Performance Poetry Workshop with Francesca Beard

I read about the workshop in Sharon Bakar's blog (thanks Sharon!) I wrote in to a British Council email and applied.It was a while before I heard anything.I thought I didn't qualify (age factor!) But I did so off I went (lost again for the 3rd time to KLPAC) and found there were older people at the workshop (or OK..more or less my age).There's a mix of old and young and it's wonderful.

Francesca lives up to her fame as the British Queen of Performance Poetry. I have seen poets performed (this guy from the Caribbean, this lady from Japan and some of our very own are pretty good too) but Francesca is not a poet, she's a story teller!(she'd first start by narrating a story/extracting answers from the audience then she'd continue with her poetry in story telling form..sometimes she sings! There's one which reminds me so much of Leonard Cohen..is she a fan too?)

At the workshop just hours earlier,we wrote many things about identity, fear/self-censorship and were asked to explore why we censor, why we fear, etc, etc.

I learnt a few tricks: that poets can manipulate audiences so we can lie and we can steal other people's lives.

I find when I did that, my work became even more powerful!Francesca and several people at the w/shop came to me and said they liked my work.Hmmmph....Here's one of the few pieces I wrote at the workshop (one on introducing myself):

I remember Kirpal Singh writing the same piece
asking 'how do i introduce me?'

Do you start by telling
what your name is?
or what your occupation is?
Is that really you?

Or do race and religion matter more than your nationality?

I will start with my little toe
it is a bit crooked
for that,I limp a little
and this scar on the upper lip?
that will never make me anything closer to Angelina Jolie
THAT I received when quarelling with my little sister
becos' she took my mom's love
away from me

I will also begin with these eyes
half Chinese half Afghan
which will make them 4 generations old


the mind travels like a
space shuttle
going back and forth
planet Earth.

And I will keep searching
for ways to
introduce me.


But I liked the one on Allahyarhamah Dr Latifah whose funeral I missed cos' I thought funerals could wait while I finished up work in the office.But I am still mourning and it pains me so much just to type the piece all over again (for non-Malaysians reading my blog, you must know that Muslim funerals are swift.Burial is usually quick and sometimes far away relatives will miss paying their last respect.We don't believe in allowing the body to rot and hence, the quick burial)