Desperate For Love Review

The Desperate For Love reading at the Komedia in Brighton was fantastic. The poets featured were Tom Raworth, Ken Edwards and Rowena Easton. The host Alan Hay also read and there was one other person whose name I did not catch. Walking through the door I managed to pick up a free Chap Book and a C.D both of which speak to the strength of this reading series. The C.D features excerpts from Sean Bonney's Baudelaire, Daniel Kane's Ostentation of Peacocks, Sophie Robinson's 'a' Tim Atkins' Petrarach Lucy Harvest Clarke's Poems, Francesca Lisette's Aqua Precinct and Keston Sutherland's Stress Position. I can not wait to put it on. 

At a reading as good as this, like six rainbows smashed into a puddle, I only ever tend to catch a fraction of the content, and the fragments that do remain with me remain decayed and happily polluted with the sound of the room. At any rate Tom Raworth talked about the time of the poetry reading and how time is measured differently there - the social-time and the poem's time working with eachother to make time detourne itself into something new. I remember Tom's bitterly angry hoax poem read with a spattering of rhyme that was posted on a pro-war website before the Iraq war which later drew death threats from the other people that were writing poems on the site when they found out the poem was a hoax (thanks to Creeley apparently). I remember birds flying out of Ken Edwards' head, the 'glorious' green of phosphor on a television screen, the governor of the bank of England, you, and all other things that don't exist - oh, and transition zones: It could be the book of the dead it could be the airport waiting lounge. All in all fantastic fantastic stuff. The audience was young, vibrant, and I felt happy in the room. It was really good that Barque Press had bought books down to the reading and had them at the door I think it is a incredibly healthy thing for presses and reading series to be working together to make a scene. I managed to pick up Keston Sutherland's Stress Position (which unbelievably I had not bought yet) and J.H. Prynne's To Pollon. I ran out of money but other wise Jonty Tip Lady's collected poems II was on the buying agenda. I think perhaps my favorite lines of the night came from the last three lines of Ken Edward's poem The Sea, a poem that is very handily printed in the Desperate For Love chap book. I rewrite these lines here because they are simply great:

On the sixth day there is a rainbow,
made from the emissions of disintergrating aircraft.

It's a kind of crescendo, I call it the sea.

Anyway, thanks Alan for putting on a great night. I believe Mendoza is reading at the next one, which in the words of a poet who I won't name here, promises to be 'punk as fuck'. What with the excellent Chlorine reading series (at The Hope) and Desperate for Love both being in Brighton, as well as the presses Barque and Reality street both having roots in the area, Brighton is (and has been for a long time) a fantastic place to hang out if you are a poet.  What does anyone else remember of the reading?

Comments

[Alan Hay]

Thanks Steve. The poet who's name you missed was Gary Goodman. The night's something we're very proud of now (we is me and Gary and Wolfy Jones) and answers an intuition we had a year ago that there was room in Brighton for something other than Slam and open mic. Turns out we were right, and the audience that's created itself for this event and for Fran's thing and others is an inspiration. The support and encouragement we got from you and the rest of the Openned crew, from Sean, from Jeff H and others was a big help in getting the thing together initally. Couple of memories:

Nat Raha startling me and Jon Slade with the fact that Sonic Youth had dedicated their last song at ATP to Tom Raworth.

Realising that the Jonty Tiplady books I'd been kicking myself for missing were right there on the book table.

The specific and incomparable exhileration of being 15 minutes into Tom Raworth's reading and realising this is one of the best things I've ever seen and it's still coming at me.

The reassuring sight of Andy Pyne, DFL's own Dread at the Controls, face lit by laptop uplight, that means it's all been recorded.

Missed: Sharon Borthwick's inappropriate laughing.

Next in Feb, date tbc. Mendoza, others. Good times indeed.

Alan

[Malcs]

Thanks both for these reading notes. But I don't think any reading will ever be complete for me again without Sharon's inappropriate laughing!