Earlier this month the acclaimed Nottingham Poetry Festival celebrated its 5th anniversary (can it really be 12 months since last year's event?*); befitting of the times it was, of course, held totally online with 'ticket holders' enjoying gigs and readings in the luxury of their own homes via, you've guessed it, Zoom.
Will the word zoom, I wonder, in years to come, fill the population with varying degrees of dread or, will it, at its mere mention make our hearts go boom? One for future linguistic historians I'm sure. This year we were privileged to have one of my favourite poets - and co-founder of the festival - former local lad, Henry Normal. Henry was beamed into my kitchen last Friday direct from his Brighton home. Not the same as the real thing, you'll agree, but I'd have struggled to have enjoyed his performance any more even had he have bombed up the motorway on what was a wet and windy Nottingham night.
Henry's new collection is called The Escape Plan. As soon as bookshops are open again I shall be blagging myself a copy, nothing's so sure. And when I do it'll be hard not to hear Henry's dulcet Nottingham vowels in my head as I read it in my kitchen; whilst slurping a cup of tea, most likely.
Henry Normal - 'Not My Cup of Tea' (2020)
* Er, no: it's actually 18 months. And a huge thank you to Georgina Wilding for helping to lay on such a lavish festival in what has been a challenging year to say the least.
Thank you for the Henry Normal video - cheered me up on a cold November day and the line "Salty caramel - f*cking terrible" made me laugh. I'm off to make a cup of tea. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it, FBCB. I love a brew - I think I probably inherited my tea drinking capabilities from my mother.
DeleteWhat a great clip of a thoroughly entertaining guy. He’s not a fan of salted caramel is he!
ReplyDeleteI did a poetry module for my course last year - Wish I’d been able to come up with something like this.
I'd love to write poetry, Alyson; song lyrics aren't the same (except, perhaps, in the case of Bob Dylan).
DeleteBy chance I'd just necked the last swig of my afternoon brew (coffee in my case) when I watched the clip. If I'd still been in mid-slurp, a mouthful might well have ended up dripping from the laptop screen when Henry delivered the '...salted caramel...fucking terrible...' line. I didn't see it coming at all. Magnificent!
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked it, TS. There must be coffee poems out there too; or maybe you should write your own - I'm sure Alyson could be your mentor....
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