The Artisan

JEMIA DE BLONDEVILLE

The fine end

Of a needle

That pierces through

The soft fabric

As it pulls

the cotton through

Marrying materials

Often of a different hue

Each stitch

Gently woven

The silent seams, seem soft

And delicate

Upon the shimmering silk

As patterns flow

Become complete

As the beautiful artistry

Of the artisan

Is never deplete

Like a trickling stream

Which glides

Along the pebbles

Rippling dappling beauty

As a gentle kiss

Upon marshmallow clouds

As a gentle breeze

Soft, and smooth, and delicate

Like melted cheese

Smooth as silk

And as fine

As the woven intricacies

Of freshly woven webs

Dew-bound

The tapestry

Is now complete

As the seamstress

Lays down her needle

Applying

A softening balm

To the blistered fingers

Of an artisan

Imagine living a lie for the first 28 years of your life, because I did. On the surface I may appear to be exactly what you’d expect, but for you to believe that takes an incredible amount of my energy. Most of my life I have felt that the world was out to get me and couldn’t understand why everyone around me seemed to be managing much better than I, that was until I started working with a young person who was diagnosed with ADHD. In exploring their behaviours, I began to realise that a lot of their struggles were akin to my own.

I had always wondered if I was different from other people and taken online autism tests that indicated traits, but I had never considered ADHD as it’s the “hyperactive boys’ condition”. This misinformation led me through years without diagnosis. Much like anyone, I believed that hyperactivity was the only symptom of ADHD, but it is a disability that affects every aspect of my life. I recognised patterns in the young person’s behaviours that reminded me of my teen years. The mood swings written off as hormonal, jumping between projects and ideas, struggling to prioritise tasks, communication issues and risk-taking activities.

I don’t match the profile for ADHD perfectly and this is principally because I also have autism and the two conditions inconveniently battle each other. My ADHD wants to live a carefree disorganised life and my autism causes me to have meltdowns when my routine is disturbed. Until I became an adult and one too many responsibilities piled up, I was able to mask my condition, and people just considered my symptoms as simply my personality.

I looked into the diagnosis process – which is by no means an easy task – and started conversations with my GP, who had previously suggested that I was living with anxiety and depression and sent me to any therapy available. The wait list for the ADHD assessment was long, and I was impatient, so I found myself accessing Right to Choose which is a UK law that allows patients the right to choose their mental healthcare provider. This process required me to do a lot of my own research around my life and development.  Being aware of neurodivergence whilst answering questions about my life, led me to wonder how this had ever been missed. Then I remembered I am female. ‘Neurodivergences’ are drastically underdiagnosed in girls and women due to the lack of research conducted on female subjects, alongside this I am smart and relatively proficient at ‘masking’ (acting as if I don’t have a neurodivergent brain) which prevented professionals from exploring diagnosis for me. A little over a year of pushing and I have now been diagnosed with ASD and ADHD. 

I was flooded with excitement after my assessment. In the presence of one of the few people I am comfortable to unmask around, I started to mime surfing whilst humming a tune! My partner shared in my celebration and helped me to spread the news to my family and friends. Having a diagnosis filled me with relief and as the weight was lifted from my shoulders, I finally had an explanation as to why life had been so challenging for me. I rode this high for at least a week before my thoughts slipped to my past and I was overwhelmed by grief for the life I could have had if someone, anyone, had diagnosed me when I was a child. Doubts from my distant acquaintance group (my close friends and family supported me but outside of that group, i.e. my distant acquaintances, claimed it couldn’t possibly be that) began to resonate around the same time, and this led to me further questioning the legitimacy of my diagnosis as if I could have somehow faked my neurodivergence. I started the lengthy process of getting the correct medication and dose not long after this, and of course was expecting all my problems to disappear: they didn’t. In fact, they got worse at first and this led to a breakdown at work that saw me instructed to take a month of sick leave.

It has been a year since I was first diagnosed, and it has been one of the most challenging years of my life. My whole being has been tested as I quickly realised that I have absolutely no idea who I am, what was me and what was the mask I had built? The problem with the relief of diagnosis is that many people tend to fully unmask without realising they need to find a happy medium where they can exist as themselves whilst fitting societal expectations. I was not the exception to this. 

My life has been scattered with an abundance of failed romantic partners and friendships. Although I am lucky to have retained a handful of good friends who understand me, I have lost count of the relationships that my way of processing has affected. It might seem bold to refer to oneself as pretty, but I am by no means unattractive to some, which as an AuDHD adult comes with its own range of difficulties. (AuDHD is a relatively new unofficial term that describes a person who has both autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ADHD.)

Because I haven’t presented stereotypically with neurodiversity, I have’t been afforded protections or allowances that perhaps others have, an issue that many women living with neurodiversity encounter. I’ve made the best decisions I can with the resources my brain gives me and often these have been socially unacceptable, leading me to upset, difficulties and injuries (severed main tendon in leg from running into glass door, chopped off end of thumb rushing food, motorcycle accident, fights, being bullied, self-harm as a coping mechanism) but because I am ‘pretty’ and ‘smart’ they have been written off as fundamental character flaws that people have taken advantage of or ostracised me for. This had a profound impact on me as a teenager when all I wanted was to have friends and be accepted for being myself. As children our parents encourage our individuality and work through perceived faults, but as a teenager, the harsh reality of life begins to hit, you cannot just ‘be yourself’, it is unacceptable. My teenage years saw a rise in disordered eating, self-harm, councillors and a poor relationship with myself. 

How many jobs had you worked by the time you were 30? If you factor in my desperation for acceptance and motivation for perfectionism, I started work at 13 years old and have since then only spent nine days without a job. I have found it incredibly difficult to settle into jobs for long term employment, I was always unable to build good working relationships and the rejection I felt because of this has led to me leaving multiple roles. Most of my working life I have felt under-stimulated and I often describe work as my special interest as it’s only been on rare occasions that I have less than three jobs at a time. I make up part of the 15% of neurodiverse adults in employment and my way of managing that is to live in constant burnout at a cost to my health, wellbeing and life chances. 

My ADHD diagnosis was last year and for autism was only several months ago. I’ve been undergoing the process of discovering myself and it hasn’t been pretty. I’ve had to take time off work, I’ve let people down, I’ve cried, I’ve hated myself, I’ve grieved for the life I could have lived, I’ve questioned, I’ve researched and I still don’t have the answer. Every day now is just a day, and one day, it will all be okay. 

Who am I? – Act One

You are so aggressive.
You are so clumsy.
You sound so monotone.
You are so emotional.
You can be so insensitive.
You are too rough.
You are isolating yourself.
You need to make more of an effort.
You don’t know your own strength.
You drive too fast.
You just need to communicate.
You can’t react like that.
You can’t speak to me like that.
You are so argumentative.
You only have yourself to blame.
You look like a man and you dress like a boy.
You wear big pants now, you have big responsibilities.
You wouldn’t like an all-girls school.
You just need to lose weight.
You can’t wear that; stripes don’t suit you.
You need anger management.
You are so rude.
You are always so negative.
You need to think about this.
You need to fix this.
You can’t go home.
You can’t call your mum.
You can’t handle your drink.

I wouldn’t come to you with my problems.
I am not eating your food.
I am leaving you because you are too depressed.
I feel like I have failed you.
I can’t do it for you.
I don’t believe you love me.
I am afraid of you.
I don’t believe you.

Who am I? – Act Two

Are you just going to sit around?
Are you frowning again?
Are you gonna give us a smile, love?
Are you able to manage your job?
Are you always going to wear odd socks?
Are you paying attention?
Are you pierced where I can’t see?
Are you the cause of it all?

You must stop pulling your trousers up, get a belt.
You must stop biting your nails.
You must stop playing with your hair, it’s not very lady-like.
You must get your head out of the clouds.
You must lose weight.
You mustn’t dress like that.
You must dye your hair a natural colour.
You must use your inside voice.
You must turn that music down.
You must speak up.
You must stop that; you are embarrassing yourself.

