Mellow Yellow

I went to the Forest Poets open mic night at Walthamstow Library yesterday.  There were two good reasons behind my visit – firstly, Rob Auton performed some of his Edinburgh Show “Yellow” for the benefit of his fellow local residents for the first time, and secondly, it’s very rare for me to get a chance to see the talent in my local area showcased.

With regards to Rob Auton, if you haven’t seen him perform by now, you really should do.  Anyone with even a passing interest in how comedy poetry can be inventively and brilliantly performed and delivered should either drop by at “Bang! Said The Gun” to see him read, or make an effort to attend a full-length gig of his. Kate Copstick recently gave him a good review at the Edinburgh Festival which nonetheless frustrated me in that it actually appeared to undersell his abilities, and I made a rather terse comment on Facebook to that effect.  Faced with the same challenges, however, I can sympathise with her predicament as a critic.  His style is incredibly difficult to put into words without making him sound like another whacky novelty poet with some puns attached.  In reality, Auton’s world is innocent, child-like, clownish, surreal and idiotic (with perhaps a dose of idiot-savant attached), and just as it’s difficult to explain to somebody who has never seen Spike Milligan, Tommy Cooper or Vic and Bob perform what they do or how it works, his style sets endless challenges for critics.

                             

The “Yellow” show, then, is an entire comedy poetry set based on the colour yellow and the humour, appreciation and oddness that can be derived from that hue.  Auton’s riffing and punning around the topic really shouldn’t work across two poems, never mind more, but he’s inventive and imaginative enough to roll with it and succeed, baking up ludicrous scenarios about hiding himself away behind a fortress of Shredded Wheat boxes in a supermarket, or philosophising around the general worth of the grapefruit. His performances are always great room-dividers with audience members either loving what he does or being utterly confounded by it, but in a world of cut-and-paste, slick and fashionable young panel show wannabes, he’s an absolute eccentric gem, a rare example of a comedian (and indeed spoken word artist) who is willing to go out on a limb and managing to succeed whilst doing so.

The open mic session that followed was terrifying in that it suddenly revealed a whole host of talent which obviously hasn’t made it to many of the open mics or poetry shows in Central London yet.  Twelve years ago when I first began my journey into live poetry, open mic sessions were predictable and familiar affairs – poets roamed like herds of wildebeest from one event to the next, and you would frequently see the same faces in Earls Court that you saw in Islington the previous week, often honing exactly the same material.  It’s a testament to the increased popularity of live poetry events now that localised pockets of talent seem to have developed, meaning scores of different faces are guaranteed at each event.  There were very few examples of bad poetry on display last night (apart from perhaps my misguided attempt to introduce my interesting “Princess Diana” poem to the proceedings) and I suspect that the Zone 3 location of Walthamstow also put some of the circuit's most talentless attention-seekers off attending. If a journey is involved and there’s not likely to be any promoters to impress in the audience at the other end, it seems to act as a good deterrent. 

I’ve lived in Walthamstow now for twelve years (on and off) and whilst I often want to take pride in my local area, certain aspects – the questionable activities of the local council, the lack of arts or entertainment venues, some of the worst neighbours I’ve ever had in my life, dodgy landlords – have pushed me close to phoning Pickfords to move elsewhere.  Events like this open mic reminded me that there is a huge groundswell of talent in the area, as well as some very friendly and engaging people. It’s also useful to remember that areas like Walthamstow are actually where a lot of the least cynical and calculating creativity happens.  The new-found competition and careerism in spoken word can sometimes feel burdensome too, even if I acknowledge that it is necessary to an extent.  Events like this take live poetry back to its community roots and hopefully do a good job of reminding us all why it felt so good to be involved in the circuit in the first place - a win/win situation.

The Collector's Riddle

And in the sixties

with the music

and the youth explosion

came greater

freedom of choice.

So now you’ve

found that one –

that album

with depth

immeasurable

where notes

volley up on

bass notes to

elevate you

beyond these

four beige walls,

where rhythms

surprise like

de-railed express

trains jolted

from certain

commuter paths

and into the

dark, exciting,

wild wood beyond

will you

always play it?

Will you stay

with it, will

you cherish it as

much when the

marks, the

scratches pop,

crackle and

click like

arthritic limbs,

when the needle

has scraped

away the

soft subtleties,

when the grooves

lock and fail to

progress fluidly,

skipping over

coherent ideas and

repeating themselves?

Or will you

leave it on the

shelf, longing to

be slapped awake by a

younger, newer

noise, or

something daintier,

lighter, the

work of someone

who never grew

with you, was

never there

when you needed them,

and never formed the

backdrop, the

answer to your life?

Behind The Yellow Line

(I think I'm right in saying this was one of the few poems I wrote whilst I was gallivanting around Australia. At this point the creative juices really weren't flowing very well, and there was nobody about who was willing to give me the necessary kick up the backside.  

I ended up reading this a couple of times when I returned to London, then forgetting all about it.  Should I have?  Well, should I have?  Oh, who knows?)

…and she muttered something

about missed opportunities, then

she said: “sometimes

I think the lines on my

face are old battle trenches,

or perhaps nonsense

words of X, Y and Zs

scraped by an

illiterate child on an

empty English beach,

and sometimes I think I

speak no more sense

than those.

And sometimes, when I

gaze at myself in the

mirror under the

overcrowded, blonde

antiseptic light, I

see forgotten numbers to

disconnected phones

etched into my scalp.

And I have travelled so

much I hear their voices

taunt me all the time.

They say

‘stand behind the yellow

line, another train will be

along shortly’, and ‘just

think, if you lived

here you’d be

home already’”.

Mantra

I place my money on nothing anymore.

I have reached the stage where I

don’t expect or anticipate

even the unexpected, I just

sit waiting to drift across the

soundwaves of others

talking in this room.

They fill it until it is one

dense block of chopping

blabber, the note of people

telling extraordinary stories in

very ordinary, polite ways

being a drone of Middle C.

I just pray that one day

these tones will push me into the

trance that delivers the

key moment – that the

conversations about last night’s

television, this year’s lust

figure, and expletive-spittled

observations about idle Chairmen of

various Boards, these things will

ascend me to higher

Western knowledge, then I

shall be fit to walk these streets.

I believe in nothing

anymore, and I still drift

through the city unnoticed

living on sheer chance.

It is actually nothing to

write home about,

but I frequently do.