Performance Poetry: Lemn Sissay & Hollie McNish, Guest: Caroline Bird

Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon 25th Sep - Sat 30th Sep, 2017
5:00pm - 10:00am

Location
Moniack Mhor, Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire , IV4 7HT

The stage can be a frightening place. It needn’t be. The nature of expression through the poems which you have carefully written are what this course is all about. We will show you how to give the words the respect they deserve by exalting them through your voice and physical presence. You will experience the true nature of performance through a poem. Through a series of workshops, tutorials and much more besides, two of Britain’s finest poets of the page and the stage offer a great week. Inhibitions will disappear and you will leave with invaluable lessons in how to improve your stage presence and your words. It’s never been a better time for poetry on stage and it’s never been a better time for this course. Seasoned performers are welcome too. This course will enhance their practice no end.

Lemn Sissay (MBE) is the author of several books of poetry alongside articles, records, public art, and plays. He was an official poet for the London Olympics. His Landmark Poems are installed throughout Manchester and London, in venues such as The Royal Festival Hall and The Olympic Park. Sissay is associate artist at Southbank Centre, patron of The Letterbox Club and The Reader Organisation, and inaugural trustee of World Book Night.

Hollie McNish is a published UK poet based between London, Cambridge and Glasgow. She has two poetry collections – Cherry Pie and Papers – and an album, Versus, which made her the first poet to record at Abbey Road Studios, London. In February 2016, Blackfriars published her memoir of poetry and parenthood, Nobody Told Me. Taken from Hollie’s journals while pregnant and in the early years of raising her daughter, through the passages and poems she wrote, she explores raising a child in modern Britain, of trying to become a parent in modern Britain, of sex, commercialism, feeding, gender and of finding secret places to scream once in a while. The Scotsman declared “The world needs this book. It should be required reading.” It has been reprinted four times already. In 2017, Picador will publish her third poetry collection, as yet untitled.

Caroline Bird is an award-winning poet, with four collections published by Carcanet. Her first collection Looking Through Letterboxes was published when she was only 15. Her second collection, Trouble Came to the Turnip, was published in September 2006 to critical acclaim. Watering Can (2009) achieved a ‘Poetry Book Society Recommendation’ and her fourth collection, The Hat-Stand Union, (2013) was described by Simon Armitage as ‘spring-loaded, funny, sad and deadly.’ Winner of multiple awards, she was one of the five official poets at London Olympics 2012 and has written a number of plays. In 2013, Caroline was short-listed for Most Promising New Playwright at the Off-West-End Awards. She is currently working on her fifth collection of poetry

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