Excitingly, I’ve been asked by Jacob Sam-La Rose to do a ten minute set at the event that he is curating on Sunday at Rich Mix.
Rich Mix has been running a number of youth takeover events and this poetry evening is just one exciting event in the programme.
Come and check it out if you can!
So I’m really glad that I got the chance to be super silly with some of the most amazing people that I know. It’s always such a privilege to share a stage with any of them and the Walthamstow Garden Party was no exception.
The Barbican Young Poets has been such an important part of my life for the last two years and to see the project expand to include incredibly talented poets aged just 11-14 is remarkable.
The bravery that these young poets showed, covering topics including depression, self-harm, genocide and even one girl whose poem was a glorious coming out makes me very optimistic for the future. I would love to have had a thimbleful of their confidence at that age.
Exciting stuff in the week ahead, including a performance at the Tate Modern on Saturday and having a recording done for the Wellcome Trust played at Southbank Centre on Sunday.
A big, big thank you especially to Shruti Iyer and Sunayana Bharghava for working with me on a group piece – was great to start a show with the pair of you and I look forward to doing it again sometime.
It was such a surreal place to perform, having people coming up to me afterwards and congratulate me and even one woman who stopped me in the street as I walked back to the tube station. The feeling of being recognised was an unusual one though admittedly I had worn a bright yellow t-shirt for the express purpose of being memorable…
So tomorrow is quite an exciting and terrifying day. I’ll be performing at Walthamstow Garden Party at various point throughout the day, both on my own and with others.
From 12:20-2:30 you can check me and the fantastic Barbican Junior Poets out in the Earthly Paradise Tent, along with Toni Stuart, Malika Booker and a selection of other Barbican Young Poets. This one is going to be really special.
Then, at 3pm, I will have a 15 minute slot in Artillery Island.
Would be great to see some people down there – it’s a free event!
To my mind, this is my best poem. Happy to be contradicted though.
This is a poem based on my nana and stories that I’ve read about growing up in Ireland.
This is from a performance with my collective, Burn After Reading. We run a regular night at 7 Dials Club in Covent Garden on the first Tuesday of every month.
I’ll be posting vids from my performances over the next few days.
So, it looks like summer is shaping up to be a good ‘un.
Just received confirmation that I’ll be performing at Walthamstow Garden Party this July!
I shall be performing a group piece with some of the other Barbican Young Poets and sharing the stage with the new Barbican Junior Poets. Exciting thing to be a part of so if you’re in the area then please do come and check us out!
I found out about this accidentally so it would be remiss of me not to pass on the news.
This is an intriguing new project that sees 9 creatives from different backgrounds coming together under the watchful eye of Alexander James.
So NaPoWriMo has come to an end. I would say this has been pretty successful, lots of fun ideas were explored and I’ve got the seeds of some potentially great material. Some of my pieces have been stronger than others but that was sort of what I expected from writing a poem a day. I’m not sure I could keep at this much longer (though saying that, it’s never really taken up a huge amount of time) but I will definitely endeavour to post a blog exclusive poem as much as makes sense. Silly competition rules count something being up here as being published.
I’m going to do a full write up over the weekend so for now, enjoy the last of my NaPoWriMo 2015 poems!
The song list was all picked out,
music to remember me by
chosen for its rarity.
It wouldn’t do to have you breaking
down at discos,
ceasing as the glitter ball keeps spinning
and wishing it would throw you off
like tear-blurred scatterings of light.
A flower, found tenacious in a dark room,
pale and in wait of light to turn towards.
Cameron Holleran 