Author: GBJM_57

Previous Headliner Archive

Jonny Fluffypunk January 24th 2024

Stand-up poet and lo-fi theatremaker Jonny Fluffypunk has been dragging his art around the UK and occasionally beyond for over 25 years, deafly fusing bittersweet autobiography, disillusionment and wonder into an act that has established him as a firm favourite at gigs, festivals and housing benefit offices everywhere. He has two volumes of poems, micro-fictions and threadbare philosophy published by Burning Eye, and his solo ‘no-fi’ stand-up spoken word theatre shows,
including his latest, If We Just Keep Going, We Will Get There in the End, have toured extensively around theatres, pubs, garden sheds, summer houses, record shops and Britain’s other ad-hoc performance spaces in a blatant championing of homespun DIY culture. When not performing, Jonny runs workshops, putting shapes and colours into the minds of young and old alike. He’s a crucial third of Hip Yak Poetry Shack, ‘the south west’s favourite pop-up poetry event’, and also runs Mr Fluffypunk’s Penny Gaff, an alternative cabaret in his adopted home town of Stroud.

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!

Kat Lyons

Kat is a Bristol-based writer and performer, working mainly in the field of spoken word poetry. They are the curent Bristol City Poet (2022-2024) and were nominated for the Jerwood Poetry in Performance Award 2022. Kat has performed at poetry events and festivals across the UK, including WOMAD, Shambala, Lyra: Bristol Poetry Festival 2020 and the Eden Project. Their poetry has been featured in Under the Radar, Ink Sweat & Tears and Bath Magg and their debut collection Love Beneath the Nails is published by Verve Poetry Press. Kat has recently finished their UK tour of Dry Season – a multi-year spoken word theatre show/project exploring age, identity and menopause.

Jenny Mitchell. SOL Headliner October 2023

Jenny Mitchell won the Gregory O’Donoghue Prize 2023 for a single poem, and the Poetry
Book Awards 2021 for her second collection, Map of a Plantation, which is on the syllabus at
Manchester Metropolitan University.

The prize-winning debut collection, Her Lost
Language
,
is One of 44 Poetry Books for 2019 (Poetry Wales), and her latest collection,
Resurrection of a Black Man, contains three prize-winning poems and is featured on the US
podcast Poetry Unbound.

She’s won numerous competitions, is widely-published and has performed at the Houses of Parliament. Her latest publication is the pamphlet shared with Zoë Brigley and Roy McFarlane called Family Name.

Community Poem September 2023

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who often thought well then (……………NO, NO I’m not going there!)

Peace to all here tonight
The whole world is in our hands
Newspapers all tell us the Earth is dying, but really its hoping and sighing.
Light-hearted skipping souls
This paper is sodden as is my heart
Whilst cultivating exclusively coloured socks just for you.

The Zebra’s tonsils swung like a metronome click-clacking-
And, what’s more, the gull that shat on my head, on the way to the show, did not stop me from
reading a poem.
We bade farewell, with a bourgeois bon soir- I blew a kiss, it missed!

Community poem July 2023

Poets who can’t count also seem to have no sense of proportion as 2 tiny poems GROW…… and require lengthy introductions!!!

One Day I will write something clever, but until then……
carry on, there is plenty of time.
Thankfully in the meantime, I like beans, purple edibles
and Blue Duck eggs!

I used to be indecisive but……..
now I’m not so sure
It’s everything and nothing-
I know nothing and that’s something ha ha.

Sorry about the curtain
with me draped head to toe in full length lammentta
the dandelion forgot the time, knowing
Unity in the community, presents an opportunity.

On waking I found I’d lost my identity
And yet…..we thrust onward….
Even the birds are ambivalent as they carve their way through air
made solid with industrial smoke and smell.

Colin is dead, with his fuzzy camel face.
So sad…….., but I am valued, I am love.
You ask if I’m emotional?
Fuck yeah!

Jemma Hathaway 27th September 2023, on board The John Sebastian Lightship

Jemma Hathaway. Photo by Sam Cavender/@samsnapsalot

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 she was the 2020 Hammer & Tongue slam champion for Bristol. She has supported Joelle Taylor, performed at the Royal Albert Hall and appeared on Sky Arts Life & Rhymes hosted by Benjamin Zephaniah. She is a Button Poetry Short Form contest winner and in 2021 self-published her first poetry pamphlet, January.

