The Leopard Inn Hotel in Burslem, Stoke on Trent is the superb venue for the monthly ‘Poems and Pints’ night, that is hosted by the well-known musician Richard Faulkner in partnership with the City Voices Writers from Hanley.
The night is being advertised inside the venue as taking part on ‘the last Tuesday of the month’ and has so far been quite well attended by the 20 or so regular members of the City Voices forum.
The group is probably better known for its festival of words and music, which again has been held at the Leopard Hotel for many years, and has been so popular it has even brought them to the attention of The Sentinel ‘our hero’ awards for their hard work raising funds for many local charities.
This is the first time the group has ventured out into the ‘pub scene’ in Stoke on Trent. With many similar ‘poetry nights’ springing up all over and around Staffordshire and The Moorlands, they will certainly have their work cut out to both entertain the general public and to have the many local poets flocking to share their own work to both their fellow writers and with an eager and attentive crowd.
For me the night was quite ‘sterile’ when it is compared to the many ‘poetry slams’ and hip hop nights that I have attended over the years, but that said; this is Stoke on Trent so maybe my expectations are far too high just yet
My only ‘real gripe’ was that the vast bulk of work read on the night was by members of City Voices reading comedy verse, various ‘meaningful prose’ and some recollections of the 1950′s that I have heard many, many times before (being a former member of City Voices for many years)
My concern is this: If this night is to survive and to flourish with so many similar ’open mic nights’ that also cater for poets and comedians, it will surely need a constant and varied influx of ‘new blood’ and ‘new ideas’ to keep it interesting and not quickly become ‘just another city voices meeting, in a pub’
Stephen Harvey
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I have tried to get the Poems and Pints night but so far haven't managed it because of work and the children. I belong to Room in the Roof, Burslem we established in 2005 and have had good numbers but we do have writers of all genres but really only the occasional poet which is why I wanted to pop along to this group. I have to say that I am a little put off by the fact that there are so many members of City Voices at the group and not new, younger poets who have something different to offer. City Voices do seem to attract good numbers, maybe too many, but they seem to be gentlemen of a certain age who write the same old material and some of it not very good.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments that a new poetry group (such as Bad Edit) needs to establish themselves as something different and modern and make poetry exciting.