Performances at the Warwick University Lit-Fest

All at The Capital Centre, Warwick Uni, and all free
PENCILFest 2008 Events

Saturday 10th May


* ‘The Sound Crew’ An Arvon Poetry Showcase

3-4.30pm

Writers’ Room

Once upon a time at The Arvon Foundation, a group of poets came together and stayed together. They have gone on to enormous success as individuals and as a collective. ‘Sound Crew’ is a group of extraordinary and diverse poets who work together to celebrate individual writing, a shared ambition and growing recognition. They are: Gill Andrews, Judy Brown, Robbie, Burton, Josh Ekroy, Valerie Fry, Victoria Heath, Allison McVety, David Foster Morgan, Philip Ruthen, Norman Staines, and Maggie Sullivan.

* Slam Workshop: Writing For Performance

3-5pm

Rehearsal Room

How can you improve your performance poetry? What are the most important things to remember when writing poetry specifically for vocal performance? This workshop, run by internationally renowned slam poets, will give you invaluable hints and tips on how to write poems that will enrapture audiences.



* ‘Shakespeare’s Bones’

4-5pm

Studio 1

Acclaimed poet Michael Hulse leads a fascinating insight into one of the University of Warwick’s most intriguing and controversial creative experiments.



* ‘Philosophy at Elevenses With Cookies and Milk

4.30-5pm

Studio 2

Ex-Warwick student Joe Watson and his Tadley cronies, blab la, bring you an exclusive live performance of their latest instalment of eclectic comedy. With everything from Zen to William Blake, questionable gardening tips and a host of hilarious characters, supplemented by an ingenius electro soundtrack, these three musketeers of new comedy are not to be missed!



* Student Scriptwriting A Showcase

5-7.30pm

Studio 2

Students from a number of universities across the UK present readings of scripts-in-progress that they’ve written for the stage. Each performance will be followed by a Q&A session between writers, performers and the audience, discussing the process of writing for stage right from conceiving an idea, to the moment an actor is lit up on stage.



* ‘Polluto’ A Showcase

5-6pm

Rehearsal Room

Polutto: The Anti-Pop Culture Journal is ‘a magazine that thinks it’s a book’ which, just three weeks after the publication of its first issue, was awarded the Spectrum Silver Editorial Award. Founded and edited by students at Leeds University and containing a razor-sharp blend of disturbing art and surreal science-fiction, with contributors ranging from a sleaze-punk singer to a former heroin addict, it represents the cutting edge of contemporary student publication.



* ‘Comedy For Writers’

Stand-up comedy from A.L. Kennedy

6-7.30pm

Studio 1

Everybody knows how good an author A.L. Kennedy is: you don’t get given the Costa Book of the Year prize for nothing after all. What a lot of people don’t realise, however, is that she is also a cracking stand-up comedian, who has performed to universal acclaim for several years. Kennedy brings us a hilarious expose on the relationship between comedy and the practice of writing – this is one not to be missed!



* PENCILfest INTERNATIONAL Poetry Slam

9pm til late

Graduate Club, Student’s Union

Slam poetry is a fast-growing and exciting form of competition. PENCILfest brings you a dynamic, emotionally explosive, piercing spoken word performance where 16 student poets from across the country will be competing, and audience members are the judges! The fates of our competitors are in your hands… who will you choose? Headlining this event are 4 internationally renowned slam poets – Wojtek Cichon (Poland), Sebastian Rabsahl (Germany), Daan Doesborgh (The Netherlands) and Sergio Garau (Italy), not to mention that the event is MCed by Bohdan Piaseki, another of Europe’s finest slam poets. With the best of European slam, poetry to inspire your political and emotional passions, and an adrenaline-infused night out, this is an event sure to blow your mind!



Sunday



* ‘Into The Woods’ An ecopoetry workshop with David Morley

11am-2pm

Rehearsal room (starting point) & into the great outdoors!

In this innovative ecopoetry workshop, the poet, teacher and Director of the Warwick Writing Programme, will take his fellow writers on a poetic field trip. As David comments, "In this 'walking workshop' we shall find poems, plant poems, and make poems". Please bring pen, paper, survival food, suitable clothes and shoes.



* Slam Workshop: Performing your Text

12-2pm

Studio 2

Slam poetry has revolutionised the way that poems are performed on stage. Come along to this workshop to learn from internationally renowned slam poets the secrets of a great spoken word performance. Techniques covered will include: stage behaviour, using a microphone, interpreting a text and using one's voice effectively. This workshop will help you to master the delivery of that spine-chilling line and leave audiences spellbound.

Remember to bring a piece of writing with you! You can take advantage of the PENCILfest Open Mic to put into practice the skills you have learnt.



* ‘The New Poets’

A showcase of new poetry talent with Luke Kennard

1-2.30pm

Writers’ Room

Luke Kennard, the youngest ever Forward Prize nominee and a poet who makes his more venerable rivals look, well, venerable, headlines a showcase of spectacular new poetry by a new generation of literary superstars-in-waiting.



