Tag: Satellite Of Love

Community Poem September 2024

The clitoris of a mature woman can be a word or compilation, the path chosen and choices she made determine what she wants to write.

Oh, fuck a duck
The lobster laughed.
I butchered my poem
And then it changed colour and fell off
and they never grow back properly

You outrageous bastards
I hope I’m not just an open micer to you guys,
but also a subject for your next confused wet dream
I wish I were a fairy
This too will pass


A hot water urn full of lukewarm piss. Disappointing on both counts
For someone who heard so little he deduced so much
Wait where is this all going?
Something stupid, something like… Turbo island glitter ball
Fill your guts with star shaped Hernia Discopline stick

Like a moth to a flame Eve was not the only one tempted
where there’s smoke there’s fire. And it all fades away
I despise the man, the father I envy. You had the life I wanted.
Train-wreck into the blue, never thought I’d be here without you
Does the middle brick in the tunnel know about the light?

Live, laugh, triangulate
barking dogs don’t bite
I dream of love. Now love dreams of me
I’m doing a good job reading this on stage.
I am brave. Give me applause please.

Satellite of Love Hosts: Poetry Film club

Images and Film 19th November 7pm on the lightship

This month’s poetry film club looks at the relationship between images and words.

In the first half we are all going to make a poetry film by adding words to ‘Seven Risings’, a film created by artist Ben Glatt and composer and musician John Pendlington. This is going to be a fun and interesting way of understanding how the words work with the images!

In the second half we will view the new film and also a trio of poetry films made in collaboration with Lucy English and various filmmakers for her Book of Hours project. All these films were inspired in someway by visual images.

As usual there will be time for discussion, and creative exchanges.

Satellite of Love: Wendy Allen & Catherine Balaq. November 27th

This November Satellite presents a headline double bill

Doors open on the John Sebastian Lightship at 7pm, open mic starts 7.30pm

Wendy Allen

Wendy Allen’s debut pamphlet, Plastic Tubed Little Bird, was published in 2023 by Broken Sleep. She is a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her pamphlet, Portrait in Mustard will be published in October 2024 by Seren. 

Catherine Balaq

Catherine Balaq is a writer and body psychotherapist. Her work has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and nominated for the Pushcart and Forward Prize.

In 2022 Catherine was a recipient of The Poetry School MA scholarship. Her poetry play ‘Fuck the Moon’ was commissioned by Paper Nations and short-listed for the Bristol Old Vic Open Sessions 2019.

She is co-editor of Black Cat Press. Her debut collection ‘animaginary’ was published in July 2023 and was nominated for the Seamus Heaney Prize for first collection and the Pen Heaney Prize. Her second collection ‘Deathless‘ is published with Verve. Catherine also writes novels.

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Community Poem June 2024

If They Hadn’t Written This Would You Have?

(Shouted) Derek! They’ve stolen the geraniums again
that’s the biggest I’ve ever seen
You’ve snatched the world up of precious solitude which you have been craving for so long and realised it was in fact loneliness
A life of collaborative A Level anxiety


Isn’t it rude to leave at the interval after you’ve read every fucking time
leaving behind nothing but the faint whiff of an old fart?
Liberation for Palestine is liberation for us all. Ask yourself what you are doing at this moment
If I hadn’t written this would have you?
I spent the day horizontal in the park


Please improvise this line and don’t just read out this
To be cringe is to be free, apart from if you’re me right now in this exact situation
There is nothing so bloody wonderful as genuine warmth and encouragement, and there is so much love here
Rim Tim Tag I dim
But to see you again would destroy the memory
Marz

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Satellite of Love: Joelle Taylor, Bradley Taylor

September 25th 2024 at the Loco Klub

This month Satellite of Love’s open mic and headliner session is relocating to the Loco Klub at Temple Meads. The venue is fully accessible.

A Tale of Two Taylors

Bradley Taylor

Bradley is the winner of Satellite’s recent Summer Slam.

When we asked Bradley for a bio, all he wrote was:
‘Bradley Taylor (he/him) is a poet from Birmingham. Apologies.’

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I’ve Been Looking Everywhere For You – The Launch

Jemma Hathaway Book Launch Friday 7th June Doors 7pm for 7.30pm on the Lightship

Jemma Hathaway Performing

Jemma Hathaway likes to put words next to one another and see if they hit it off. Her poems have been featured on BBC Radio Bristol, BBC iPlayer and @bbc on Instagram. Jemma is a multiple slam-winner, was the 2020 Hammer & Tongue champion for Bristol and is a Button Poetry Short Form contest winner.

