Kid, I wrote back

At the start of each month, I can be found in a bar in Shoreditch.

What coincidentally is my favourite bar in London -- and possibly in the whole world -- also hosts a monthly open mike night of spoken word.  And I live for this kind of thing.

Back in my Derby days as a student, I joined a poetry group and we'd meet once a week in a pub to share our poetry and give feedback and drink a lot.  Then once a month we'd all perform at an open mike night, called Raised Voices.

Raised Voices was held in the back room of a pub, which was freezing cold with no power other than a generator.  It seemed to fit the mood.  The students made only a small percentage of the people there, and I got a taste for spoken word -- despite needing a drink or two to have the courage to perform.

Raised Voices lost its edge for me when it moved out of the pub's back room and into a plush, carpeted conference space.  The florescent lighting had to be on, because it was either on or off -- no dimmed -- and the bar tender always had a slightly sarcastic smirk on his face.  The whole thing just felt wrong.

Then I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, and met up with an old poetry friend who had been there for a year already, where he introduced me again to something new.  To two new things, really -- performing sober, and to performing in coffee shops.  It was often disconcerting being an Englishman abroad, when it wasn't just a short holiday but where people would stare at you in class, or be shocked to hear your accent when you stood up to perform in Cup o' Joes.

I think after I left Utah and until moved to London I had only performed twice -- once in Derby, when Raised Voices again had a new home (but none of the old faces, all my old poetry friends had scattered), and once when I was doing my Journalism post-grad in Leicester.  An amusing sidenote to that is that when I was interviewed for the journalism course, I spoke with great passion about how I loved to just write.  I was asked if I wasn't just a frustrated novelist -- I told them no.  I was a frustrated poet.  Why they still took me on is beyind me, I guess it was despite this they knew I could write, and saw potential.

So years and years later, we're living in London and I'm not giving much thought to poetry, let alone spoken word.  I have a dedicated bookshelf for poetry -- mainly consisting of Carol Ann Duffy, Simon Armitage, Pablo Neruda, John Hegley and Beat writers, along with a huge anthology that I dip into from time to time.  It's years later, I don't think of poetry until we're in my favourite bar for my birthday celebration and I see a poster for Kid, I Wrote Back -- a new spoken word and poetry night, being held there.

It's hosted and organised by the extremely talented Chimène Suleyman and Dylan Sage who are well known in similar circles in the city.   Kid is worth checking out for their performances alone -- but there are so many great and varied poets and writers appearing there each month, I feel almost proud to be able to appear alongside them.  My own work varies so much in quality and theme, I don't feel I hold a candle to a lot of people there, but it's so great just to perform -- and gives me a reason to wirte each month.