Sunday 27 May 2012

Don't be so gay

With same sex marriage a hot political topic in the UK and the US, not to mention some very concerning legislature on the horizon in the Ukraine, issues around homosexuality are getting quite a bit of press at the minute (which reminds me - I still need to read and respond to the government's consultation before 14th June). I particularly enjoyed Victoria Coren's Why love trumps economics in last week's Observer; not only for its ideological argument, but also for the paragraph that ran: They [those in the Tory party revolted by the idea of gay marriage] know better than to reveal the full terrifying vision of social collapse that a gay wedding triggers in their minds: a church full of crop-haired anarchists, most of them speaking foreign languages; teenagers snorting heroin off the altar, most of them on Facebook; women publicly breastfeeding in the pews, most of them bishops; two newlywed drag queens high-fiving as a vicar in hotpants says: "You may now fist the bride."  Reading this on the train on the way back from a Northern socialist wedding (more a call to arms than celebration of romantic feeling; the groom's speech fleetingly referred to his wife before tackling the deficit, tax-avoidance and bankers' bonuses, before seguing nicely into a ceilidh), it also prompted an interesting discussion with my (straight) identical twin, over her feelings of the importance of marriage reforms for straight couples who don't want to get 'married', but instead want a 'civil partnership', to make things truly equal. Equality is a strange pigeon, as my girlfriend would say.

But, closer to home, I've been pretty frustrated recently (to put it nice and politely) with my own experience of what has ranged from latent heteronormativity to slurred bigotry, calling at casual homophobia and a few other stations on the way. Whether it's left-wing, predominantly open-minded friends who wouldn't date a bisexual, to those who don't believe lesbians can have sex, or facebook friends saying 'gay' as an insult, to people shouting stuff at me in the streets, I'M TIRED OF IT.

Picture the scene:

My beautiful girlfriend and I are about to enter a tube station to get the last train home after a night out.

GUY: Hey! I like what you're wearing (to GEM). Why don't you give me your number and maybe we could chat some more about fashion some time? (We didn't point out that this hardly constituted a conversation)

GEM: I'm OK, thanks.

GUY: Well, why don't you give me your number and you can give me a call later and tell us where you two end up, if it's any good?

GEM: Nah, it's alright. We're actually going home.

GUY: Well, why don't you give me your number anyway? (Credit should go to him for persistence, I will concede).

GEM: We're actually together (gestures at me).

GUY: (pause) Well, why don't you take my number anyway, so you can call me when you realise the strap-on's not enough, and it's a real cock you're after.

Charming. What did he think? That she was going to turn around and say, 'Oh my god, you're right! What have I been thinking?! I thought I was a lesbian, but now you've suggested it, meeting you, I've realised that all I needed was your big, giant, delicious cock to make me realise what I was missing. How silly of me....'????

Fade out.



Scene #2

Walking down the high street.

PAINT BALL GUY: Hey girls! Fancy shooting your boyfriends?

ME: I don't have a boyfriend. I have a girlfriend. You shouldn't make assumptions.

Fade out. 




Scene #3

Walking down the high street the following day.


PAINT BALL GUY #2: Hey, girl in blue.

ME: Hi. I'm not really interested in paint-balling.

PAINT BALL GUY #2: What about your friends? Or your boyfriend? Attractive girl like you must have a boyfriend.

ME: It obviously wasn't you I spoke to yesterday. I actually have a girlfriend.

GUY FROM BEFORE: Yeah - she's got a girlfriend.

PAINT BALL GUY #2: Do you both need boyfriends?

GUY FROM BEFORE: Wouldn't that slightly defeat....

Moron. Paint ball guy #2 - you disappoint me. Do we both need boyfriends?! I want to set Julie Bindel on him

Unimpressed fade out.




Scene #4


MY DOCTOR: What contraception are you using?

ME: I'm not.

DOC: Are you trying to get pregnant?

ME: No.

DOC: Do you have a boyfriend?

ME: No. I have a girlfriend.

DOC. Then there's no point going on the pill. Unless, of course, you are planning on having sex with men in the future? We're not all the bad, really!

ARGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH. Of course Mr Doctor, because I thought you men were all disgusting and gross and horrid, and that's why I have a girlfriend. Not because I accidentally fell in love with my best friend and was lucky enough that she fell in love with me too. Of course. And now you come to mention it, Mr Young & Cocky Doctor, I've just realised that you are not all that bad, really. Just some of you.

Fade out, sexually, with Bond girls dancing and Brigitte Bardot & Serge Gainsbourg playing in the background....

Hmmph.



