The penultimate show for lyric lounge took place last Wednesday. The usual dedicated group of volunteers made their way to Panj Pani radio station for another great instalment of the WORD! show. This weeks theme was community and featured guest’s poet; Bobba Cass, and Writer and member of the Literature Network, Damien Walter.

The show began as normal with a brief introduction to WORD! and the lyric lounge events, where Lydia Towsey went on to discuss in detail about WORD! as a community and how she felt it affects its members and the organisation itself. This lead on to Bobba, a fellow WORD! Attendee for many years, speaking about his experiences of WORD!, communities he has worked in and about his involvement with a dance workshop at the lounge. Next we each spoke about our own experiences of volunteering, with the lyric lounge and in other areas. Lauren Furze, Solo musician and extreme volunteer, spoke extensively about how lyric lounge was the best thing she had ever got involved in, not only in meeting new people but about all the fantastic things she has been involved in so far. After various song interludes came the weekly slot of poetry readings, from poets in residence; Kishan, Diviesh, Saskia, Zara & Yvette. Each performed one or two peices of extraordinary and powerful work, again inspiring the listeners and giving just a taster of what kind of material is to be showcased at the lyric lounge this year.

Finally we spoke to Damien Walter, about him, his views on community both past and present in the poetry and arts in Leicester, and of course about his involvement with the lounge. Damien is partnered with the lyric lounge and is showing his full support for the event. After this more detail was expressed about how you can sign up for workshops, the events that will be going on over the long weekend and ways to get involved. If you are interested in signing up for any of the workshops you can email: word@wordpoetry.co.uk and take time to visit: http://www.lyriclounge.co.uk/ for full details on workshops and events, or pick up a flyer just about anywhere (thanks to the diligent volunteer program distributers!).

you can listen to last weeks show in full here; http://panjpaniradio.co.uk/category/listen-again/page/2/

By Tara Gatherer

James Black

On Wednesday 14^th July the second meeting of the Khushi women’s poetry group took place at Belgrave Library. The meeting was led by Leicester Libraries resident Book Doctor Alison Dunne and from Fosse Arts ceramics tutor Fiona Meagher.

The word ‘Khushi’ means happy in Gujarati and the idea of happiness is central to the group as the meetings allow each of the members to get together with people from a similar background to their own, have fun and express themselves through words and the creation of their artwork. The Khushi Group have been working on a project themed around the seaside. They are planning a trip to the coast where filmmaker Keith Allot will shoot a film which hopefully, (if all goes according to plan,) will be shown at the Lyric Lounge on Friday 30^th July.

Wednesday’s meetings began with Alison asking the ladies to think of a time when they were at the seaside and the experiences, feelings, ideas that the visit evoked. Images that cropped up time and again include the glorious sunshine, the delight of seeing children at play, the sound of their laughter and, (just to remind us that this is a women’s workshop,) shopping on the promenade! When talking about the serene environment of beach the group spoke of the profound sense of peacefulness, calm and well-being they had experienced when at the seaside.

Alison did not allow me to be a silent observer and I was joined in with my experiences of the seaside. The irony of my story of looking out onto the Arabian Sea in Goa, India was not lost on the group of Asian ladies, especially as they had been speaking about their visits to Great Yarmouth and Blackpool! When I said that looking out to the vastness of the water put me in a reflective mood Alison remarked that psychologists often associate images of water with our emotions: dreaming of water is said to symbolise the unconscious – well she hasn’t got a column in the Leicester Mercury for nothing you know!

Alison then asked the group to write down a five or six words and one sentence from what they had written. These words were then used to decorate the clay stones and rocks in the ceramics part of the Khushi session. The practical side of the session got underway as the ladies got stuck into their work fashioning pebbles and stones out of clay. This time gave everybody a chance to chat to one another and create some interesting pieces of work; one lady even moulded a (perhaps sacred) cow much to the hilarity and delight of her friends.

Throughout the session I was struck by the friendliness of the atmosphere and how much the women seemed to enjoy their activities. If you would like to see more photos of the session please visit the Lyric Lounge 2010 photo set on Flickr. 

James Black

On Saturday 10^th July New Walk Museum hosted the second meeting of the Events Team of Leicester’s Lyric Lounge. The meeting began in the informal surroundings of the museum’s gardens as the Happenings Group meeting drew to a close. Some plucky participants showed their dedication and commitment to the Lounge by attending both events!

The relaxed atmosphere of the garden get-together gave many people the opportunity to catch up with one another and to get up to speed with how each of us had set about promoting the fabulous events of July 30^th, July 31^st and August 1^st. As well as the Lyric Lounge blog one of the best promotional tools has been The Word! Show on Panj Pani Radio. The programme includes live music and poetry last week’s guest was Lyric Lounge performer Mellow Baku who wowed the presenters with two of her songs. The show’s presenters Lydia, Lauren, Kishan, Diviesh, Yvette, Zara, Saskia, Karen and Tara also took the opportunity to discuss different aspects of the Lyric Lounge and their own thoughts on writing and performing poetry.

Once back inside the Lord Mayor’s Room at New Walk Museum Lydia Towsey our spiritual leader and organisational genius of the Lyric Lounge decided that it might be a good idea if we split ourselves up into four separate groups so that each group could focus one particular day at the Lounge. Seeing as 2009’s events involved 7 big shows, 10 open mic sessions, 30 new writing commissions, countless One-Ones and the participation of over 2000 people this was going to be quite a task indeed!

The first couple of groups read out their list of events in quite a conventional fashion covering diverse happenings such as Costa Coffee’s tablecloth poetry; where people are encouraged to etch their poetic outpourings upon the tablecloth (an event which runs throughout the three days of the Lounge,) The Knit and Think Poetry at Gallery 6; literally a mind-beading fusion of knitting and poetry and the 6-10 year olds Little People’s Poetry extravaganza.

However, none of this readied us for the Saturday group’s stylised news report. Quite how the group managed to organise this comedic bulletin within the allotted 15 minutes remains a mystery to us all but we certainly were brought up to speed with events of the day in a unique manner as the news of Book Doctor Allison Dunne’s Get Stuffed! and Mellow Baku’s ‘Lyrical Lounging’ whizzed back and forth between the ‘Studio’ and the ‘Live Roving Reporter.’

Things settled back down again as the final groups told us about Sunday’s events, (it is the day of rest after all!) Sunday’s events include Music and Words with Gwynne Jones and The Psychicbread, Tim Clarke’s Pictures and Words; a session which encourages the assembled to Draw, colour, collage and scribble their pictures of the Lyric Lounge in all of its glory.

With talented artists such as Jean ‘Brinta. Breeze, John Hegley and Fatima Al Matar involved Leicester’s Lyric Lounge is shaping up to be a monumental and unforgettable experience!

Stayed tuned to our Lyric Lounge blog and Citizens’ Eye for further updates on the events.