Who am I? – Act Three

You are so organised.
Your house is immaculate.
You did so well at school.
You are an amazing singer.
You are so creative.
You are full of knowledge.

I love you.
I think you are perfect.
I know things will get better.
I see they are just jealous of you.
I wish I had a magic wand to make it all go away.

Samara Jayne Martin, 29

Together, Alone

“The wall is such a loud canvas, sometimes it hurts my ears.”

I was invited to do this. Possibly I’d complained about it early on and then later there were spaces. But let’s say I was invited. I’ve been an editor at HIP for maybe five years, and had a one year sabbatical to undertake all kinds of strange experiments: fats floating in a salty sea, mycelial networks, horrific joinings – hydrogen to hydrogen, can it really be done?

And the one thing my fellow HIPsters would probably always say is that Merlin doesn’t like pictures, he likes long columns of words with no subheadings, no spaces, ideally no punctuation at all, it’s almost as if he vomits onto the page in some sort of deranged protest. But what is he protesting against? Perhaps we shall never know.

So I was wisely invited to participate in this photography project. I had a plan. It involved photos. Something about wounded romance, the way love limps on against all odds, dying. But like all plans, it was an utter failure. Nonetheless!: here is what we have. I was going to send a challenge round to the local poets, get their cream in, splatter it on the walls and take candid photos. It could still happen: it could still happen.

Have you ever been betrayed?

Did you ever let yourself sit and dwell on that moment, the knife of a thought carving a new belief into your mind: that connected, you are worse, more abandoned, more alone?

We don’t always spend enough concerted effort documenting this loathsome, occasionally deadly, state of mind. And untreated betrayal leads to more, like an infected wound. I wonder whether being more open about it could help people to dismiss the loneliness, the sense of betrayal, the depression and resultant madness that can sometimes occur.

So, like some kind of deranged librarian, I’d like to gather poems on this theme and display them publicly – but just out of sight. Like how you feel when you’ve been cut away. Not absent, but still gone.

The poems will be graffiti, in one way or another, unwelcome etchings on the consciousness. Pen, paint, stencil or poster. The method and style is at the writer’s discretion. Each piece will be photographed and may be printed as part of a special edition of the Hastings Independent, and then shown at an exhibition event which participants are welcome to attend and potentially perform at.

All submissions can be anonymous, if desired. Please send to community@hastingsindependentpress.co.uk.

Here are three sample poems around the theme, not so much as guidance, but just to get you in the mood:

1 Law

“Look“ he told me,
“all those little children dying in the trees”
I said, “What?”
and he said, “Look”
and I went to the window and sure enough, there they were hanging in the trees,
dead and dying
and I said, “What does it mean?”
and he said, “I don’t know it’s authorized.”

The next day I got up and they had dogs in the trees,
dead, and hanging and dying,
I turned to my friend and I said, “What does it mean?”
and he said,
“Don’t worry about it, it’s the way of things, they took a vote, it was decided”
and the next day it was cats –
I don’t see how they caught all those cats so fast and hung them in the trees, but they did;
and the next day it was horses,
and that wasn’t so good because many bad branches broke.

And after bacon and eggs the next day,
my friend pulled his pistol on me across the coffee and said,
“Let’s go,”
and we went outside
and here were all these men and women in the trees,
most of them dead or dying,
and he got the rope ready and I said,
“What does it mean?”
and he said, “It’s authorized, constitutional, it passed the majority”
and he tied my hands behind my back and then opened the noose.

“I don’t know who’s going to hang me,” he said, “when I get done with you –
I suppose when it finally works down there’ll finally be just one left and he’ll have to hang himself”
“Suppose he doesn’t” I asked.
“He has to” he said,
“It’s authorized”
“Oh,” I said, “Well,
let’s get on with it.”

– watch/listen to Charles Bukowski read this on Youtube, Bukowski Reads Bukowski | Artbound…

2 The Kiss

I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.

For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.

– Sara Teasdale

3 The Couple Across the Way

Babe, it feels like it’s all happened
Twenty-three years of the same
And I’m sorry ’bout this morning
For the damage I will pay

All the mirrors face the walls and
I wake just to long for bed
Love what’s got you so down low?
The saddest tongue is in your head

I forget the thrill of lies
The truth escaping through the eyes, now
You use voices on the phone
That once were spent on me

The world has changed beyond our doorstep
Peoplе talk and dress so strange
I don’t know a neighbour’s namе
And all of life is rearranged

Nice to know that you’re still caring
Well enough to raise your voice
But if we must bring up the past then
Please don’t speak to me of choice

Across the way moved in a pair
With passion in its prime
Maybe they look through to us
And hope that’s them in time

– Grian Chattan. You can find it performed as a song on Youtube.

4 Between the lines an artery gets fat
Pale those fingertips on the cut glass
Swirling textures that rub the snake
Crack dividing truth like flesh
I thought you trusted now cold lips
Sticking as they part over white sheets
We lie straight in the blue half light
I drop an unwelcome plank a leg
On your blue I pull it back the way
Whatsapp messages are deleted
You talk you smile you kissed are
Accusations from between my cheeks
Where the tongue moved your fingers
Should have touched like the glass
Canyon that cuts them as I type
Away the last drops before the stop

– me (eek)

There’s a charm in seeing a world that lives just a little beyond ours,

Patterns and structures powdered in the etchings of chalk and crayon,

The playground is our canvas, but there’s an expiration date.

A vacant sense of creativity resides, erased sketches and broken pencils.

Watercolours seeping out and dripping from the painting,

A paint stroke working harder for every brush that snaps,

The grip on the handle is firm and rigid.

You’re left with splinters in your fingers,

Red drops dotted across your hands.

The passion turns stale and bland,

an empty canvas.

So you’re left wondering what the point was to begin with.

—-

A kaleidoscope of memories,

your mind unfurls like a lotus flower.

Stiffness in your shoulders slipping away.

In a field, the wind whistles past in your sprint.

Hot sun on your back, lollipop swirling in your mouth,

Other kids laugh as many flail and fall over.

Your chests sore from laughing and running too much,

as you dash away from taggers.

Deciding the last game ended in a draw,

Everyone is drained and curled up under a tree.

Heads are resting on the shoulders of those closest to each other,

some snore quietly and a few shift restlessly in slumber,

The trailing sunset peaks through the leaves above,

you drift off to sleep as if you are being carried home.

—-

Exgsosa Zubi, 18

Cool Gang

BEN FAIRLIGHT

A surly gang of guys, well cool,

Slinks along, hogs the prom –

Seven youths with in-your-face faces

Scuffing their trainers on the shingle spill.

Inflated and scruffy and heading their way,

A spent popcorn packet skims the red tarmac,

Tumbles its silver light-crisps,

Scatters a scratch-mob of homeless street-doves.

The breeze brings bag and gang together.

Will they half-see, stamp on it, spit or wee….

All derisory? When Alpha’s step lands, there’s

No bang nor cheers from his peers.

Instead he grabs it, crumples it, carries it

Home to the next bin along –

All in one stride.

The gang processes. Well cool.

Obviously, someone called Henry Normal is not going to be normal. Henry is not dull, au contraire, Henry is quietly, blazingly brilliant.

You may not be immediately familiar with his name perhaps, but he will almost certainly have shaped your sense of funny. Mr Normal has produced and co-written some of the landmark comedy shows of the last thirty years, including Mrs Merton, The Royle Family, Gavin and Stacey, The Mighty Boosh and much of Steve Coogan’s output, including the immortal Alan Partridge. He may appear a self-effacing bloke but he is, in truth, comedy royalty. And as if that is not enough, he is also a poet – writing poetry so good, as he says, “you can actually understand it.” And the good news is that he is becoming a patron of the Hastings Book Festival. Wayne Herbert, one of the key directors of the festival, says “we are thrilled to have Henry on board.”