* Trespass Magazine A Showcase

2-3.30pm

Studio 1

Trespass Magazine, sister to the prestigious London Magazine, is fast becoming one of London’s hottest new magazines, with work from the likes of George Szirtes (T.S. Eliot prize-winner) gracing it’s pages in recent months. Here, Trespass present a spectrum of their authors and poets, with readings from Tim Wells, Martyn Crucefix, Geroge Szirtes, Anthony Howcroft, Agnes Meadows, Annie Freud, A.F. Harold, and David Gaffney.



* ‘Fluxus’ Performance with the students of Royal Holloway

2-4pm

Rehearsal Room

MA Poetic Practice students from Royal Holloway invite you to enter into a world of poetry you never knew existed. Drop in and have a look at what could well be the most mind-expanding performance of PencilFest 2008.


* ‘Public Poetry’ A Showcase and Competition Prize-Giving

3.30-4.30pm

Studio 1

Public Poetry is, at best, a guerrilla act installing poetry displays in the most unlikely, exposed and challenging of public spaces. Students have competed to win the title of Geurilla Poetry Champion, so join the PENCILfest team and Trespass Magazine to congratulate the winners, see images of their poetry and hear the stories behind how they managed to create public works of literary art, often against all odds.



* Peter Blegvad Performs

4.30-5.30pm

Studio 1

Peter Blegvad has been, at one time or another, a highly successful musician, singer-songwriter, spoken word performer and writer, and has two of the greatest claims to fame imaginable: 1, he is Matt Groening’s favourite cartoonist; 2, he can claim credit for one of the world's longest grammatically-correct palindromes (‘Peel's foe not a set animal laminates a tone of sleep’ in case you’re interested). And though his performances are notoriously unpredictable, expect a combination of music, verse, humour, word-games and surrealism that could prove to be the highlight of the festival.



* The Open-Mic Finale

4-7pm

Foyer

A three hour long opportunity for anybody inspired by what they’ve seen at PencilFest 2008 to get up on a stage and show the world what they can do. The more original, spectacular or bizarre the performance, the better. Old material is, of course, welcome, but why not perform something you’ve written over the festival? There’ll never be a better chance to win yourself over some pretty impressive fans…


Continuous
* All Day Audio Room with Chai Tea

Saturday 12-4pm

Studio 2

For one day only, a theatre studio is transformed into a space to drink tea and listen. Just listen. Featuring readings and drama from students, BBC Radio and Audio, and Peter Blegvad’s Ear-toons (cartoons for the ear) as broadcast on Radio 3’s The Verb.

Sunday XPress in Birmingham: this Sunday!

SUNDAY XPRESS OPEN MIC
"Come to the Sunday Xpress! This Sunday 3-6pm ish, all open mic, all types of performers welcome (and their audiences) and hopefully free roast potatoes, I'll have to see how I feel Sunday morning.

Market Tavern, corner of Moseley St & Birchall St, Digbeth, Birmingham."

Liz Smith

Sunday XPress in Birmingham: TOMORROW, Sunday 30th September

Sunday XPress at the Market Tavern, Digbeth

Monthly Birmingham open mic on the last Sunday of the month with free roasties! And great entertainment. All open mic for musicians, poets, writers, comedians. All welcome!

Sunday 30th September
3pm - 7pmish
Market Tavern, Digbeth, central Birmingham.

WRITE TO IGNITE: Hackney Festival, September 3rd - 27th

Write to Ignite - Hackney Festival 2007, September 3 - 29

For full listings go to www.writetoignite.co.uk
Further information: info@writetoignite.co.uk
07923 474 196

Write to Ignite, Hackney Word Festival 2007, is a diverse celebration of the word in all its glorious forms from the best of Hackney's word artists. Expect amazing words in strange places and strange words in amazing places - including Hackney City Farm and The Clown Museum.

This year Michael Rosen has been crowned Hackney's Poet Laureate. He will be making many appearances throughout the festival, including the Poetry Street Party on September 7, a family workshop on September 15, and culminating in a performance of specially commissioned poems about Hackney Streets performed in The Round Chapel on September 26.

Throughout Write to Ignite, one street in Hackney will receive a poetic makeover, and be transformed into Poetry Street. Wander down to Chatsworth Road, E5, and expect to see poems where you wouldn't expect them - cafes, shops, homes, waiting rooms, pavements and parks will all be lyrically pampered.



Other highlights include readings, performances, discussions and workshops from John Hegley, Scroobius Pip, Iain Sinclair, Tim Wells, Annie Freud, Simon Munnery, Gwyneth Herbert, Hugo Williams, Baden Prince, Tim Turnbull, Adisa and Stewart Lee and many, many more.


The festival will culminate in an all day event on the 29th September in Hoxton Hall, with stalls featuring independent publishers and alternative magazines, a free Book Swap, readings from local authors, a poetry open mic, and a show that explores contemporary performance poetry as a musical-hall tradition: "The poet aspires to the condition of the music-hall comedian," said T.S. Eliot, and Write to Ignite plan to test that statement!