Jemma has supported Joelle Taylor, Jasmine Gardosi and Roger McGough, performed at the Royal Albert Hall and appeared on Sky Arts Life & Rhymes. She self-published her first poetry pamphlet, January in 2021. Her poems are a sticky dancefloor for the ongoing dance-off between her head and her heart. She hopes you like her moves.

About The Book

I’ve been looking everywhere for you is full of big four-letter things – life, love, loss, time and ultimately, hope. It’s a book of hellos and goodbyes, bad days and blessings, it is a healing and a homecoming … and it hopes to come home with you.

These poems take us from melanin to mountains, from stars to submarines, from hard times to soft words and set us down somewhere in that healing space between far-off galaxies and close-up magic.

This collection longs to be read in a different light – the light of midnight porches, of torches beneath blankets, of lighthouses that exist solely to warn you away from the rocks. All the lights that say, there you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.

‘Big things happen in small moments, writes Jemma Hathaway, and proceeds to show us just how much life can be found stuffed in the cracks of our existence.

Casting a witty, irreverent eye over the subject of her poems, Jemma chooses a playful touch which enables her to explore serious subjects without ever feeling worthy or preachy. The collection doesn’t shy away from the world’s sharp edges- racial microaggressions, homophobia, grief and mental health are some of the things she touches upon- but remains ultimately and defiantly hopeful.

The imagery swings between the expansive and the everyday, where melanin holds light like Galileo’s telescope holds the moon and Queer lives are singing kettles. Throughout, Jemma reminds the reader that love in all its various, ridiculous, wonderful forms exists in the most mundane of places.’ Kat Lyons

‘Jemma Hathaway is a beacon of light guiding you back home to yourself. Her collection is unapologetically itself and encourages you to be the same. Metaphors and similes soar, seeking to be deciphered into insightful notes of acceptance, reminding you you’re alive, and deservedly so. A vivid, compelling and compassionate collection.’ Jemima Hughes

Jemma will be supported on the night by three fantastic poets from the South-West:

Kathryn O’Driscoll
Kathryn O’Driscoll is a queer, disabled poet, mentor and editor from Bath. She was the 2021 U.K. Poetry Slam Champion and a World Slam Finalist. She was longlisted for the Disabled Poets Prize and the Outspoken Prize for Performance Poetry in 2023, and the Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Artist in 2022. In 2021 she was one of the featured poets on the (BAFTA winning) Sky Arts spoken word TV show Life and Rhymes. Her debut collection ‘Cliff Notes’ is available from Verve Poetry Press.

Jo Eades
Since her first performance set at the inaugural Hotwells Festival of words in 2021, Jo has become a regular on the Bristol spoken word scene. She has been featured four times on BBC Radio Upload, performed on the Milk Poetry stage at Valleyfest and was headliner for Heron Books anniversary celebration last Christmas. In 2023 she won both a Rhyme Against the Tide and Milk Poetry Slam and in April this year, won the Lyra Poetry Festival Grand Slam.

Jaidah
Jaidah’s written & spoken works are undeniably compelling, ask questions of us collectively & hold the primary focus of advocating alongside promoting human welfare & connection.
Jaidah’s journey into writing started 3 years ago in a sanctuary of solitude, which stimulated vastly journeying the world within herself & most importantly she has been inspired by listening to the language nature speaks.
Vulnerable yet powerful Jaidah’s quiet commanding presence & delivery are outward reaching & embody a courage built through her own hard-won experience. Continuously thought provoking, her words are colourful & within those colours live the essence of divine human nature.

Community poem October 2023

They are all in the Vortex

I live in a dustbin littered with gold
You can tell its art-my Grandfather said- because there are no people in it
I was watching Line of Duty

Drop, beat, drop, beat, drop

Time flies
The beautiful smallness you feel when gazing up at the sky and realising, somewhere
up there, is a boat that never moves
Its behind you

Drop, beat, drop, beat, drop

Love is a verb
Gravy
Clit
Ramen
Telling talk from mutter is like telling Stork from butter

Drop, beat, drop, beat, drop

On the bad days, please read this
Your legacy is not yours-
I think about profiting from your death more than I probably should

Lou Reed- As I entered a lock on my Satellite of Love !!! narrow boat xx
I am begging Mars to write a line, I tell them, the poem needs them, he needs you
satellite circling a satellite of love.