Last year she won the Hip Yak Poetry Shack slam at Frome Festival and performed her first festival set at WOMAD and this year she has been lucky enough to support Roger McGough.

Her poems are a sticky dancefloor for the ongoing dance-off between her head and her heart. She hopes you like her moves. She is currently working on her first full collection.

Photo by:

Sam Cavender/@samsnapsalot 

Community poem June 2023 -The Toolbox

We rummaged in the toolbox but only found
The hammer.

We rummaged in the toolbox but only found
Cascades of silver glitter, 
Shimmering ghosts.

We rummaged in the toolbox but only discovered
My anatomy;
It smells of curry
It wasn’t very nice
But the dog ate it anyways. 

We rummaged in the toolbox but only found
Ferry boat Margaret
Swinging low with rats,
Boats, 
And rainbow oil. 

We rummaged in the toolbox but only found
A city in levels 
Like a Victoria spongecake. 

Love finds itself,
Rummaged in the toolbox,
Walking through the city’s dark history
Everything is black and white 
Except in the dead of night. 

We rummaged in the toolbox but only found
The last poem
Of the last dug dazzled. 
We rummaged in the toolbox but only found
Purple pen pushes words from my mind. 

We rummaged in the toolbox but only found
Barbados to Bristol and back. 
Reimagined in dance & verse
Choreo poetry curiosity, hoping
To bring on the flow in me. 

Speak your own truth. Love me
So don’t scare me of all these pomp & circumstales. 

Satellite Of Summer

Wednesday 9th August 2023

Three headline poets and open mic slots on board the John Sebastian Lightship

Doors open 7pm for 7.30pm start

Satellite Of Summer, a special event brought to the Lightship by Satellite Of Love Open Mic Poetry.

Toby Thompson

Previous Glastonbury Poetry Slam Champion Toby Thompson has written commissions for the RSC, The Royal Geographical Society and the National Portrait Gallery. He’s performed his work at The Natural History Museum; The Royal Albert Hall and The House of Lords. His one man poetry and music storytelling bonanza ‘For The Record’ won the Pleasance Indie Award for Best Theatre Show at at the Edinburgh Fringe 2018. His show ‘I Wish I Was A Mountain’ won the Victor Award for Best Theatre Show at Philadelphia’s IPAY Festival 2020. In 2022, Toby toured ‘I Wish I Was A Mountain’ to China for six months, and also to Ireland, where he received a 5 star review in The Irish Times.

‘Entrancing… The words tumble out of him like an extended jazz solo’ – The Guardian

‘Touching, captivating, and toe-tinglingly lovely, Toby’s work is a joy’ – Edinburgh Guide, 5 stars
‘…easily one of the most gifted young wordsmiths I have ever had the pleasure to encounter.’ – Akala

Iona Lee

Iona Lee is a poet, visual artist, music-maker, storyteller and spoken-word performer from Edinburgh. She has been a prominent member of Scotland’s live poetry scene for ten years, appearing on radio (The Verb, The Digital Human) and television (The Big Scottish Book Club), and has performed in venues and on festival stages all over the UK and Europe (Glastonbury, The World Slam Championships, the Edinburgh International Book Festival.) Iona has a BA in illustration from the Glasgow School of Art and a first class MFA in Art & Philosophy from DJCAD. Her pamphlet (Polygon, 2018) was shortlisted for a Saltire Award, and her upcoming debut collection, Anamnesis, was shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. Iona’s writing has been described by Liz Lochead as “youthful, sexy, sharp, ferally female, and funny”.

Iona Lee’s photography credit goes to Laura Meek – www.laurameek.com

Ben Vince

Ben is a Bristol based poet and performer, whose work seeks intimacy above all else – be it with other humans, the more-than-human, or the spiritual. He has been published in Horizon, has edited for The Scores Journal of Poetry and Prose, and is both a commended Foyles Young Poet and winner of a Fresher’s Writing Prize.

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