A Celebration of Life on Planet Earth
Roger West performs ‘Consider the Song of the Cicada’. A suite of 15 poems and 1 song tracing the summer months in southern France week by week from the first notes of the cicadas, which herald the summer, to their disappearance in autumn. Each piece of the suite is in a different form – dialogue, film treatment, prose poem, sonnet and other formal verse, sound poem – and uses soundscapes, pre-recorded and generated on stage, and live music. It draws on ancient Greek mythology in the bedrock of literature through the Occitan troubadours to the jangling discord of the American Beats.
Steve Walter performs ‘Gaia2020: Earth, Moon, Sky‘. This long poem is inspired by his late parents and challenges us all to rethink our relationship with Mother Earth. The poem ranges from the origins of life, the nature of rock, to the experience of our lives upon the planet.
Roger West: Poet, performer, songwriter. A punk long before and long after it was fashionable. He has published 4 collections of poetry and has been included in several anthologies and magazines in the UK, the US and France. In addition he has recorded a number of what he persists in calling ‘records’ at studios in Glasgow and in Austin TX. He writes directly in English and in French, pursuing the thought in whichever language it presents itself. He also translates poetry from French into English and from other languages – Persian, Arabic – via French into English. A former director of the Austin International Poetry Festival in Texas, member of the Urgence Poésie Collective in SW France and a translator for the Festival of Mediterranean Literature in Malta, where he works with invited poets on English translations of their texts for dual-language readings on the festival stage. He performs regularly at festivals in the the US, France, Belgium and the UK. A poet of the stage as well as the page, he concentrates mainly these days on performance pieces in collaboration with musicians and on poetry films.
Steve Walter: Steve is a writer and a poet. He graduated in biochemistry and chemistry in Sheffield. He has performed at the Edinburgh and Brighton Festival Fringes, based on his first book, ‘Fast Train Approaching…’, a powerful, yet good humoured, account of life during and after breakdown and recovery. He has also shared other people’s stories in ‘Voices: mental health survivors, carers, therapist, family and friends’. He was recently included in the covid anthology: ‘Arrival at Elsewhere’ published by Against the Grain. His second pamphlet of poetry, ‘When the Change Came’ was published by Indigo Dreams in 2016, and he is included in their recent tribute to Dylan Thomas, Dear Dylan. His festival performance, ‘Gaia 2020’, is essentially a love song to the planet, prompted by a question to his late parents, Mum a watercolour artist, and Dad a poet.
Tuesday 24th August, 8:00pm
King Charles the Martyr Church, TN2 5TA
£10: Get Tickets
Venue is wheelchair accessible
Tunbridge Wells Poetry Festival 