Report by Alberto
Pictures by Marie De Lutz (Visit our facebook page for more photos)
Featured Poet: Kate Noakes!
Waiting for “I spy and Shanti”, her forthcoming book, we celebrated her birthday and we discovered her South African Poems. If you missed it more poems here. We had Gary with a vignette titled The Frisbee. Cristelle’s tales with empty words. Lisa’s motel rooms and Cafè con leche, Jason translating Samarago and words licked and stuck, words like stamps. Marie and Patrick:
James Simpson furious like an average Macbeth: “He deserve to suffer an unpleasing death!”. Awoko singing: Licky Licky. (Is this the proper spelling?) Main difference between Rigettini, Shakespeare and Petrarch. Brian’s party guests and parents’ friends.
Georgina introducing unstrung letter C. with Troy York:
crushed by the tables he’s sleeping under. “I’m a donut, fuck me.” Helene. French. Merci. Patrick: Exctasy makes you cry harder. Shane: We are creatures built to struggle. Griffin takes part to 40 poems in 40 days. Ferdia featuring Patrick, Shane and Marie in “The discount superheroes agency”.
Ambjorn featuring Charles Dickens:
Debbie: We work too hard, we are too tired to make love”. Amelia in a museum where you can touch statues. Pablito: is this an haiku?
Come on, sobbing girl
Wipe the tears off your iPhone
I’m uncomfortable
What do you think? Is it? And we closed with Silvio:
Every week either me or Alberto is faced with the challenge of organising a SpokenWord. We agonise that the lighting will fail, the tango class will refuse to vacate the cellar at 9pm without some kind of physical fight, or that the beer will run out. Last week, one of these terrible things did indeed happen! Nevertheless we switched to wine and continued to the end of the night.
Here you can see the concentration with which we choose the running order for the night.
Thanks to Margaux for these photos!
At nine o’clock the cellar is emptied of tango dancers; the pews, sofa and cabaret tables are put in place, the piano is wheeled out and then… and then… all that remains is to face the audience and try to give things a good shove so that they start moving.
This week, James was one of the poets clever enough to see things that aren’t there.
Lisa asked the right questions of souls reincarnated as caged birds.
Gary called in about therapy.
– Habibi?
– Yes, amore.
– You don’t like lying because you’re American.
Marie knew they don’t love you like I love you. And she said so.
Ferdia pitched his story idea to Chris:
Girl meets werewolf, an Irish werewolf from Cork.
Magda explained he was nothing to write home about.
Scott’s machine birds were singing.
Brian had been getting way too much sleep. He steered the conversation past an awkward subject with the grace of an acrobat.
Suddenly it was round two and Lucky Hopkins emerged from an unexpected alcove. Like a beast with its horn, like a baby stillborn, she tried in her way to reach out to you.
“What a waste of space is man, so quick to coalesce in clan” complained Chris W. But Awoko kept smiling. And singing. And playing guitar. Chris N had Shakespeare off shagging Belinda Big Jugs while Hamlet got philosophical. Troy took his heart and ate it. Like Kate and a few others he’s writing a poem a day for Lent. Margaux ended the night with some Gainsbourg, amongst which, for your edification and delight we reproduce this one here:
A CELLE QUI LOUCHE
A celle qui louche
Je dis
“Je trouve ta bouche
Jolie”
Si elle begaye
Eh bien
Moi je fais pareil et
C’est bien
Lorsqu’elle zozote
Je dis
“Toi tu n’es pas sotte
Et puis
S’il te manque une dent
De lait
Ca te donne l’accent
Anglais”
Tomorrow night SpokenWord will have Kate Noakes as our Special Guest Poet. That’s Monday 5th March, Au Chat Noir, 76 rue Jean Pierre Timbaud. Sign up in the bar from 8pm, poetry starts from 9pm underground.
Meanwhile just a note to say Rest In Peace to the much loved John Kliphan, poet of Boston, San Francisco and Paris who ran The Live Poets Society. Here’s a clip of him reading his poetry.
John Kliphan (b.1933, Boston – d. 2012, Paris) was a passionate and compassionate poet, teacher and lawyer. His poems are accessible, incisive, lyrical and often humorous. First published in Boston, then San Francisco, where he lived for many years, Kliphan befriended the Beats and was counsel for the North Beach art community. In the 1980’s Kliphan moved to Paris, where he founded and directed the Live Poets Society, an internationally recognized series of readings celebrating the oral tradition of poetry while providing a venue for new voices and verse in Paris, the city’s longest-running series of its kind. Invited to perform his work at events and festivals around the world, Kliphan was author of three books of poetry as well as individual poems and articles published in the United States and Europe.
Cheers!
David Barnes
SpokenWord Paris 