We asked him how he got involved in comedy. It turns out that this is a long story that unspools back into his working class roots in Nottingham. His father who was a bicycle engineer at the Raleigh factory in Nottingham and always wore a suit no matter how greasy the job worked long, long hours. And Henry (real name Peter) was schooled in the sense that you had to have a solid job and work hard. Hence, Henry became a very able insurance broker. As Henry says, “at twenty-three I was already old, horribly sensible.” And then that song by The Specials dawned on him: ‘you’ve done too much, much too young.’ The spirit of punk and two-tone spoke to Henry; madly and wonderfully, the insurance broker decided to become a performing poet. Adopting the name Henry Normal as ironic armour against accusations of being weirdly dull.

From this jump into the comic chaos, an odyssey began that included touring with an unknown band called Pulp, and immersion in the full slog of the rock and roll life, playing such venues as Lucifer’s club in Morecambe, at which they were paid not to perform because they were all deemed so bad.  Somehow, amid all the boredom of driving the inevitable transit van, Henry found it in himself to continue writing, both comedy and poetry and all stations in between.

Probably the breakthrough came when Henry teamed up with Frank Skinner and Jenny Eclair to write Packet of Three for Channel 4 in 1991. After that, he became something of an eminence grise of the comedy world, pulling strings, sharpening ideas and editing scripts and generally making stuff happen. 

Henry lived for many years in Brighton but has now relocated to Fairlight and is very much excited by what he calls the “unmanicured liveliness” of Hastings and St Leonards.  He has now retired from comedy and is largely focussed on his poetry. The launch of his latest collection of poems, The Fire Hills, is an early part of this year’s Hastings Book festival, with two performances at Hastings Library.

Henry’s poetry somehow manages to be comic and serious and a little sad, all at the same time. But there is also a vein of understated lyricism and even little drops of romanticism. Much of it is inspired by the landscape around Fairlight and Winchelsea, particularly the light and skies around the coastline. Henry loves to walk and his work is suffused with “late afternoon sun” and birds that “have plenty to say” and “thesea that doesn’t like being told where it can’t go” and clouds that “queue over Dover” and “northerlies chilling behind my eyes.”  

But if the lyricism is quietly beautiful, the keynote is probably the seeping dark humour that sort of spreads through everything. I particularly liked a poem entitled Zip it which tells you, over and over, to shut your gob in eleven verses:

Shut your trap, cut your crap
Curb your yap
And turn off that tap
Keep shtum, act dumb
Suck your thumb
Let your gums go numb

And on. I could venture to suggest Henry has been influenced by Milligan or Ogden Nash or John Cooper Clarke or even Stevie Smith but Henry Normal is above all just Henry. If you want to get a direct feeling for one person’s filtering of what it is to be simultaneously old, confused, elated and totally alive, read The Fire Hills. It is light, funny, wistful and almost throw-away, but it may just light a little something in your soul.  

Tickets may be available for Henry’s second performance at Hastings Library on March 1, go to www.hastingsbookfest.org. The Fire Hills is published by Flapjack Press. The Hastings book festival will begin in September, see details of events at the above address. 

JOHN R PARSONS

Old Roar Ghyll
its ancient slabs still shed
creation’s trickle

steep timber steps
rise and fall between glades
on the treacherous path

clinging to vertical sides
old oaks convey networks
of ivy into sky

how cleverly saplings
chafe and warble fake
human voices

pool side ferns
quiver above ripples
of pond skaters

fallen trees bridge
moss creased strata, bound
by sinews of root

well predating mankind
the Ghyll now holds
their broken furniture

By John R Parsons

letters
from people that I’ve never met
tucked in books, I carry their contents
to bed with me, having found them
on shelves in a bookcase where the corridor
bends and where I often pause on my way
at night, reluctant to turn in, names so
familiar now that I feel we’ve met, but
can fit no faces to, maybe we will meet
up in a dream, do they mysteriously hold
my name in some familiar corner of their
world, are we of the same age? Do we think
about similar things governing skylines or
creating strange noises in walls or hedgerows?
Do we see the same significance in the shapes
of stones or the twisted limbs of trees, or
attach an importance to the meanings of
certain arrangements of words, thoughts
and ideas? Do they get the same joy while
watching dawn sun rise behind a patch of
oaks to spread shimmering light through
its leaves, or even watching the translucent
full moon float over their ragged outlines,
or enjoy flocks of sparrows bathing below,
with lookouts dodging in and out of a hedge?
Bed covers now pulled up under the chin
I close my eyes to meet them in dreams,
where neither of us will recognise each other,
or even consider it worth asking, never
considering ordinary reality exists when there.

My ship’s
wake flows back to that moment
when anchor, first pulled with so little effort
lay there on the deck waiting until some
mooring was acknowledged as safe and
the relative skill had been acquired by that
writhing naked manikin to launch it
through gently heaving waves lapping
shallow shores snaking across dunes
of marram, yet am I those white
horses signifying the approach of flood tides,
the monsoons and tsunamis, all that froth
and spout, am I the reef and lagoon, the
fiord and inlet, the archipelago and
whirlpool, all jarring and flowing back
behind, the wake focussed on this point
of release, heading for that disembodied
line of sky and water, am I export, freight
or ferry, firmly moored against some final
jetty waiting that instant only launch will tell.

I sketched poets sporadically between chunky intervals. The mood was not one of overworking: audience and poets shared thoughts and take away pizzas on the curb outside Rustico. The event had the air of an away day, and I left topped up and healed by all these people who take the time to observe and present their meaning. There was no rush on any poet, but I will be wandering back to Hastings Bookshop on pay day.

Stephen Watts, poet and translator, has published seven books of poetry, most recently Twenty Four Hours. His work is like river flow, and you feel almost like a child running along a bankside to keep up with them.

James Goodwin’s debut Fleshed Out For All The Corners Of The Slip is published by the87press.
His work had this intense streaming quality, but a deeply packed language each sentence
feeding the next like an infinite mirror room. At least this is how it felt two beers in.

Londoner Eve Esfandiari-Denney draws on her Iranian/Roma roots, weaving Persia into her experiences of cancer and ‘cosy’ relationship with morphine: “I told my mother let them / push the needle in. That armada / of cancers inside her, building one more / hard yellow mountain. I hoped every 4am”. 

Hastings and Cambridge-based Lewis Todd’s work features aquatics centre observations with musings on the Bulgarian war. At times feeling like Morse codes from different worlds sneaking by each other, with moments of stand-up comedy. 

Jen Calleja is a Hastings British/Maltese writer who translates German. Her collection of poems –
I’m Afraid That’s All We’ve Got Time For, takes us on travels in the apprehensive liminal spaces of her work… all held together by a taut but warming wit. 

Leicester’s JJ Lucyszyn’s How do we live here? As obvious as swans. felt like a perfect end.
It touched on something so fundamental, almost like you never needed to read anything else.

By Lee Humphries

Next Thursday 21 July, award-winning partisan poet Matt Broomfield will visit Hastings’ St Mary in the Castle Café to perform work from his debut poetry collection. Brave little sternums: poems from Rojava was written in and about the remarkable women-led, direct-democratic revolution which is flourishing in Syrian Kurdistan.

You may have seen images of the ‘Kurdish women fighting ISIS’ who are the most visible icons of the revolution, or recall the devastating Turkish invasion and ethnic cleansing which followed the withdrawal of US troops in 2019. Broomfield witnessed and wrote about both of these conflicts.

As a professional writer and journalist, Broomfield’s role was to help co-found the Rojava Information Centre, the region’s top independent news and research source. Almost all the poems in the collection were written in and about his time and experiences in the revolution – as well as the two months he spent in detention in Greece. 

The poet told HIP: “I was fortunate to risk far less than many other local and foreign volunteers and to see the revolution from many sides, in many places, alongside many people. It was the most humbling, challenging and moving experience of my life.”

Kurdish-English translator David Shook says: “It’s clear that these poems were written on the ground, in community and conversation … an essential contribution to the literature of Rojava.”

