Sofia and Johnson Kalu are Manchester residents in danger of being
deported to countries where they are at risk of persecution. Please sign
this petition (below) to allow them to stay in their adopted Manchester
community.

Petition to Rt. Hon Theresa May Secretary of State for the Home Office to allow Sofia & Johnson Kalu to remain in the UK.

Sofia Kalu (Home Office Ref: K1254708) arrived in the UK on the 13th of November 2006 having fled Zimbabwe, after her home was burnt to the ground and her husband beaten and murdered by ZANU-PF members because he was an active MDC member. Sofia knew it was no longer safe for her to stay in Zimbabwe and she could not return to her country of birth South Africa as she had been warned that there were ZANU-PF supporters who would kill her or the authorities may just return her to Zimbabwe.

Sofia’s church in Zimbabwe made arrangements for her to go to Britain where a church was to provide her with shelter and work. Later, once in the country, Sofia’s claimed asylum but was refused on the grounds that the Home Office did not believe she would be at risk as an MDC supporter in South Africa or that she would be forced to go back to Zimbabwe by the authorities. Sofia fears either could happen and there is now a very real risk of persecution if she is returned.

Sofia has recently married Johson Kalu (same Home office ref: K1254708) a Nigerian asylum seeker who is also facing a risk of persecution if he is sent back to Nigeria. They have built a new life in Manchester as husband and wife and both are active in the Manchester community. At present, Sofia’s claim has been refused and is at the end of the line.

Zimbabwe is a ‘Failed State’ and Nigeria a ‘Failing state’ (32% decrease in living/human rights conditions in 3 years) according to Fund for Peace a leading authority on economic and human rights conditions in all countries around the world. Both countries lacking the capacity to establish and maintain political institutions secure their population from violent conflict, from the state and from agents of the state, control their territories and meet the basic needs of their population.

We the undersigned, call upon the Home Secretary to grant Sofia & Johnson permission to stay in the UK on Humanitarian grounds so that they can remain with their Manchester Community; where they have established a ‘private life’ as set out in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Phrased & Confused

This weekend I and my fellow Geddes Loom band mates, Léonie Higgins and Dan Steele, will be performing a new music and spoken word commission at Summer Sundae Weekender in Leicester, brought to you by the lovely people at Phrased & Confused. The piece is themed on protest, and we’ve tried to imagine what Poetry and Music would protest about if they were characters, with what I hope are quite amusing results. I’ll also be performing in a Gil Scott Heron tribute slot and Geddes Loom will be performing a set of our other material on the Rising Stage on the Sunday. If you’re not around in Leicester we’ll be performing the protest piece at Interrogate Festival in Dartington on 23rd Sept, and at Contact, Manchester on 23rd Nov.

A Game Of Consequence

Over the last couple of months I’ve been busy working with Contact’s Young Actor’s Company on A Game of Consequence – a new piece of street theatre for Xtrax’s Platform 4 outdoor arts festival in Manchester’s Picadilly Gardens on 20th & 21st. The show is inspired by an old fashioned medicine show with a modern twist, and is directed by Cheryl Martin (with me assisting).

Everything We Need

My brand new solo show, which was previously going under the working title ‘Climate Myths’, has now found a better name, and will be opening at the Royal Exchange Studio, Manchester next Spring, followed by a short tour. Dates tba. The show is a series of inter-linked monologues, each inspired by a myth that relates to our understanding of climate change and other ecological crises. But it’s more fun than it sounds, and that this provisional promo image makes it look! The show has so far been developed at Dartington Arts, with a short R&D period completed in May. It’s being directed by Cheryl Martin and live music is performed by Léonie and Dan.

Shambala

I’ll also be performing a solo set and a set with Geddes Loom in the brilliant Wandering Word tent at Shambala Festival on the 26th & 27th August. This is one of the best small festivals I’ve ever been to, can’t wait for this one.

September

Got a couple of gigs coming up in September too, one at The Core, @ Corby Cube on the 3rd as part of an event called Lyric Lounge, also featuring Jean Binta Breeze and Joel Stickley. And I’m going to be on the Manchester team at the Bristol Poetry Festival Slam at The Arnolfini on the 17th.

More exciting things coming up in October and onwards, but I might get round to shouting about in September…

Anyway, failing so early on kind of takes the pressure away, much like turning thirty and realising all the things you told yourself you were going to do before you hit that age aren’t going to happen. Or they still might, you just won’t have put an arbitrary time limit on achieving them. Anyway, point is, as I said on the Pen-ultimate site today (which also had a big gap in it yesterday), my reasons for taking up the challenge were to encourage a regular ‘fast and loose’ writing regime, not add another self-flagellation stick to my arsenal if I miss a day, which may well happen again considering the month I have ahead of me.

