We launched Vanishing Act, the latest Flax anthology, on Wednesday night. And now it’s all over I can admit how nervous I was about the event. Because the anthology itself was a bit of an experiment – riffing off our standard audio films and playing with potentials of the spoken word – we’d decided to experiment a little with presenting it to people.
First there were the straight readings from the writers’ back catalogue as it were, then we went into darkness to hear the audio tracks for people to form their own imagined and emotional responses to the work without any visual triggers.
Then we heard the audio tracks accompanied by films made by Morph Films, who had made five responses to the work. When I spoke to them about that process, Gareth spoke how much he enjoyed not thinking about what the client might want, but to just register his response to the piece and turn that into a visual response. He translated the rhythms of speech into visual rhythms, and sought out the less obvious elements to present. So not literal at all.
The evening finished with the creators of the work reading the pieces again. Reowning them, as it were. So the five pieces of Vanishing Act were heard three times. Risky. But it paid off. People really responded to the opportunity to hear a piece delivered in different ways and spoke of how strikingly different that made their own responses. I loved the theatricality of the event, especially the alertness of listening in the dark.
So, if you missed it, shame, but you can relive it in part by listening to each piece or watching the videos made in response to the poems here.
This year, Valentine’s Day stretched into a weekend. So Litfest responded accordingly, by stretching the normal 12 point font into something a little larger, printing poems from North West based poets up on the walls of the NICE bar here in The Storey Creative Industries Centre.
This is what some of them look like:
Apologies, if you can’t read them properly, I took the pics on my phone. Although it’s also a cunning ploy since if you’d like to read them, you’ll just have to come over…
There are two facts that caught my imagination this morning as I listened to the radio.
1. His renown is based on one book (although his short stories sold well) – The Catcher in the Rye sold 65 million copies. I’d like to compile a list (with help, please!!) of other authors whose reputation was sealed on the back of one book. Apparently he continued to write while in retreat, so now there is speculation of other books …
2. Catcher in the Rye was originally written for adults, but became an adolescent classic. There are plenty of books that cross over the other way, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials triology, Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, JK Rowling’s Harry P, Mal Peet’s Exposure, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, are the first that spring to mind, but what of books that travelled the other way? Another list?
Another in our infrequent series of conversations.
This time, with dynamic writer, Bernardine Evaristo, who has recently reissued her verse novel Lara with Bloodaxe.
Bernardine came to Lancaster to read the original Lara back in 1997. It was held in the beautiful old Folly photographic gallery in the back of The Storey building. Maybe twenty of us in the audience. I hadn’t read the book, but was interested in its theme of lineage. Bernardine’s reading was electric. I was totally hooked. The voices that filled the small room (all emanating from one body) were bustling and hustling in their veracity, spread across continents (Europe, Africa and America).
Bernardine has since been back to Lancaster twice (with more idiosyncratic voices in more experiments in verse/prose novels). Now, over ten years on, she has returned to Lara, and extended it; detailing the maternal line of Lara, her Irish and German roots.
I caught up with Bernardine a few weeks ago to ask her about the process of revisiting the book.
Sarah Hymas: After slowly moving away from writing verse through verse-novels and novels with verse to a straight prose novel I wondered how you found the return to verse with this new edition of Lara?
Benardine Evaristo: I wasn’t sure at first that I could get back into the spirit and craft of a verse novel having spent a few years writing prose fiction. But reading through the original text was a good way to get back into the flow of it. I did discover that my narrative voice is more cohesive and pronounced than it was in the original LARA. When I originally wrote LARA I was firmly rooted as a poet, now I see myself as a storyteller using whatever genre suits a particular book. It was also a bit of a challenge initially to not write sweeping great paragraphs instead of short, concise lines of poetry and to return to building up the story through small units.
SH: I imagine this return to writing poetry having an influence on how you tell your next story. How much does one idea develop as you’re finishing the previous one?
BE: It varies. I’m working on a new novel now which will be a prose novel, but I love the idea of making it a very poetic prose novel. I do love writing the verse novel form and I enjoyed returning to the snapshot sequences of LARA having written my first prose novel BLONDE ROOTS. I don’t usually know what I’m going to write next until I’ve finished a particular work and then, when the manuscript has been delivered, my head is clear to embark on the next project. Although, having said that, sometimes I do get a sense of the territory I’m going to explore next but I don’t think too deeply about it.