Top Iraq war poet Brian Turner adds: “Beneath the cynic’s hard gaze is a deep and abiding love, one that arrives from the interior of history, one that speaks passionately about fundamental issues of justice and human dignity in verses so restless and disturbed the page can barely contain them.”

UK poet Anthony Anaxagorou simply says: “There hasn’t been a collection like this for years.” 

• Matt Broomfield will be performing at St Mary in the Castle Café, Hastings, at 6.30pm, alongside local poets Lucas Howard and Dee Howard, in association with Printed Matter Bookshop. £2 on the door, redeemable against any purchase of Brave little sternums’ or another book.

Literary Festival helps to fast-track new writers into print

One of the many successes of this year’s Hastings Literary Festival has been Dateline Hastings: 23-09-21, an event which brought together 12 Hastings LitFest competition winners to polish their stories and poems with the help
of experienced editors. Many writers wait years to see their work in print, but 12 authors and poets had a book
in their hands less than two days after finishing it at a special workshop.

The resulting anthology went off to the printers on the first day of the recent festival, and copies of the book were launched by leading playwright and Hastings Literary Festival patron Sir David Hare at a special event less than two days later. LitFest organisers ran a competition to find poetry, short stories and life writing based on current events from April 2021 onwards, and entries came in from throughout the UK as well as Europe and China. 

The writers of the 12 most promising pieces, including one who travelled from Germany, attended a workshop at St Mary in the Castle, Hastings. They worked with editors Christine Harmar-Brown, Antony Mair and Andrea Samuelson to get their work ready for print. Author, comic and spoken word poet Pete the Temp also gave his inspiration and encouragement to the participants on the day.

Eight of the finalists with Sir David Hare
CREDIT: Caitlin Lock for Hastings Literary Festival

Three of the finalists, Elizabeth Allen, Martin Rieser and Ryan Smith were chosen by the editors to receive a prize
of £100 each. 

Organiser Wayne Herbert says: “Our writers put in a hard day’s work and it got a little nail-biting at times, but they were excited about taking part in a unique project that reflects what they see around them right now.”

Details of how to buy copies of the Dateline Hastings: 23-09-21 anthology will be up on the Hastings Literary Festival website soon. The book cover was designed by local designer, Antonia Baker: antoniaulyana.myportfolio.com 

Christine Harmar-Brown is a writer and director and was head of development at La Plante Productions and script editor on Casualty. Antony Mair is the founder of Hastings Stanza group and has published three collections of poetry. He was longlisted for the Poetry Book Awards 2020. Andrea Samuelson’s short fiction and poetry has been published in literary magazines and she has won national competitions, most notably the Peterloo Prize.

People in Hastings and St Leonards are doing all sorts of things to keep occupied… one of the strangest, perhaps, is Greg’s Pandemic Plathcast. Ben Bruges asked Greg Mulhern the creator of the Plathcast and self-confessed Plath admirer – what is his ‘Plathcast’ about? 

 Sylvia Plath

‘Why do I stay at my ink-stained desk / From the dim grey dawn to the dusk of day? / Why do I linger in the loneliness of this bleak place / When I could be bathing in moonlight, stardust / Or the spilling gold of the sun?’ (from Neither Moonlight Nor Starlight, Sylvia Plath at 16, unpublished). 

Greg Mulhern, a teacher at the local college, has long had a fascination for Sylvia Plath, the American poet who moved to England, married Yorkshire poet Ted Hughes and, famously, committed suicide at 30. Greg’s ‘Plathcast’ is a weekly email of poetry, texts and art work from and about Sylvia Plath intended for parents and their children and anyone else who may be interested, and which he plans to develop into a podcast. 

But isn’t Plath a bit depressing for these pandemic times? Greg pushes back at the implication of my question: “Obviously the way that Plath died is tragic and there’s no avoiding that. But at the same time, she was an incredible poet; for me the most visceral, prescient and powerful poet of the 20th century. I feel that looking at her work from the perspective of her death is quite reductive. Plath was an addict of experience. She loved life.” 

Greg quotes the poet and critic Al Avarez, whose study The Savage God did a lot to promote Plath’s reputation: “There’s more life and liveliness and appetite in Plath’s writing about death than there is in the collected works of Phillip Larkin writing about what a bitch it is to be alive.” 

Greg finds Sylvia Plath inspirational in many ways, and hopes that the enthusiasm might rub off on other people. But is she really suitable for children? 

Greg explains that a thread of the Plathcast is aimed specifically at children. He’s looking at why poetry is important, as well as at introducing Plath and her life, including her early works. Plath’s earliest surviving poem comes from when she was five, being incredibly prolific and productive from a very early age and a talented artist as well as writer and poet. “Her early poems explore mythological creatures, the natural world and her friends and family. All of which are relevant subjects for people today.” 

Greg’s enthusiasm is catching: “One of the things you can say declaratively about Plath is that she was never bored. Even as a little girl she was drawing, writing, painting: she documented her life meticulously and so hopefully that enthusiasm she had for existence might rub off on other people.” 

It’s shocking that Plath’s early poems – about 50% of her output – remain unpublished and languish in dusty archives. As Greg says, “Considering her stature and the power of her work, I think this is bizarre, and frustrating.” In his ‘Pandemic Plathcast’ Greg dips into those dusty archives so you don’t have to. 

At 16 Plath answers the question from above: ‘I write only because / There’s a voice within me / That will not be still.’

• Send an email to gregspandemicplathcast@gmail.com if you wish to join
in with the celebration of Plath’s life and work.

Our Past, Our Future 25 new artworks, poems, videos, monologues and songs produced by local artists and amateur historians in response to characters, stories and events from Hastings’ America Ground. Our Past, Our Future was intended to be a collaborative, hands-on experience and we hoped our participants would take part in as many sessions as possible. It was funded by digital agency ‘The Space’ to create 15-25 simple digital pieces to add to our interactive history map, which can be found at www.smart-heritage.co.uk

Chris Thorpe-Tracey
PICTURE: Jon Pratty

A Derelict Chorale 12 original songs drawn from the early 19th century history of the America Ground, composed by Artist-in-Residence, Chris Thorpe-Tracey. Chris says “My challenge is to capture the weave and texture of the America Ground’s rise and fall. I want to create a set of musical works telling the stories of people here.” Watch videos and listen to audio podcasts of Chris in conversation, talking about his songs and the process of researching and collecting stories from the America Ground and turning them into musical pieces. Demo recordings of the songs that comprise A Derelict Chorale will be available to hear, remix, re-arrange and deconstruct. Four local artists, musicians and writers will be invited and commissioned to create responses to Chris’ work, to be showcased later in the year. Watch out for a pop-up performance of the new works in July.

Rock On Rock Fair Rosanna Lowe, writer and collector of stories, and archivist and writer, Julie Gidlow, are starting work on what they describe as a “Motley Musical of Raggle Taggle Folkery with Curious Characters, Rollicking Rides and heart-breaking, soul-shaking songs”. They’ll be inviting others to engage with the process of creating the work in a series of virtual workshops that we’ll be announcing soon. So, watch this space. Rosanna asks: “How do we celebrate, despite dark times, after or even through death and sickness? How do music song, dance and laughter heal?” 

Creative Salons 10 online masterclasses and conversations about creative, community and digital opportunities in Hastings today hosted by local artists and creatives including: writer, critic, composer and Artist-in-residence in the America Ground, Chris Thorpe-Tracey; games and music specialist, Kevin Grist; archivist and writer, Julie Gidlow; digital artist, Judith Ricketts; Hastings historian, session musician and software developer, Roy Penfold; visual artist and sculptor, Mary Hooper; writer, performer and director, Rosanna Lowe; writer, journalist and digital producer, Jon Pratty; and playwright and producer, Margaret Sheehy.

All new works will be hosted on the Smart Heritage Online Town Arts Map (smart-heritage.co.uk), some of the works will also be broadcast on Isolation Station (facebook.com/isolation.station.hastings). Dot Dash is supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

• Dot Dash starts on Wednesday 1st April with a podcast/Zoom session from the America Ground’s Artist-in-Residence, Chris Thorpe-Tracey in conversation with Jon Pratty.  Watch MSL online for the full programme as it develops. Twitter @MSLHastings and Instagram @msldigital.

