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Our May Event – love, empowerment, and solidarity
You’re welcome at our next event!
Hello lovely folks of the Verse Matters community!
We’re delighted our next event is on Thursday 3rd May 2018, 7.30pm-10pm at Theatre Delicatessen, 202 Eyre Street, S1 4QZ
We have an absolutely cracking line up to rouse, inspire and soothe us.
We have fantastical featured sets from FR Kesby, Hannah Davies – Writer / Spoken Word, Sarala S Oul, and FIONA
The open mic will be a treat too, with powerful words from Michéle Beck, Angela Lin, Noah and M.C.B Fionn Mccloskey.
People from all walks of life are welcome at our events ♥ ♥
We will be collecting food/ sanitary products for the S2 Food Bank as always.
Cost: Pay what you can (suggested donation £4)
Verse Matters is an inclusive feminist arts event which provides a supportive space for people to share their work, showcasing poetry, stories and music in a friendly environment.
Some of our performers tell stories that are marginalised by society: refugees, detainees, prisoners. Others speak in public for the first time. Others are experienced poets, dramatists and performers. All are respected and appreciated.
If you have any questions, you can contact us via Facebook or email verse.matters@gmail.com.
We look forward to welcoming you to Verse Matters!
Rehearse the Verse returns
After the success of our first Rehearse the Verse.. we’re excited for another installment of this ‘scratch club’ style performance workshop. We see the workshops as a vital part of supporting people who may feel like the stage is not for them for whatever reason. We hope you’ll join us to build a supportive, feminist spoken word community.
For more info, check out our Facebook event https://www.facebook.com/events/2006859769635767/
SheFest 2018
What a festival it’s been! Thank you SheFest for allowing us to be part of it once again!
Thank you to all the performers for sharing your truth with us. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for the love.
Always blown away by our amazing loving caring community. What a space we created. We would be nothing without you.
Love, light, and solidarity.
See you on the 3rd May for more love!
Meanwhile – our workshop Rehearse the Verse is back on Sunday 8th April. More info real soon, watch this space.
x
SheFest Collaboration
We’re super excited to be back on Wednesday 7th March 2018, 7.30pm-10pm at the Theatre Delicatessen in collaboration with SheFest Sheffield for International Women’s Day.
This is set to be full of powerful feminism and strength. Featured sets from: Fran Lock (London), Sarah Dixon (Huddersfield), Dan Webber (East Midlands), and Khadijah Ibrahiim (Leeds).
Camille McCawley, Carly Mountain, Evie Wilson, Zara Ade, Meg McGrath will treat us to powerful words in our open mic slots.
We will be collecting food/ sanitary products for the S2 Food Bank as always.
Cost: Pay what you can (suggested donation £4)
We hope to see you there xx
Introducing Sarah L Dixon
We’re excited Sarah L Dixon, the quiet compere, is joining us for our collaboration with SheFest on 7th March. When she put a callout on Facebook offering to do interviews, we thought we’d have a chat with her for our very first Verse Matters interview! We’re certain she’s not the first person to say that their dark humour is a result of working in the NHS, and she has some great advice for anyone whose just starting to write poetry. Join us on 7th March to hear Sarah’s words in person.
What inspires you?
Music, science, being by and in water (especially the sea), light, colour, patterns, fabrics, challenge, change, ale and pubs, walking, my seven-year-old, Frank and the way he thinks.
I love attending workshops as I find I write things I would never have written without being led that way and the way the themes start to circulate around a group unconsciously when you have a half day or day long workshop. The most recent workshops I have been to were Clare Shaw’s at Bronte Parsonage and two at Poetry Swindon run by Daljit Nagra (I ended up with a looping piece about the light through blinds and ending up in a very otherworldly place) and Tania Hershman.
Who are your influences/role models?
Jo Bell and Tony Walsh for having the drive to make stuff happen.
Angela Readman, Joanne Key and Selkirk Ayres for sharing their darknesses.
Ciaran Hodgers and Clare Shaw for being honest and brutal and human and kind.
Young Identity for ground-breaking performances. They floored me with their show last year where two poets read the poems to each other as lovers and then stayed on the stage gazing at each other for the rest of the event.
There are dozens and dozens I will have forgotten here but for now that will do.
What themes do you like to discuss in poetry?
Change, challenge (especially around break-up, moving on, moving area at the moment), transformation, the 90s – music, technology, pace of life, dance and music. The content of my poems is often unintentionally dark, seventeen years in the NHS has given me a slight gallows humour that I don’t even notice most of the time.
Do you enjoy writing in other forms as well?
I have occasionally written in the form of a short story or flash fiction. I am not as confident in these and have only sent one off. I might just do this again today now you have prompted me. My brain does not have the concentration span to write a novel, though I have never tried.
Do you have any collections/poems published in anthologies at the moment?
I have my first book out with Half Moon Books, this is called ‘The sky is cracked’ and a signed copy is available by contacting me through my website here.
I also have a poem in the anthology, ‘Please hear what I am not saying?’ which is raising funds for mental health charities.
What’s your advice for anyone starting out?
People who look like they know what they are doing are still worrying about ‘being found out’. I think if you at least occasionally have this worry you are probably doing it right and thinking it through. You will and should have worries about the quality of your work or where it fits. It doesn’t matter where it fits, write, first of all, for you and not for the audience. The more you write, as long as you seek out feedback from other poets you trust, the better you will get at it. I would say don’t force it and don’t worry if the writing dries up, it will come back eventually.
Thanks for chatting to us Sarah, and thanks for reading. It’s whet our appetite for our next event. See you there!
Women’s Suffrage Podcast
We are HONOURED to share with you the Women’s Suffrage podcast, our very first podcast!
Celebrating 100 years since women got the vote are Verse Matters collective members Rachel Bower Sez Thomasin and Hive South Yorkshire’s Vicky Hive.
Thank you to Apples and Snakes and Kirsten Apples Luckins for giving us the opportunity to stand together and celebrate how far women have come in our fight for equality.