So, today’s, or rather yesterday’s poem, is one I started in a workshop I delivered recently for the Heritage Lottery Fund. The exercise, taken from fellow Pen-ultimate member Frisko (I think he adapted from someone else) is to to use the phrases ‘I was…’, ‘I am…’, ‘I will…’, ‘I can…’ at the beginning of each line of four four-line stanzas, and fill in the blanks. As the workshop was on heritage I tried to make it vaguely about that but I only got as far as ‘I will…’. As you can see, once you’ve filled in each line you can take out some of the line beginnings like I have to make it less repetitive. It’s interesting to try your own workshop exercises I’ve realised, I don’t particularly like this one actually! I think it leads to an overly affirmative voice of self realisation which can ring a bit hollow (if you’re a cynical so and so like me) and the structure of the exercise doesn’t allow for any turning point at the end. But I suppose you can always break the rules. But for now, this is the unfinished version. Will try and post today’s unfinished effort tomorrow, with tomorrow’s. Or something.

I was born from the chalk under green Chiltern hills,
Formed from the tip of the Pennine tail,
Then forged in the smoke of dark northern mills,
Brought forth from the borders of lands where words fail.

Only dimly aware of my family tree’s branches,
A stranger unknown to my ancestor’s shores.
I am sectioned into generational tranches,
Shut off from the roots of my blood by Death’s doors.

I will sounds into matter with mind-powered hands,
Trace my connections in looping black threads.
I will alter my accent when convention demands,
Sign my name on the land my experience treads.

Just about slipping this one in before the day’s out because I need to have posted something on the first of this month, as I’ll be attempting to throw up something vaguely poetic every day for the whole of April. This is part of NaPoWriMo, an initiative which has so far attracted around 170 websites to publicly commit to posting a new poem every day for thirty days. It’s a bit of a daunting task, especially considering everything else I have going on this month, but I’m hoping the threat of a daily deadline will be a healthy thing that will push me to write what needs writing. Also I’m doing a stint on Something Every Day for a week in June so I figure this will be good training.

My first post is a bit of a cheat as I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, but still it’s not been seen or heard by anyone but the editors of Inc zine who are publishing some of my work this month. I’ve submitted a few short poems, plus they asked me to write something in response to an illustration (below) by Barnie Page who will also feature in the zine. I had two attempts at this as I didn’t like the first one I wrote, but in the spirit of ‘resisting the urge not to leave traces’ I’m including them both and letting you be the judge.

The Girl In The Picture
or
Blue Period – Version 1

Oh, hey!
I didn’t know you’d be here…
How are you?
No, it’s ok, I could’ve rung you too.
Thanks! No, my sister lent me the shirt,
She’s so retro!
The glasses? They’re well old,
Just don’t wear em much anymore,
They’re everywhere now,
Bit old hat.
Mocking the afflicted too,
If you think about it
I mean, what next, right?
Ironic slings?
Post-modern crutches?
Ha…!
Sooo, who are you here with?
Oh.
No, we’ve not met.
She looks…
Really cool.
Yeah I’ll come over in a bit
And say hi.
Bye.

The Girl In The Picture
or
Blue Period – Version 2

She doesn’t know Picasso
But this is her blue period;
A Miles Davis kind of blue,
A cool and sassy
Savvy affectation of experience;

A blue that seeks to find a reason
For her teenage indigo moods
Beyond some vague
Middle class malaise
Inherited from her parents.

Aeons away from needing
Real glasses, she dons
Ironic slings,
Post-modern crutches
As if to say ‘I’m cool,

But I don’t take myself
Too seriously, OK?’
Assembles her look
From a collage of
Past decades’ fashions

Redolent of an age
Uncertain of itself;
Sheltering in anachronistic
Combinations of styles
From more confident times.

But behind those lensless frames,
Outwardly stating carefree chic,
Two blue plaintive eyes
Bespeak a growing realisation
Of what is
And hope for something better.

On the Cusp of Spring

The sun shone and to herald spring
Chiffchaff, Chaffinch, Coal tit, Blue tit
and Goldfinch sang to our gathering

With the bloody and failing occupations
of Iraq and Afghanistan still in place,
the USA, Britain and France
are now committed to an escalating
armed intervention in Libya.

