Spring Equinox Launch Event
A Tuesday evening, an independent bookshop, and a room full of poets and friends. We were so lucky to host a collection of wonderfully talented performers, with open micers alongside headline performers from your very own Wild Thing Poetry collective.
Winter turns over into Spring, the days lengthening, the sun is rising quicker than I can keep pace. I made a commitment this year, to honour the seasons, to find my own rhythm by listening and leaning in to the push and pull, the thrum of the earth.
And so we did, bringing together a small group of people in a moment of community, creating space to connect with each other, share our art and our source of inspiration: the living world. The hush that falls as someone begins to read; the gentle weight of attention from the audience when it’s your moment under the lights; the movement and circulation between sets; all part of the magic of the evening.
The night reminded me, more than ever, of how wonderfully broad eco-poetry can be, and what a showcase of its possibilities. A fight song, a prayer, a dream for the future, a comedy, a tragedy, a satire or political statement. Bringing to life the visceral in Nature, the surprising, the disconcerting (spiders featured heavily throughout the night), and the disgusting (we were a particular fan of Jenny Howitt’s bog poetry for this: all slime and ooze and slugs).
This was the first time the collective had come together to perform, and one of the things that struck me, as ever, is the variety of voices in the collective. We each have our own inimitable style of craft, and of performance. Hearing the verses we’ve workshopped together, created together, brought to life under lights in front of a standing mic, was a milestone for the progress of the group. Having formed under a year ago, spending the summer and winter months seeding and germinating our craft, to bring it to light as the seasons change, felt a fitting way to start the seasonal year.
Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate the Spring with us; to share in our love of eco-poetry; to lay bare your relationship with the living world. And of course to Morocco Bound Bookshop in Bermondsey for lending us their beautiful space.
We look forward to many events to come, and remember…to find your wild