SH: What prompted you to include the Irish side of the family in this new edition of Lara?
BE: I was never that curious about the Irish side of my family initially, my mother’s relatives. I think that when I began writing LARA I was much more interested in discovering the unknown side of my family history, the Nigerian and Brazilian ancestry. An academic once approached me at a reading and asked me why I hadn’t written more about my Irish heritage, especially because of the colonial experience of Ireland and how that would draw comparisons with, for example, the Nigerian colonial experience. I was shocked to realise that I hadn’t really thought about it and decided then and there that should I ever re-issue LARA, I would add the Irish past. The German side of my family history, also on my mothers side, is also a new addition to the book. So whereas the novel initially spanned 150 years into my father’s history, it now spans 150 years into my mother’s history too.
SH: You switch narrators (including an omnisicient narrator) a lot. What is your starting point for finding the right voice for each character?
BE: It varies. Some of the characters are based on people I know well, like myself – so I just have to be true to my voice. Not as easy as it sounds, I think. Others are based on my parents and grandmother – all of whom I also knew/know well so I tried to hear their voices in my head – their vocabulary, intonation, the ways in which they expressed themselves verbally. It was a listening job – to my parents voices as they materialised inside my head, and to my grandmother’s voice as she was when she was alive. It also helped that I interviewed both parents at length on tape recorder, so I could play their voices back and listen to them with some degree of objectivity. My father’s English was quite broken and I was not aware of this until I heard him on tape. With the unknown characters – the family members I never knew – then I used photographs where possible to try and imagine character – once I got a sense of who they were I began to write and then magic takes over – they start to speak through me…..whooooo…..bit spooky, huh?
SH: And to end with, a short roll call of some of the people who influenced the writing of Lara:
Thank you, Bernardine, for your time and permssion to use the photos
And so we thought we’d celebrate with Marriott Edgar’s cracker,
The Lion and Albert
There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool,
That’s noted for fresh-air and fun,
And Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Went there with young Albert, their son.
A grand little lad was their Albert
All dressed in his best; quite a swell
‘E’d a stick with an ‘orse’s ‘ead ‘andle
The finest that Woolworth’s could sell.
They didn’t think much to the ocean
The waves, they was fiddlin’ and small
There was no wrecks… nobody drownded
‘Fact, nothing to laugh at, at all.
So, seeking for further amusement
They paid and went into the zoo
Where they’d lions and tigers and cam-els
And old ale and sandwiches too.
There were one great big lion called Wallace
His nose were all covered with scars
He lay in a som-no-lent posture
With the side of his face to the bars.
Now Albert had heard about lions
How they were ferocious and wild
And to see Wallace lying so peaceful
Well… it didn’t seem right to the child.
So straight ‘way the brave little feller
Not showing a morsel of fear
Took ‘is stick with the’orse’s ‘ead ‘andle
And pushed it in Wallace’s ear!
You could see that the lion didn’t like it
For giving a kind of a roll
He pulled Albert inside the cage with ‘im
And swallowed the little lad… whole!
Then Pa, who had seen the occurrence
And didn’t know what to do next
Said, “Mother! Yon lions ‘et Albert”
And Mother said “Eeh, I am vexed!”
So Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
Quite rightly, when all’s said and done
Complained to the Animal Keeper
That the lion had eaten their son.
The keeper was quite nice about it
He said, “What a nasty mishap
Are you sure that it’s your lad he’s eaten?”
Pa said, “Am I sure? There’s his cap!”
So the manager had to be sent for
He came and he said, “What’s to do?”
Pa said, “Yon lion’s ‘eaten our Albert
And ‘im in his Sunday clothes, too.”
Then Mother said, “Right’s right, young feller
I think it’s a shame and a sin
For a lion to go and eat Albert
And after we’ve paid to come in!”
The manager wanted no trouble
He took out his purse right away
And said, “How much to settle the matter?”
And Pa said “What do you usually pay?”
But Mother had turned a bit awkward
When she thought where her Albert had gone
She said, “No! someone’s got to be summonsed”
So that were decided upon.
Round they went to the Police Station
In front of a Magistrate chap
They told ‘im what happened to Albert
And proved it by showing his cap.
