storm
where clouds like inkwells
waited for the tips of leaves
to swell, and write cursive in the breeze,
stories they could never tell.
Could never grasp the hand of.
Couldn't queer 'round its accent.
The feeling fell fallow to disappointment,
the same sick gavel
that brought them here, took them
back to pouring medicine
from the wrong bottle.
Back to being scared and safety
back to echoing oracle,
back to sleep,
dark as strata
until at some point...
Waking.
This time, from a feberal dream,
with this green thing,
an umbilical chute,
those chlorophyll question marks
righting in pursuit of light.
Asking:
will you grow with me?
Patient in our progress,
unsure of the course,
will you allow,
as clear and intentional
as a leaf opens to the sun,
all your thoughts to become oxygen?
Are you ready to see language
as an ecosystem?
That your tongue co-exists
with the shifting sun
that lives amidst.
That the conditions of its soil
is never fixed,
that we transform
when we persist.
And listen to something within ourselves.
We might have just...
Missed.
This last poem...
Kind of looks at how
we can find connection,
even though we are apart
and specifically when someone passes on
and I am aware
that the person this poem is for
passed on a year ago today.
So it feels quite strangely apt
to be reading it for you today.
It's called A Ceremony for Broken Bark.
Here, black rope sinks.
Bargaining for balance with
the earth's swallowing maw.
Pallbearers, tending with
more thought than prayer,
pour libation, giving to ground
what a grandmother gave first
so that she, in turn, may
bestow what's been given
back to green.
The ceremony for broken bark
gifts its growth in the forest floor.
Hopeful greedy groves might flourish
feasting on the femur of a fallen fur.
Spurred into sharing sentimental stories,
grief nurtures us the same.
The scent of pine after rain,
matching cups of tea.
Again and again, the threatening
sting of a wooden spoon.
They will be scarce soon.
These stories,
these trees,
if we let them leak from memory
instead of allergy,
apology,
or a buried goodbye,
let the past be a pit for planting
held in the hollow of language.
The mind of a mouth,
the gulp of a glass
tipped to toast.
Let this hole in the soil
become a womb
for as the body is a
bulb waiting to bloom,
every forest is also a tomb.
Forget for a moment
the flesh falls to rune
and see it was once a tree.
The only chapel where I pray freely
returned with you soaked into its memory,
finds me...
Looking for a place to grieve
and calls my eyes
towards its leaves.
Thanks so much for having me.
Thank you much for listenin'.
Hope you're all
still well.
Even though lockdown seems to be lifting,
I hope you're all safe
and I hope you are continuing to be happy
and find joy,
to be creative,
and we will be back together again soon.
I hope.
And if you liked what you heard,
you can check me out on social media,
if that is your thing.
And Facebook and Twitter,
Ciaran Hodgers poet.
And you could buy my book,
if you're interested.
Called Cosmocartography,
from my website,
CiaranHodgers.com,
or you could buy it
directly from the wonderful
Burning Eye Books directly.
And thanks again for listening.
I'm really looking forward
to seeing the other poets' contributions
and to our discussion.
So yeah.
Thanks again.
And stay safe.
- Can I just say thanks so
much for joining us discussion.
Thank you so much
for sharing your poetry as well,
'cause that's part of this.
And yeah.
Thanks for being part of this night.
I wanted to engage
in this stuff that we've
been talking about.
I wanted to do it,
at this time of the year, when...
Because of pride,
and I wanted to do it in a way
that kind of spoke to those parts of,
kind of poetry,
and kind of talking about things.
So yeah.
Thank you so much, everyone
for coming tonight,
being involved, and yeah.
- Bye!
- Thank you, bye-bye!
- Bye!
- Thank you!
Bye!
- Bye forever!
(laughing)
- And with that,
I will bring the night to a close.
I'd like to thank again,
our incredible performers.
I'd also like to give a huge thanks
to Milk Poetry and Bristol Pride
for all their support.
I especially want to thank
Apples and Snakes for their creativity
and their collaboration,
without whom, this night
wouldn't have happened.
Thank you everyone at home
for tuning in slash clicking.
And I hope you all have a great night
and to see you in real life soon.
Hey is a final poem from me
about all those small odd queer moments.
Non-Dairy Alternatives.
The milk revealing itself
to be off in the morning
is always a surprise.
An alchemy of a thing as heat
makes roiling lumps from cream.
I remembered it later
when I was coming back from town,
which was mainly because I was
starting to get a headache,
but my bag was so full
that I had to hold the
plastic bottle in my hand,
which was too cold for winter
with no gloves.
The man sitting opposite me on the bus,
saw I had given it its own seat
and asked me what it was for,
which felt such a personal question,
until he explained coffee or tea?
Not that it mattered
what I said as he listed all
of the milks he had tried
and why each one worked or didn't,
which is mainly a list of milks
that all go well in coffee,
but not in tea,
except for cow's milk and goat's,
but not sheep's...
Apparently.
And I knew he was right,
particularly about the oat milk,
because that's why I'd
skipped tea this morning
because sometimes an oat milk backup
with sinking oaty clouds
is a bit much.
And then my boyfriend rang me
when I put down,
he asked if that was my partner
on the phone.
And he asked it suddenly carefully
after the cascade of milk reviews.
I hadn't really thought
about being outed by a name like John
showing up on a phone screen.
Said, yes, it was.
But then he said,
oh well.
That's okay then.
I spent the rest of the afternoon
wanting to try almond milk in coffee,
wondering what he had meant by that.
And half wishing I had hooked him
because he felt kind
and I felt a hug would
almost have made sense
or would have been...
The strangest thing to do.
(laid-back music)
