Created in Birmingham

Birmingham Words has an obituary for Roi Kwabena who died recently.

“Roi was one of those people who defied all attempts at classification: cultural activist, poet, poet laureate of Birmingham in 2001-2002, anthropologist, historian, publisher, campaigner against racism and former senator in the parliament of Trindad and Tobago. As an artist, Roi was entirely unclassifable, defying convention and expectation, but doing so with an unusual warmth and grace.”

More…

Also on the web:
Roi’s weblog last updated in November.
Birminghanm Poet Laureate page.
Wikipedia entry.
Literature of the Caribbean containing numerous works.
Website devoted to his work.

Birmingham Words points us to Poetry Bites, an event hosted by Jacqui Rowe featuring Birmingham-born poet, actor and comedian Laurence Inman who, I note, writes a lot for The Stirrer. There’s also an open-mike spot and your date is Thursday 22nd of November. £5 gets you in.

Came across this guy while searching for the record shop of the same name and am rather glad I did. PolarBear classifies himself as “A’cappella / Hip Hop / Emo” on his MySpace. Based in Birmingham and London he did a couple of shows at the Rep last month (If I cover my nose you can’t see me). Here’s an example of his spoken word work:

[audio:polarbear.mp3]

His next Birmingham gig is on 31 October at St Martins Arts Centre at the Bull Ring from 7pm.

4Talent interview with Birmingham poet Dreadlockalien who, I note, has a YouTube channel. Here’s one of his poems:

Birmingham has a new Poet Laureate in the form of Charlie Jordan. Here she is with the outgoing Laureate Spoz:

Charlie was born and raised in Birmingham and is proud to be part of Birmingham’s growing and thriving literary scene. She is a radio presenter currently presenting the late night show on Heart FM. She is passionate about poetry and has worked with and learned from past Birmingham Laureates. Charlie loves the fact that Birmingham has such a thriving poetry scene and wants to continue to spread that energy throughout the city.

More on the Poet Laureate scheme.

via the Bostin blog

The Muslim Writers Award, an initiative coming out of Birmingham City Council which had its inaugural ceremony in April, goes national in 2008.

The idea of the project is to assist and nurture emerging writers and get them published. We are looking at the writers creative talent – not their religious beliefs. The Awards were televised and went out to 150+ countries and we hope to reach as many new writers (and readers!) as possible.

The categories for the 2008 Awards are:

* Non Fiction
* Short Story
* Novel Award
* Poetry Award
* Under 16s
* Best Children’s Story
* Best New Writer of the Year
* Best Published Writer (to be nominated by publishers)

The 2008 Judges include Randa Abdel Fattah (author of Does My Head Look Big in This?), Emma Hargrave (Managing Editor of Tindal St Press), Bloomsbury publishers and Sunny Hundal (Editor of Asians in the Media).

Alongside the awards there’s also a support program including, editing support, creative writing courses and master classes, networking opportunities, support in finding publishers and more.

The deadline for submissions is December 28th and all the details are here.

As always there’s a lot of stuff going on a the MAC. Here’s a couple of things of relevance to this blog.

First up is the Designer Maker Fair on the weekend of November 3rd-4th “showing the highest quality craft and design work to be seen in the region and beyond”.

And, according to Birmingham Words there’s also collecting memories of the MAC in poem form. “If you have a poem you’ve written about MAC, or you know someone who has, email it to Jacqui Rowe at jacquirowe [at] hotmail.co.uk. There’s no money in this, it isn’t a competition and Jacqui can’t guarantee publication but the poems will be seen in some way, through an exhibition, the programme or, possibly a small publication.”

Five Birmingham Poets by Eric Doumerc

Dr. Eric Doumerc is conducting an ongoing research of the Caribbean oral traditions’ influence on Black British performance poetry. His main interests include the study of Jamaican deejaying (the early 1970′s period) and its influence on oral poetry. He travels to Birmingham, UK, where he interviews Five Poets with Caribbean and other international links. Included here, are the responses and poetry of Sue Brown, Moquapi Selassie, Leon Blades, Martin Glynn and Roi Kwabena, all poets living in that vibrant British Midlands city. “Five Birmingham Poets” is an excellent introduction to contemporary poetry and culture of Black Britain. It is suitable for study by students at High (Secondary) School and University levels. However also provides general readers with a splendid opportunity to experience these unique voices.

It’s available from lulu.com for £8.91. via Birmingham Words

Black Country poet Brendan Hawthorne has been writing a regular poem for The Stirrer’s poetry corner since 2006. Here’s his piece reflecting on Artsfest: Fest or Famine.

From Birmingham Words

The Lichfield Poetry Writers are one year old and celebrating. “It’s a very exciting time for poets and poetry in Lichfield,” said Stewart Derry, the group’s director. “We’ve had a fantastic first year and needed to mark our birthday with a really special event.”

The Big One will be a feast of poetry, food and drink on Friday 4th May 7.30pm at Wade Street Church, Lichfield. Tickets are £4 / £3 concessions and are available from Lichfield Library. Telephone: 01543 510700

Googling for info on some flyers picked up in Jibbering Records I stumbled across Quoonsweird, a collection of videos on YouTube of live music and poetry performances in the Moseley Area. It’s mainly open mike and acoustic stuff and there’s a lot of things I’ve never heard of here.

The open mike scene in Birmingham is certainly active but very hard to get a handle on, taking place in the back rooms of random pubs off the beaten track.

The Chaos Acoustic Club seem to crop up a lot though never at the same venue. Their most recent one, to my knowledge, was at the Rainbow in Digbeth on Feb 1st. More info on them as I find it.

Also at the Rainbow is a monthly open mike night on the first Tuesday of each month run by Wrote Under Publishing who have events lined up until July. From their MySpace they seem very intriguing…

Wrote Under Publishing was formed in Autumn 2005 by a group of performance poets, writers and artists from the West Midlands. All met through a love of performing at the various open mic and live music gigs in the area.

The idea is to reach out to the community and promote and champion local underground talent including ourselves. To do this Wrote Under has set up two successful open mic events in the Birmingham area of Digbeth – the Sunday Xpress @ The Market Tavern and the First Tuesday @ The Rainbow. Anyone can join in, it’s free and friendly.

When at a gig – please note our impressive merchandice stall. This has been set up by the collective to showcase our material that we have produced over the years – CDs, DVDs, Books, a quarterly poetry magazine, greetings cards, craft and other haberdashery.

Their next Sunday Xpress is on 25th Feb followed by a First Tuesday on 6th March.

Any other open mike or similar events, please let me know!

Update

Matt Scriven of the Island Bar on Suffolk Street informs me they run an Open Mike every Thursday along with a more structured Acoustic night on Tuesdays.

Frank Cougar, aka Andy Green, is a musician and spoken word poet from Chemsley Wood.

Biography

“Inspired and influenced by life in an uncertain world and using different mediums to try to get past the fear and mind control of the oligarchy, the powers that try to rule all of us. It is not politics, it is just a personal stand for freedom”

“I wear my influences as badges of honour. What I’m doing isn’t anything you would call original, it’s a mix of all the people from then until now, who have touched me in some way.”

Frank Cougar on MySpace

Poems by Frank Cougar

3 Pin Recordings

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