Sunday, 7 April 2013
Spring Rhythm: Poetry of Emergence at Wainsgate
with Rosie Garland, John Siddique and Simon Rennie
After its highly successful inaugural Poetry at Wainsgate event last year, Wainsgate Chapel’s 2013 season of music and spoken word performances kicks off on Sunday April 14 with Spring Rhythm: Poetry of Emergence which features another trilogy of poets, spearheaded this time by the acclaimed poet and performer Rosie Garland.
Described by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy as ‘hugely entertaining, tough-talking . . . a celebration of female sexuality, of power and liberation,’ writer, poet and novelist, Rosie Garland is also a singer with The March Violets and has a semi-legendary alter ego, Rosie Lugosi who is a performer, cabaret chanteuse, and decadent hostess of events such as ‘Burlesque!’ at The Lowry, Salford Quays. Rosie has won the DaDa Award for her performance art, the Diva Award and an Alternative Oscar for her solo performances, and a Blue Peter Badge for drawing a Tyrannosaurus Rex!
Rosie’s affecting and award-winning poetry is perhaps at its best in her passionate and thought-provoking collection Things I Did While I Was Dead published in 2010, which powerfully articulates themes as diverse as relationships, childhood, serial-killers and gender. This year her fiction debut The Palace of Curiosities - A luminous and bewitching Angela Carter-esque novel set in Victorian London, has been published by HarperCollins in the UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada.
John Siddique is the author of six books the most recent of which is Full Blood. His poetry, essays and articles have featured in Granta, The Guardian, Poetry Review, The Rialto, on BBC Radio 4 and very recently on shop windows all over Hebden Bridge. Think-Tank QED considers John to be one of the 21 most influential people in the UK with South Asian heritage and the Times of India considers him 'rebellious by nature, pure at heart.'
Referred to as ‘surely one of the best poets in this part of the country’, Simon Rennie has been performing and publishing poetry since 2005. He has performed his work at events, festivals, and university readings across the North of England, establishing in 2007 well-loved Manchester poetry event Inn Verse. His publications include the collections Little Machines in 2009 and the 2011 Unless Otherwise Stated. The poet and librettist, Michael Symmons Roberts, has described Simon’s poetry as ‘full of assurance, skill and wit’.
Spring Rhythm: Poetry of Emergence starts at 3pm on April 13, and tickets, which are only available at the door, are £8 and £6 with a special £2 entry for under 18s. Wainsgate Chapel is on Wainsgate Lane, Old Town, Hebden Bridge HX7 8SU. Parking there is limited and reserved for disabled drivers. There are plenty of footpaths for those who’d like to walk from Hebden Bridge or there’s an hourly bus service to Old Town Mill Lane (opposite Wainsgate Lane) where parking is also available. More information at about the venue and future events can be found at www.wainsgate.co.uk.