Sheep grazed on improved grassland
which usually means that there is little to be noted
on such bland landscapes
but we managed to note Woodpigeon,
Stock Dove and Mistle Thrush
before we moved along the road
in our search for more bird friendly habitat

The decision to attack Libya and impose regime change –
for that is what the UN resolution means –
may have been authorised by the Security Council.
But it was instigated by the despots of the Arab League,
desperate to secure deeper western involvement
in the region to save them from their own peoples.
And it will be implemented by the same powers
which have wreaked such mayhem
throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds
over the last ten years and longer.

Sadly our first impressions gave us little encouragement
for such is the parlous state of modern farmland
where for the most part it resembles a factory production line
that gives little space for birds
but viewing heavenward
in a bright blue sky we took heart at seeing three Buzzards
effortlessly moving in the thermals above a nearby wood.

The imposition of a “no-fly zone”,
air attacks on Libyan defences
and Gaddafi’s troops,
and naval bombardments
will not bring peace to Libya
nor a resolution
to the conflict there.
They will, however, cost more
civilian lives and they will set Britain
and the world on an escalator
of military intervention which risks
ending up with an occupation
of at least part of Libya.

A few purposeful strides later
and we were at a ‘messy’ farmyard/farmhouse
enclave where we soon appreciated
that a bit of chaos and an inclination not to modernise
and tidy every area of man’s occupation,
such as we encounter in our urban world of today,
pays dividends for birdlife
hence we were treated to the bustle
of a mixed flock of House and Tree Sparrows
before we moved onto the open fields once more.

As the people’s revolution unfolds in Bahrain,
the Bahraini government has
called on its despotic partners in the Middle East
to crush the uprising.
On Thursday, over 1000 Saudi and 500 Emirati (UAE) troops
crossed into Bahrain to join Bahraini government forces
in attacking the unarmed, peaceful protesters.
Hundreds of innocent men, women, and children
have been wounded, and many killed
by government forces,
and the massacre
does not seem likely
to subsist.

The area that lay before us
still had that mix of crops
that encourages a varied mix of farmland birds
but on the occasion of our visit
little of this was to be seen
until we applied ourselves
then Red Legged and Grey Partridge
revealed themselves to our straining gaze.

There is money for endless war and Trident
so why is the government making massive cuts?
£20 billion has been spent on the unjustifed
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The war in Afghanistan is costing £4.5 billion a year.
David Cameron says British troops will be there at least till 2014.

We then turned back from whence we came
for to do a circuit of this area
would have required the application of ramblers
out on a mission
rather than a bimbling team of birdwatchers
Who were out for a few birds
and a lot of comfortable chit-chat
on a supremely beautiful
pre-spring day.

Well, not quite, but after much faffing about with couriers, jiffy bags and a new set of kitchen scales that look misleadingly like an iPad, I have now officially set up shop. My book and CD are available in various combinations (book, CD, book & CD) at my bandcamp page.

I’m very happy with both, and think they represent fairly good value for money, even though I am still quite uncomfortable with the whole exchanging poetry for cash thing. If we lived in a world where people were happy to exchange food (and clothing, shelter, inner tubes and macbooks) for left-leaning, self-righteous doggerel performed by bearded thirty year-olds then I wouldn’t have to suffer that discomfort, but we don’t. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

Anyway, I hope a) you’re richer than me and can afford frivolous things like books and CDs and b) you decide to part with some of your hard-earneds to receive the fruits of my faffing and c) if you answered yes to a) & b) that you enjoy it/them and share your enjoyment with me and the rest of the world. Meanwhile I’d better get on with writing some new poems while I sit and wait for the orders to flood in… Or not.

So, A Nasty Mash will be a mash-up of spoken word, comedy, live music, MCs and DJs featuring:

Eric Kleptone
www.kleptones.com

Thick Richard

Pen-ultimate
www.pen-ultimate.net

Leonie Higgins

Ajah
www.myspace.com/ajahuk

Stevie Mac & This Is Robstep

http://www.faze2agency.com/

And more…

All hosted by rising star of Ch4 comedy and compere of Sabotage, London – Mark Talbot!

Taking place at:

Bassment, 1 Primrose St, Ancoats, M4 6AQ
8pm – 3am
Fri 17th Dec

This is a private party, which means it’s free to get in, but I’ll be shaking people down at some point for donations to Amnesty International. Entirely optional of course.

Just because it’s private though, doesn’t mean you can’t invite your mates to come with you. As long as they’re not knobs. But then, you’re not a knob, so why would you be mates with one?