This month Bakelas embarks on a short tour of the UK South-East and Hastings will be privileged to host an early evening visit from him as
special guest reader. This will be at the March edition of Sheer Poetry, our monthly local open mic session at Bookbusters independent bookshop in Queens Road, on Thursday 19th. It runs from 6pm-8pm although we often continue longer on these special guest nights as they are always such fun.

Tohm’s poems have appeared in numerous journals, zines, and online publications. He is the author of several chapbooks: Orphan Crows (Analog Submission Press, July 2018), Destroy My Wound (Budget Press, August 2018), In Living Rooms (Iron Lung Press, November 2018), Decaying Sun Under Noontime Rain (Analog Submission Press, February 2019), Vacation Poems (Medusa Publishing Press, June 2019), No Place To Be (Holy&intoxicated Publications, December 2019), Cheap Booze and Shitty Poems (Analog Submission Press, January 2020 split with Martin Appleby), and Even the Spiders are Despondent (death of workers whilst building skyscrapers, March 2020). His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and he intends to conquer the small press and exclusively publish within.

Tohm will be joined by Hastings performance poet and independent underground publisher Martin Appleby, who founded and edits local litzine Paper & ink. Signed chapbooks will be available too. As usual, all are welcome to come and read or simply soak up the vibes. It’s £2 on the door with some complimentary wine thrown in.

Bakelas and Appleby also have a reading on Wednesday 18th March at Piecaramba, 41 Meeting House Lane, Brighton BN1 1HB from 8pm-10.30pm. Then another reading in London on 21st March (venue TBC) which is a Death of Workers Whilst Building Skyscrapers Press launch event.

• For more information about Tohm Bakelas visit tohmbakelaspoetry.wordpress.com  or following him on Instagram: @flexyourhead or contact him via  email tohm.bakelas@gmail.com
• paperandinkzine.co.uk 

Instagram: @paperandinkzine

Unfortunately, due to coronavirus restrictions, US poet Tohm Bakelas is now unable to headline Sheer Poetry on March 19th. We hope the event will go ahead in an alternative form. Search Bookbusters for up to date information – Pete Donohue, HIP Lit Ed.

Entries can be poems (of at least 120 words) or articles/stories (of at least 350 words), or even a match report – but they must all be related to cricket. The club is mad about cricket and hopes to encourage others to share their enthusiasm in words. 

Frankie with Mr Peek

Local father and poet, Tony Peek (professionally known as Mr Peek) has joined forces with the club to support their Cricket Writing Competition. “Getting children to write creatively is the way forward,” he says. Talking about how it comes in many forms, he says: “There’s no wrong or right way about poetry; that’s the beauty of it. Just get writing.” And not only that, you can “keep poetry to yourself or you can share it”. 

One young club cricketer and Mr Peek fan took him at his word. Frankie found an opportunity to knock on his door and not only got him to autograph two of his books (received as Christmas presents) but also chatted with him about which poems were her favourites – a memorable experience for a budding poet and cricketer.

Volunteer Nicole Barrett says: “Seeing local organisations, businesses and individuals rally to support our literacy efforts is truly inspirational. Taking part in any sport and writing poetry is not something children need to choose between.”

She says that sport offers many current and future career opportunities for girls and boys alike with more opportunities for all than ever before: “This is the time to get writing, get involved with cricket and enter our competition.” The closing date is 31st March.

A final word from Mr Peek:

Why not write a poem that
Can make somebody smile?
Or one that makes them think a bit
For just a little while?
Or why not write a story
From whatever’s in your head?
Or write a silly word or two
About something that you’ve read.

Where do you want to go today?
What do you want to do?
That was it from me this time, 
The rest is up to you.

• For more information about the competition visit www.hastingspriory.com/writing-competition

• Or more information about Mr Peek on mrpeekspoetryplace.co.uk

Hastings poet Lucas Howard has launched a crowdfunding campaign for his debut collection Of Few Words. A veteran performer and designer by trade, Lucas’ book combines his twin passions in a stunningly illustrated coffee table book. To fund this, a pre-order campaign has been set up with Margate-based publisher Whisky & Beards Publishing, with a target of £850.

Lucas has made huge contributions to the spoken word community over the last 15 years, from organising gigs like Hastings’ Slam Dunk to offering mentorship and networking opportunities to emerging artists, but poetry has also helped him on a more personal level. Poetry hasn’t come easily to Lucas, dealing with dyslexia and the related anxiety.“I have always found it impossible to read a whole page of a book without there being a visual element of some kind. When my brain sees a body of text, it just switches off. It’s my wish to make a book of poetry for people like me,” explains Lucas.

Pre-order packages planned range from £4.99 for the e-book to £100 for a private performance with Lucas. 

• www.whiskyandbeards.co.uk/product/pre-order-lucas-howard-of-few-words

• www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfcgJzB4kmU

• www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUH-4rIyWOM 

three poets 1
East London Press 2019, £6 + p&p (SOLD OUT)

Punk Croc
Analog Submission Press 2019, £4 + p&p 

Hastings poet and local litzine producer Martin Appleby describes himself as punk, scumbag and cider drinker. All of these may well be true but there is much more to the man than that. 2019 has seen Appleby blossom (excuse the dreadful pun) into a writer able to expand experience beyond the personal and root it in universal themes relevant to ordinary modern UK living. He has also found the confidence to travel his ideas and make a mark in today’s spoken word performance scene, most notably at the Manchester Punk Festival.

Appleby’s work, like so many other outlaw poets, is raw, relevant and up to date. Of course, there are references to past experiences, as even the here and now of creative expression is always influenced by the author’s own history. In his latest published works Appleby shares personal experience and feelings with splashes of comment on society. There is humour too and the reader is often left with a feel for Appleby’s own confusions along with his sense of wonder at the world around him. 

Respair, 14 new poems published by local small press Holy&
intoxicated, delivers all we have come to expect from this poet, and more. Many of the works here are soaked in alcohol and scarred by troubled relationships. A recurring theme is the acknowledgement of his need to move on towards new realities and avoid wallowing in poetic escapism.  There is an underlying maturity evident, both in the work and perhaps Appleby himself. ‘Fuck It’, ‘You’re My Everything’, and ‘First World Problems II’ are all examples of this. 

Of the poems here that lean more towards social commentary, ‘I Don’t Have…’ and ‘What A time To Be Alive’ show awareness without condescension but also acknowledge our own responsibilities as contributors to a messed-up world. Appleby’s rhythms flow well, even when the subject matter may be potentially jarring or stilted. The rest of this bunch focus mostly on lost loves and alcohol struggles, subjects Appleby has tackled previously. ‘Respair’, the title poem, taken from an archaic word meaning fresh hope or recovery from despair, balances personal insight with real life conflict – ‘The best laid schemes…’ etc.

three poets 1 is the first of a beautifully presented limited edition series from East London Press, every copy hand-stitched with black thread. Gwil J Thomas, Ford Dagenham and Martin Appleby have five poems each. Appleby’s opener here, ‘Drinking Cider In A Park At 8am With Roots Manuva’, describes a chance encounter with the celebrated rapper and music producer, whereby he realises that sometimes we are all ‘…facing the same problems…’ no matter who we are.

Reading on, we have a repeat of ‘You’re My Everything’ from Respair and then three further new works. ‘Small Talk’ speaks to the conflict between relating to a stunted meaningless humanity and seeing any humanity disappear altogether. ‘Ex’ finds sensitive humour in mental illness, addiction and sex. ‘Constipated’ addresses writers’ block, a popular obsession for many poets and authors, and the sometimes ridiculousness of creative over-ambition in the real world.