LOOK UP!

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Satellite Of Love May 2023 Community Poem

Extra Lines This Month

The Satellite Of Love Community poem this month has donated lines from the Writing the City workshop that took place during Satellite Week.

Each Day ( June 2023)

The day the jaffa cakes went missing
The dreich sunk its teeth into my bones.
The tinsel shimmers, the light on sea, what is anything, what are we? Moments in light reflexed.
The salt of sea and light of sky.

The buttercups are asking the sky, do you like butter?
Do platypuses speak in platitudes
Everyday you wake you may choose to be kind
And she gazed around her and she saw their brilliant faces, their open hearts and she was held.

No fires will take place here tonight
What is everything, who are we, where and for how long?
Climb every mountain clad in lycra
Get out of your comfort zone and your Nissan Micra.

I need to pee so I’m gonna rush writing this.
After a while, the whole thing evaporated.
I took a little look, before I had a proper gander
How! How! Why! why! I feel I could die!

Community Poem June 23 – Leftover Lines – I have put into some kind of order – Enjoy !

You I
Why don’t you try it my daughters said, why don’t you go instead this afternoon and do your usual
and going to bed.
Is there a raffle – yay, where are the toilets, please don’t call out my winning ticket while I’m
powdering my nose.
What happened to my gravy underpants?

4 Wines and 5 packets of crisps, sorry 4 packets, 2 cheese and onion, 1 salt and vinegar and 1 ready
salted and now my friends are sorted.
And the mama gave birth right here
Flaff women’s mags light. But they calmed me for the battle against you. They taught me love-
bonding, gaslighting and emotional abuse. And I knew you for what you were and I was not lower. I
emerged victorious, clad in the driest plate of flaff.
Dear Tina got her wings today, 24 th of May……love it as everything to do with it.

Life is wonderful, life is great but why does it have to be so hard! So much to do and so little time,
always living on the edge. Love yourself, love each other – be kind, stay safe, love one another.
I lick you paw to feel your love.
Bats commute, bats commute along linear features did you know?
Safe, safe away from empty space!
Space, space keep me safe.
Ditto, Ditto to every one’s words amazahins arghhhh
.
What is God? A 10p freddo
Beans, beans, beans, I love baked beans on toast (with curry powder)
Lush Ice Cream
Put your cigarette out properly!
Steep steps back…

My special sunshine dress!
This scent of the candle was sweet vanilla.
Where are the editors when you need them?

That walk around Bristol’s floating harbour…………

love finds itself walking through the city’s dark history
a city in levels like a Victoria sponge cake
discovery anatomy, it smells of curry
ferryboat Margaret swings low with river rats, boaters and rainbow oil
her sister Mary, a small sleek sailboat, sits as a queen amongst plastic pretenders
the dark water reflected an abundance of rain rich clouds
wavelets gave glimpses
cascades of silver glitter, shimmering ghosts
love me, so don’t scare me of all these pomp and circumstances

Satellite Of Love Previous Headliner May 2023

love-in-focus.co.uk

Pete The Temp

Wednesday 25th May 7.30pm

Satellite Of Love Previous Headliner Pete Bearder is an award-winning spoken word poet, author and comic. His work has been featured on BBC Radio 4, The World Service, and Newsnight. He is a former National Poetry Slam Champion and has performed around the world with organisations like The British Council. Pete recently released his third book ‘Garden of Madness’, described by Tom Hirons as a ‘word-heaven of praise poetry’.

www.petethetemp.co.uk   | Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: @PeteTheTemp |
Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/pbearder 

Community Poem February 2023

The 2016 Clown Scare

I’ve not had breakfast and the dentist talks of my mortality 
At least we have suckable items
And Brian blessed is my patronus 
I sat on a train that became a long, metallic fart
The hopeless case of progress 
An aubergine between the legs 
Bristol’s clear air zone – are you ready? I’m not 
In my best, loudest football voice I said:
Two squatter’s wrongs don’t make a squatter’s rights
At least we have pizza
Love was bird in my hand and I squeeze – splat! 
Which was incredibly wonderful
But then we all knew turkeys aren’t a just for Christmas, they’re a way of life 
September rang like a scar,
Left upon that creature’s pity 
A tourist in a resort 
On the fourth Wednesday of the month 
Ring ring goes the poet’s phone as he starts to rhyme…

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