The Magistrate gave his o-pinion
That no-one was really to blame
He said that he hoped the Ramsbottoms
Would have further sons to their name.
At that Mother got proper blazing
“And thank you, sir, kindly,” said she
“What waste all our lives raising children
To feed ruddy lions? Not me!”
I’ve just heard of Volta, a new translation magazine with wide reaching ambition: one poem, seventy five transations. Now that’s multilingual. Each translation is available as a downloadable pdf.
The English language version of the poem is the original, written by the compiler of translations, Richard Berengarten, and is a lyrical homage to the sun. A gift in this country, less so in others. I wonder how the poems reads in Yoruba compared to, say, in Faroese. Since language is a cultural signage there must be small yet significant differences in the weight of the words and their meaning. For this reason, alone (well, also because I don’t speak another language well enough) I’d love to have audio files accompanying this publication; to hear these transgressions set closely against each other.
The introduction says the publication throws up questions: Is translatability a universal feature of language itself? What does ‘originality’ actually mean? What difference is there between writing and translating a poem?
Great questions. Is there going to be a follow-on discussion for some answers?
For those of you who haven’t slurped from the communal bowl that is Word Soup, I’d urge you to dip your spoons in.
Running monthly, the next chance to dribble in satiated delight is Tuesday 17 November at The Continental Pub in Preston.
Enough of the food related metaphors/language. This is not a night of trite cliche and second rate writing. Each month some of the best writers from the North West take the stage to read or perform their work. Each month, there is a theme that loosely ties the work. Each month there is also an open mic for aspiring writers.
It’s a great night to turn up to alone or with a group of you; as ever literature audiences prove their weight in oil – inclusive and easy going found the night. You’re bound to meet someone there who’s interesting and interested.
Specifically, this month, focuses on the theme of ‘home’, with musician, writer, performer and presenter Mollie Baxter. She will be joined by the another writer published by FlaxThomas Fletcher, along with local poet and author Mark Charlesworth and actor and performance poet Paul Sockett.
Musical interludes come from the “ridiculously talented” Kevin Wilkinson.
If you want to book a slot for the open mic or just say hello email them at info@theyeatculture.org
And if you can’t make the night in person, you can follow porceedings on Twitter… at @PrestonWN or #wordsoup on the night
So, the festival’s over. I don’t know whether to boo or cheer.
Cheer because we can now catch our collective breath, think over the past ten days of readings and marvel at what an amazing choir of voices were heard in Lancaster. I mean, I love Lancaster, some of my best friends are Lancaster, but it isn’t the largest city in the world – or even in England for that matter – or even in Lancashire – and the population can feel very familiar at times. Which might explain the great welcome our audiences give. And that’s saying something when, to my mind, literature audiences are the one of the most attentive of all audiences. Over the course of the ten days ideas, and the exchange of those ideas, spread around the Storey auditorium and bar. The percolation of stories and conversations passed between writer and reader.
For me it was the journeys we were invited upon that was the most exciting element of the festival (and not just because Lancaster is a small city). The events I went to took me to Amsterdam, Whitby, Bournemouth, Middlesborough, Fleetwood, Milan, a nameless Greek village, Belfast, Sarajevo and Luxor. And no passport, no five hour custom queues (or M6 queues), no carbon footprint. Literature, and readings particularly, offers a virtual road trip with an intelligent, illuminating companion you don’t have to talk too first thing in the morning.
Boo because it’s all over; it’s November (nearly); it’s very very quiet and I’m not going anywhere soon.
Wet outside, dry inside. Tuesday night’s early doors at the festival was an informal event of poets Joe Harding, Judy Sowter, David Borrott, Philip Burton and Teresa Robson from the Pennine Stanza group.
No big names meant a small audience but that didn’t affect the quality. In fact it probably heightened the quality of listening. There was a papable intensity to the readings – on the theme of family.
What I love about events such as these is the diversity of voice, the clash and counterpoint of tone and relationship to the poem. So we had strict forms rubbing up against free verse, narrative alongside imagist poetry and comic with tragic.
Each poet read for five minutes, a pattern that rolled round twice and then ended with a haiku from each – a lovely simple structure to the evening that kept me attending to the variety within the group.
I look forward to hearing or reading more from these poets in the future
Litfest