Punk Croc is Appleby’s latest chapbook – published this week by Marc Brüseke’s popular and expansive York-based small press, Analog Submission – showcasing 13 more of his most recent works. Here he fights his corner as a champion for DIY ‘punk’ culture as an alternative to mainstream messages, with poems like: ‘War On Trump’, ‘Feeling personally Attacked…’ and ‘Always Be A Scumbag.’ 

The title poem ‘Punk Croc’ suggests how noticing the unremarkable of everyday living can suddenly mesmerise us and for a brief moment release us from the ills of the world. ‘Heroin And Tea’ juxtaposes two very different human rituals to point out a connection between cooking up a fix and brewing a cuppa. ‘Crush’ finds Appleby embarrassed at his first attempt at poetry as a naive and over-sentimental teenager, telling us this now informs his current style of ‘…a direct , to the point, kick your teeth down your throat kind of deal…’

three poets 1 sold out almost immediately but there are still a few copies of Respair and Punk Croc available. If you want to see how a local performance poet has progressed, I’d recommend them.

• Respair can be ordered through www.paperandinkzine.co.uk
• Punk Croc can be ordered at www.analogsubmission.com
• PaperAndInkZine can be found on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram 

One foot on the sod/one foot in the foam
PICTURE: Caro Gervay

‘I found under my feet/Mountains reduced to a speck of dust’ *

These tiny pots encapsulate a vast arc of time: each stands next to a clench of the clay from which it was made and contains, like a funerary urn, the charcoal dust of its birth. They recall the history of lost civilisations, lost landscapes. Martin is a renowned expert in outdoor kilns, well versed in the craft and chemistry of ceramics, in geology, in the land. He has worked for years as a teacher and in the serious/playful genre of community theatre. Many of the dramas recalled lost rituals celebrating the seasons, or rites of initiation, but were overcast by memories of Chernobyl and Sellafield. In one event people made clay bees that were fired during a performance and went home with a hot bee in their pockets.

‘A very few sentinels’*

He uses the clay without sifting out the shells or stones which cause cracks and break-outs in the firing. This creates the illusion of ancient ceramics long buried, an aesthetic of vulnerability and honours the clay for itself. Like the wabi-sabi of Bizen pottery, it calls attention to the beauty of form. It’s used too in bowls made from moulds from the Spode factory. Martin discovered an abandoned room at the factory dustily awash with detritus, ten year old cigarette stubs and piles of moulds. By combining his technique with shapes created at the height of Spode’s sophistication, he honours the ceramics industry and mourns its loss. The bowls take their place in his timeline; their ragged texture, the clean basket weave pattern on the outside, recall the first pots, the first decorative motifs.

‘Small events in time’ *

Each pot or bowl has a complex story involving the history of the community, the landscape and the happenstance which brought the artist and these elements together. Each is stamped with the name of the place it was made and the date. Each is a Morandi moment across the centuries, while the whole is infused with the invisible smoke of environmental disasters alluded to in Martin’s poem ‘Claylands’, in which the events cling to a leaf skeleton of words: oxidisation, carbon, mineral – like a recipe, a ‘recipe for disaster.’

There is a poetic imagination at work here, conscious, articulate and tender.

‘Venus of the Woods/Slowly died in front of us’ *

The hand-made silver gelatine prints are made at the Gate darkroom, a community darkroom based in Woolwich co-run by French-Vietnamese photographer Carô Gervay. Her photos have an ineffable delicacy of touch and weave a mute dance with the imagery of the poem and the pots: the fragility and the violence. Smoke rises from the kiln on deserted sands and in ancient glades; a white shaft of sun burns the last dying ash trees; a negative print looks like an image of a nuclear after-shock. In a photo called ‘Catching the leaves before they reach the undergrowth’, shadows of children lie on the forest floor like wood sprites or future ghosts. It arcs from the primordial to a future we are making slender attempts to avert. It mirrors the nature of clay: primordial mud, the alchemical prima materia from which life comes and to which it can all too easily return. 

Three photos ‘Neither Sea nor land’, show Martin firing pots as the mounting tide laps his ankles. They are a parody of a seaside postcard, but hint at global warming and at Martin’s message: ‘Know where you stand’. Like Martin, Caro too uses the most basic equipment, at times a pin hole camera from whatever comes to hand: a cardboard box, a beer can.                 

Brick Lane Kiln. Hidden in Amber Cup/Blood/Red. 
Fired under a red moon
PICTURE: Caro Gervay

Pandora’s box

For both artists the show is a caught moment within the flow of their practice. By using the simplest techniques they make their ideas and processes something which can be shared in the community, making connections, creating a process of reparation which is mirrored in the subtle interrelations of the exhibits. 

The curating of the show by Kenton Lowe is impeccable. Limiting the number of exhibits, keeping text to a minimum, these were tough decisions, but they create a sacred space in which the pieces can speak for themselves. 

Some of his frames are washed with clay which changes colour over time and the exhibits seem just to alight on his floating bark-fronted shelves. It’s a recognition of the seriousness of the project, its philosophy, humour, its lack of egotism, its delicacy.

There is passion and scrupulousness in every aspect of this show and it expresses those powerful invisibles which give life meaning, and give artefacts life and beauty. It is a not-for-profit show. I don’t need to explain just how significant that is. 

* These are quotes from the poem ‘Claylands’ by Martin Brockman. The show is on till 20th July and you can find out more at: theblackshedgallery.org.uk

Review by Pete Donohue

Widely published Hastings poet John D Robinson has at least eight chapbooks to his name (that I know of) and has featured in hundreds of print litzines, anthologies and underground online vehicles both here and abroad over recent years. His latest book is a full collection from Uncollected Press based in Maryland USA.

There’s everything to like about this just-published collection. For a start you get a full ninety-nine poems – and I mean decent length carefully crafted works, not simple four or eight-liners inconsiderately scribbled. Although, ironically, the poem that pierced my soul the most is the shortest one. More on that later. 

HIS PORTRAYAL OF LIVES LIVED TO THE FULL WITHIN THEIR OWN BOUNDARIES OF CIRCUMSTANCE AND OPPORTUNITY IS ALWAYS RELATED SENSITIVELY AND WITHOUT JUDGEMENT 

Robinson writes about real characters within his true environment. If you’re familiar with the street life of Hastings & St Leonards you may even recognise some of his inspirations – and respect that fine balance between the tragedies and joys of life that he documents so well. There is no blatant identification of human subjects here, however, and his portrayal of lives lived to the full within their own boundaries of circumstance and opportunity is always related sensitively and without judgement, demonstrating an empathy that can often only come through shared experience. 

Often writing about those with addictions, past or present, this poet sometimes alludes to his own. In ‘Poetry Free’ he gives an honest account of how even the act of creativity itself can drift into the realms of addictive behaviour. In a concentrated attempt to jump from that runaway train that is his inability to take a break from writing, he finds himself failing miserably. Any serious poet or passionate creative will surely identify with the power of such inherent motivation and drive, and how it can start to take over one’s life, often at the expense of other activities and interests. The bonus you get with Robinson’s prolific output is that any of it that makes it onto the printed page is good stuff, all the chaff having been discarded with careful discernment along the way.

A POEM WITH THE NAME ‘A MOTHER’S RESPONSE TO HER DAUGHTER AFTER AN ALLEGATION OF SEXUAL ABUSE’ IS NEVER GOING TO BE AN EASY READ

Robinson tackles all the themes you would expect from an underground and outlaw poet who lives the life. It’s not simply sex and drugs and rock and roll, but the awkwardness of sexual encounters, the desperation of drug dependence and the rocking and rolling of uncertain and chaotic lifestyles. His own sensitive humility comes through no matter what he writes about and in the poem ‘Her Eyes’ he almost seems to be writing about his own writing:

“The fluidity of language softens and crumples like brittle cardboard,”

This underlying vulnerability within the words themselves is present throughout much of Robinson’s poetry, adding touches of beauty to his descriptions of tragedy and enhancing his own style of rawbleed realism. Whether any particular poem be a truly documented account or a combination of experience, observation and imagination, Robinson makes each one work. All his poetry makes you think. Sometimes it knocks you sideways.

