Category Archives: Writing

Chip Lit Fest 2014 – Meet the New Generation Poets!

The T’ai Chi Room is again sponsoring one of the performance poetry events at this year’s Chiplitfest (Thursday 24 April – Sunday 27 April 2014). Prepare to be “utterly wowed” by three incredible performance poets  -

Dan Holloway

‘It is better to try to be extraordinary and fail than to try to be ordinary and succeed.’ – Dan Holloway

On closer inspection, Dan’s a self-confessed “butterfly,” yet I would warrant that this has served him well in his quest to promote self-publishing and to be a strong advocate for what he describes as “the more avant garde side of literature.”

Dan even has his own manifesto – so I’m sensing more focus than he’d give himself credit for…

Dan’s a contributor to the Guardian’s Books Blog, amongst other writing publications. He runs his own literary events and has written a variety of novels – for which he’s used a variety of formats. This guy really likes to break the mould – in fact, I’ll bet if I ever said that to him, he’d fire back a witty quip about his not requiring a mould, because life’s better without the confines of such structure!

I’ll have to pick up with Dan on that at the performance poetry night : )

Onto Vanessa Kisuule -

Vanessa Kisuule

Vanessa is renowned for delivering evocative, incisive verse, with humour and vivacity. In fact, Dan says of Vanessa’s talents:

‘… [her] verse is deeply political, deeply lyrical, and deeply moving, with far less rant and far more power, far less easy rhyme and far more depth than pretty much anyone else on the poetry slam circuit.’

Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Finally, Kiran Millwood Hargrave is an accomplished writer, who last year undertook a Literary Arts Residency at the Banff Centre in Canada, where she worked on Splitfish, Kiran’s third collection of poems -

‘It’s a poetry you feel and taste, embodied and emboldened by painterly detail, the precise, tactile verb. Millwood Hargrave weaves together the Imagist and the Romantic impulse with her own 21st century vision. It’s an assured, beautiful collection and a voice you’ll want to spend a lot of time with.’ – Luke Kennard

Kiran is President of Oxford University Poetry Society and Barbican Young Poet.

Performance Poetry evening

It’s probably safe to say that Friday evening’s performance poetry event promises to push boundaries. Saying any more than that would be just my guesswork – but I’m very excited about being challenged, being stunned by the unquestionable talents of our New Generation Performance Poets!

Here’s a little teaser of the nitty-gritty Dan, Vanessa and Kiran have told me they’ll be covering –

"An evening with a New Generation" - sponsored by The T'ai Chi Room

“An evening with a New Generation” – sponsored by The T’ai Chi Room

An Evening with a New Generation takes place at The Chequers pub at 6 – 7pm on Friday, 24 April 2014.

Competition!

I’d love to know what words you would include in a Word Cloud to describe your experience of the Chiplitfest 2014. No need to make the Word Cloud – simply submit up to 20 “word cloud” words by clicking on “leave a reply” at the top of this post.

The winner will receive a copy of my T’ai Chi DVD (being filmed in June 2014). Please supply an email or twitter handle in your entry. entries by midnight, Wednesday 30 April, please; the winner will be announced on Thursday 1 May 2014.

It’s good to share!

Please tweet –

Competition to share your #chiplitfest best bits! Enter your 20 “word cloud” words for chance to win new Tai Chi DVD! bit.ly/1bIKf93.

Have a great Festival!