A poem with the name ‘A Mother’s Response To Her Daughter After An Allegation Of Sexual Abuse’ is never going to be an easy read. This is the short poem I referred to above. Here, in five concise and simple lines, Robinson encapsulates one of the shocking institutionalised attitudes that lie at the heart of our society’s dysfunction. It’s a dirty business when the world doesn’t seem to care about the plight of the vulnerable, marginalised and manipulated. One of the functions of literature, and in particular poetry, is to address such terrible wrongs. Robinson excels at this. Hang in There is not just a poetry collection title but also a mantra by which to live our own lives.

• John D Robinson will be giving a rare public reading at Bookbusters for the next Sheer Poetry night, Thursday 20 June 6pm, and signing copies of the First Edition (a limited run of 100 copies) of Hang in There.

• If you can’t make this you can order Hang in There for £12 plus p&p through Paypal: johndrobinson@yahoo.co.uk

On Thursday, February 28th at the Hastings Printworks, Slam Dunk poetry returned – back on the scene after a five month hiatus. Its new format places one feature poet on either side of the central slam competition (like a sandwich) but otherwise the event is unchanged. Anybody can participate with any form of poetic performance they like – the only rule being that whatever you deliver has to be your own words.  

Starting off the evening was local musician and poet Oli Spleen, performing a melange of spoken word poetry and songs off his new album “Gaslight Illuminations” (available now), all wonderfully dark; his delivery tinged with humour; inspired by his own, devastating experiences, giving the poems a deeper, more chilling tone. Spleen told us that the death of his father was the catalyst for the album, and songs such as the emotive and lyrical “Almost Young” explore this theme, flowing excellently whilst communicating his despondency and regret. Spleen’s performances and delivery, whilst dark, depressing, and gritty were continuously accompanied by jokes and humour, which balanced his act wonderfully. 

After this introduction came the competition of local slam poets, compered by Lucas Howard. Lucas kicked things off with the wonderfully funny, memorable, rolling slam poem entitled “Hastings”, starting off the set brilliantly. The following hour or so of original poems ranged from the deep, dark and thought provoking to the funny, zany, and more light hearted verses – this contrast meant each act seemed fresh and new – no two styles of performing were the same. The intimacy of the setting made the poems seem more personal and direct. At one point we were even treated with an impromptu beatboxing performance to accompany a freestyling spoken word artist who couldn’t play his backing track. It was this relaxed nature of the event that made it so accessible, making the reading of the poems a far more individual experience; each poet’s intentions were made very clear to every member of the audience. 

However the undoubtable climax of the evening (after Michael was announced as the slam winner) was the outstanding birthday performance by slam poet Sadie Davidson. Davidson is an ex-stripper and ex-addict, drawing inspiration from these experiences for her writing, but above all she is a phenomenal poet and performer. Her stage presence alone was sizzling with dramatic tension. She said not one word that lacked energy, performing veritable works of art, infinitely varied, lyrical, witty, clever, and throwing out hard-hitting word after hard-hitting word, barely giving the audience time to register what they’d heard before plunging us in at the deep end again with more brilliant poetry. She performed a mixture of older works and poems from her upcoming anthology “The Poverty Guide Handbook” which is available now for pre-order.

• Slam Dunk Poetry holds regular events at Hastings Printworks, admission is usually £7 on the door www.facebook.com/slamdunkpoetry/

• Listen to Oli Spleen’s album for free and buy through bandcamp to give him more money https://olispleen.bandcamp.com 

•  Check out Sadie Davidson and pre-order the Poverty Guide Handbook on her website sadiedavidsonpoet.com

Hare spoke affectionately of his birth in St Leonards in 1947, his early life in Dane Road, and his fifties upbringing in Bexhill-on-Sea. Hastings & St Leonards, along with Bexhill, felt like ‘cultural deserts’ in those days, he told the audience, but “the less interesting a place is, the more you want to use your imagination.” That premise certainly seems to have worked for this long-time internationally respected playwright, screenwriter and director.

“Great writers turn a beam on the uninteresting and make the ordinary interesting”, we heard, as Hare talked about his most recent TV drama, Collateral, which broke viewing figures on BBC2 earlier this year. “It’s a series about people living on the margins and seeking to subsist – everybody is equally interesting.” With over thirty plays and more than twenty-five films for television and cinema under his belt, this writer is clearly interested in everything and everyone, and I would definitely class him as ‘great’ by his own definition. When he divulged that his new play opening at the National Theatre in October features a scene set in our own Warrior Square, the audience let out a cheer. Any of us living locally will know that Warrior Square is always interesting.

A further coup for Hastings LitFest, apart from premiering Hare’s poetry, was to hear it read by the elegantly imposing figure of prolific and eclectic film actor, Julian Sands. A close friend of Hare’s, Sands began by explaining the intimacy of these poems. We had already heard from Hare himself how for years he never shared them, but to celebrate his seventieth birthday he commissioned a private printed edition for family and friends. Sands explained that the work was dedicated to, and mainly inspired by, Hare’s wife of twenty-six years, the fashion designer and sculptor, Nicole Farhi.

The poetry instantly filled the theatre – a 700-seater Grade II-listed church, if you don’t already know – beginning with a journey south through France evoking both self-insight and new insights into the one you have, or will, come to love. A further poem describes self-criticism and a world around the writer feeling like ‘a slum of injustice’. There are more paeans to Nicole, and the idea of fatalism – when we know from a first meeting that this person will help form our future life – is beautifully expressed.

Julian Sands reads David Hare
PICTURE: PETE DONOHUE

As Julian Sands continued reading, his delivery became fittingly more emotive. We heard of Hare’s Freudian reflections, self-deprecation and self-questioning of ‘a personality I’ve never quite been able to trust.’ But this love story with observing the ordinary to make it interesting, writing it all down to share with the world, and, of course, with his wife and soul partner; resolves itself through these words of Sir David Hare’s poetry: “Mr Do-Everything-Wrong is about to become Mr-Do-Something-Right.”

What a treat to hear such a celebrated writer of other’s stories bare his soul and share his own story. As we frequently say on the Dirty South Coast: Only in Hastings!

We hope you have enjoyed reading this article. The future of our volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.

One of many collections Robinson has released so far this year is The Pursuit of Shadows, this one published by Yorkshire-based Analog Submission Press. Its nine poems run to twenty pages in a handmade staple-bound chapbook edition of twenty-five hand-numbered copies, with cover artwork by Janne Karlsson. The publisher’s website adds the detail: ‘Printed on an old Canon laser printer we found abandoned at a dump site.’ This is truly poetry for poetry’s sake.

The works in this collection echo an empathy for the attachment of those struggling with addiction to their own ‘works’ – if you understand the world of street drinking and substance misuse you’ll get what I mean. Robinson finds the beauty in those who are often marginalised or ignored within our divided society, whilst not afraid to spell
out the degradation and desperation that many of its citizens have to endure.

Some of the poems suggest a personal emotional involvement from the author, others experiential observation (check out Aware Theory if this phrase interests you). Most seem to me like a combination of both, but it’s up to each individual reader to unpick Robinson’s weave and sew their own life experience into the fabric. Whichever way you interpret the material, The Pursuit of Shadows is real and pure poetry.

I have number 07/25 but I had to buy my copy, at a well-worth-it £3 plus £2 postage – no such thing as a free review copy with these precious babies! Needless to say, it sold out soon after publication but that doesn’t necessarily preclude a review.

• For more information visit analogsubmission.com

• If any underground poetry fans want to hear the poems, contact me on literature@hastingsindependentpress.co.uk and I’ll find a way. Maybe a reading by me
(I know John D Robinson won’t read in public) at a local poetry event, or persuading him to allow HIP to print one or more of his poems in Poetry Corner. Let’s hope so.

local media gets hip

PETE DONOHUE
the day local media got hip
was born out of disillusion
with what a small group of us saw
as blatant misrepresentation
of tight-knit community cohesion
in a town of creative compassion
which vultures of mainstream media
sensationalised as is the fashion
with bad news & fatuous conjecture
trivia & cultural chasms
til a one-sided story too far
spurred our hip heroes into action
let’s start up our own newspaper
what could we possibly lose
only our own time & money
& we’ve already lit the fuse
so a gathering soon came about
in the hub of a pub called the tub
where plans were discussed & agreed
in a sharing of tears sweat & blood
we knew little of media production
business layout design
distribution & adverts
we would learn all that stuff over time
the important thing is the message
speaking out for the real hastings
in a way that is true to the town
inclusive honest ground-breaking
so we started with sixteen pages
funded by friends & well-wishers
we wrote & we took some pictures
found ourselves a printers
our skills were naïve & nascent
but we laid our hearts on the line
took advice where we could find it
taught ourselves indesign
when the first issue hit the streets
it was immediately well received
inspiring new volunteers
to a press that the public believed
pagination is now twenty-four
with community-driven news
all-inclusive local culture
& a range of political views
volunteers come & go
we have no editor-in-chief
just a dedicated band of newshounds
with ambition passion belief
we celebrate issue one hundred
& our four & a half year trip
with the joy of collective achievement
now that local media is hip.

We hope you have enjoyed reading this article from Hastings Independent. The future of this volunteer led, non-profit publication would be far more secure with the aid of a small donation. It only takes a minute and we would be very grateful.

connelley’s noir

Pete Donohue Twitter: @petedonohuepoet

wry raw restless & risky just how i like my
women & whiskey
die poor feckless & frisky leave your heart in san franciski.

Stereotypically British or Let’s do Brexit Sometime

Patrick Carabine

Welsh folk can sing,
black folk can dance
and all of the serious
art is in France

But we here in Blighty
are tall strong and mighty
and never turn up
in the incorrect pants

The French
they have Paris
but call it  Paree
so typical really
of Les Grenouilles

and on ancient Olympus
The Greeks, without shame
gave a spear to a nudist
and called it a game

The British however
are whip-smart and clever
We button our lips
and we never say never

Our discreet interventions
in foreign conventions
are always specific
but never direct.
Our order’s maintained
by the natives we trained
and forever determined
by whom we have pecked

We have buggered them all
and as buggery goes, this is
buggery writ
in Shakespearean prose As
they all wait their turn to
catch fire, crash and burn
those are matters entirely
beyond our concern

by Miranda Gavin

Have you got an original act you want to perform, new writing to showcase, a story to tell, poetry to slam, or music to share?

Join us for the first call out for this year’s fringe festival. Hastings Fringe is friendly, informal and inclusive, so show us what you’ve got.

Now in its third year, Hastings Fringe Festival 2017 will be taking place over three weekends in September in venues throughout Hastings. This year the festival will build on the success of the last two years to showcase both local and national talent.

To take part, go to the Hastings Fringe website about  section, www.hastingsfringe.co.uk/takepartt download the registration form and bring it with you, or fill one in on the day. Be ready to give us a two-minute taster of your performance, so that we can think about the best venue for your work. Otherwise,   this is your chance to talk about your act and talk through your ideas.

The First Call Out for performers is at the Owl and Pussycat Lounge (www.theowlandpussycatlounge.co.uk) from 2-4pm on Saturday 28 January.

NOTE: This venue is located up a few flights of stairs and is not wheelchair friendly, so if you need help with mobility then let us know and we can put your name down for the second call out, which will be in a suitable venue.

We will be accepting a broad range of quality original material, but we will have limited slots for acts so get there early and give us a taster.

• If you have any questions, get in touch. For any enquiries email: hastingsfringe@gmail.com

Owl & Pussycat Lounge,

14 Robertson Street, Hastings, For more about Hastings Fringe visit: www.hastingsfringe.co.uk

 There was a spellbinding treat, for children and adults alike, at the Stables, when Brian Moses, the popular children’s poet, teamed up with Ed Boxall. Boxall is a highly accomplished illustrator and poet, an excellent guitarist and singer. He designs, illustrates and self-publishes his poetry books..a true Renaissance man!

He opened the show, asking the audience to: “help me out by making sound effects”, this included moaning, hysterical laughter and the sound of zip wire.!.The full auditorium responded enthusiastically.

Boxall says that his poems often “celebrate friendships, friendships that can transcend cosmetic differences” and the poems, ‘Knock on the Door‘ and ‘Me and My Alien Friend’ exemplified this perfectly. This was followed by: ’Under The Bed’, where there is a pile of old clothes, toenail clippings, rotten clothes and “gossiping old socks complain, about the great tidy up that will soon come again! ”

Boxall can be reflective: “in the broadest sense, it’s about stopping for a moment and getting off the hurtling speed of life, pausing with yourself and all the possibilities of the universe”

The highlight of Boxall’s programme, was when he sat in the centre of the stage, with his “low tech magic lantern show”, projecting marvellous illustrations on the back wall, to his soulful poem “the dolphins keep me safe in my dreams”:

Brian Moses, the popular children’s poet, whose latest book, Lost Magic, is a collection of his favourite one hundred poems was next. Ed immediately set a different, darker tone, chanting a poem about a bully, returning to terrorize his school. Brian banged out an insistent heartbeat,on his hand drum, chanting “he’s coming back, he’s coming back, he’s coming back!”

Moses then tells his thrilled audience:”two of the most important words for a writer are: “what if?

“I had a ‘what if’ moment with my own personal shopping trolley: “never say sorry, never say please, when you run the trolley into the back of peoples knees!”

As well as the ghostly, scary poems, he performs playful poems, like the rap song,’ I want to release the hidden monkey in me’ when he had the entire audience singing gleefully,”I wanna go ape!” Then there are teasing poems,”does anybody like kissing? If you don’t like it now, you will soon!”

While everyone is catching their breath, Moses playfully asks,”can I do the really scary one now?” His drums introduce us to his famous ssssssnake hotel! All the children delightfully chant ssssssnake hotel, while Brian clambers amongst them with his drum, frightening as many people as he can!

Brian’s moving Lost Magic poem, laments a beauty that has been destroyed: “today I found some lost magic, a twisted horn of a unicorn lying at my feet…..I remembered that you could always find unicorns, but there are none now. They would lead you through forests, and if you lost them, or they lost you, you could always find them again, but there are no more unicorns.”

He continues this theme with the moving poem ” Names”.

My name is ‘I couldn’t care less’, I can’t be bothered. Who cares about holes in the sky.?

My name is I am too busy, even if the ice caps are melting…. Stop telling me what to think.

Just listen, or you will be sorry”.

They finish with an upbeat musical version of’ taking an iguana for a walk’, along the beach, on the end of a leash, with an enthusiastic audience singing the chorus and bouncing happily in their seats !

This show was certainly a rare gem of lost magic!

For future shows and workshops:

www.brianmoses.co.ukk

www.edboxall.co.uk

Dave Hempshall

 Written while co-facilitating

Poetry for Recovery course

for Hastings Recovery College

www.sussexrecoverycollege.org.uk/

Pebbles of life move.

Shifting brown and grey.

Gulls transcend, lifting, preying

Struck dumb by growling wind.

The sinking sun creates

Zinc light.

Jet surf contrasting

Forbidden, inviting.

Pebbles of life move.

Crunching, crushing.

Hiss, broiling.

White mares urgent

Crashing, pulling

Shhh-shh.

Pebbles of life move.

LIFE STORY

Carole Segal

It’s only a story

So don’t get upset

It’s only a story

It’s not over yet

It’s only a story

It’s not what it seems

It’s only a story

It’s only a dream

It’s only a story

It’s yours to re-write

You’ll get some of it wrong

You’ll get some of it right

It’s only a story

Whatever you feel

It’s only a story

It isn’t that real

Just one little story

Close the book, then

Put it back on the shelf

You won’t see it again

Just one amongst many

It’s huge and it’s small

It’s only a story

One story, that’s all