Sunday 20 May 2012

Once upon a Friday

VERY EXCITING NEWS: my first published article! I have been waiting for this day for a very long time (judge me, I don't care! I always wanted to have something proper - other than a shit primary school limerick - published by the time I was 21. And failed. So upped it to 25, and I have won! Kate vs The World: Kate in the lead....for once. It's all 'cos my bloody twin sister had something published in Philosophy Now when we were still at sixth form. Although I am NOT COMPETITIVE. I just have to win at everything.). Anyway, the beautiful day arrived on Friday, when Arts Professional ran my article for their special edition on the Arts and Wellbeing. Now, I know technology is such that you can just click the link, but I'm going to copy the full text of my article below, because they cut a few lines out and I'm silly and precious and want them in (look out for the Jeanette W quote I recently posted - you'd never know I just read her book). So, there we go. Enjoy!


Storytelling and Well-being

As a creative facilitator, working in Drama and creative writing with a diverse mix of community groups, story is one of my main mediums – an important tool in my practitioner tool-kit (bouncing around with the juggling balls). I believe recognising the importance of stories in all of our lives, and how we can explore, manipulate and extend those narratives, is fundamental to our well-being. It is not simply an artistic medium; it is a life-line.

I work with a number of groups who could be seen as pushed to the periphery, inhabiting a space beyond the societal centre, such as young refugees (with Attic Theatre Company), women who experience mental distress (for CoolTan Arts), and addicts in recovery (for a Crime Reduction Initiative), to name a few. When I enter their space to facilitate a workshop, I am, inevitability, entering into their life-narratives, if only for a couple of hours. It may sometimes resonate very little, but for some I hope the work punctuates, provides a hiatus, starts a new paragraph (or if we’re lucky a chapter), turns a page…extends a metaphor. We might shift the story a bit, or we might give them a space to write a new one; either way, we play in and with stories, and can explore and experience the enormous power of them. Thus, for those in the margins, the arts can facilitate the journey from beyond centre-page to centre-stage.

The social importance of storytelling, and its symbiotic relationship with cultural heritage, is neither a new nor an especially provocative topic. From Beowulf to The Boy Who Cried Wolf, hopefully we can all recognise the importance of sharing community narratives (for both communities of location and communities of interest). It is more than the thread that binds us together; it is an umbilical-like rope. If we think back to Scheherazade in the tale of One Thousand and One Nights, with a rich tapestry of stories as her only currency, we can see how storytelling becomes a life-saver. It is also more than just a cliché to say that literature helps us feel less isolated; as Jeanette Winterson remembers in her recent autobiography: ‘I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot [poetry book] helped me’[1]. Stories can be communicated in forms beyond prose: they are hidden all around us; they might be infiltrating our personal bubble from the headphones of someone’s annoyingly loud music on the tube, or found in a poem on a postcard, or in our newspaper. Whether we are looking for them or bump into them, stories are everywhere.  

So, we can see that storytelling, and the told stories all around us, can both help us in our understanding of who we are and make us feel less alone. But they have more than a dual purpose. If we move to thinking about autobiographical storytelling, we can see manifold benefits to personal and societal well-being. In her book on Autobiography and Performance, Deidre Heddon discusses the opportunity autobiographical performance provides to allow the marginalised subject to ‘talk out, talk back, talk otherwise’ and to ‘engage with the pressing matters of the present which relate to equality, to justice, to citizenship, to human rights’[2] – integral to the well-being agenda. Indeed, autobiographical performance not only highlights the potential for sharing otherwise silent narratives with the community, in a way that can be revealing and enlightening, but can also provide a vehicle for self-examination. The act of telling an audience our story necessitates the act of self-reflection and demands self-selection on which parts we decide to disclose. It also provides the opportunity to analyse our life as a continuous journey, rather than reflecting on events in isolation; through this it may be possible to identify patterns in our behaviour, and whether there is a dominant narrative that drives us. We can thus gain insight into our own lives.

The power of self-constructed narratives has been recognised as epistemologically and psychologically crucial to the construction of our own identity; in fact psychologist, neurologist and author Oliver Sacks has stated: ‘It might be said that each of us constructs and lives a “narrative” and that this narrative is us, our identities’.[3] If we are aware that we understand the world and our self through narrative, then it becomes easier to see our identity as fluid, rather than fixed and inflexible; this could give us a greater degree of control over our perceptions of the world, as autonomous subjects who can mould the stories we tell of ourselves.  This is even before we consider entering the world of fictitious performance, where we experiment with role and metaphor, where we can take on a new character with a tilt of the head, and relay stories miles away from our lived reality, yet which we still feel could be about us. Or don’t, and enjoy the liberation of that. Where can’t we travel through story? Through story we can take amazing journeys. Through story we can also come home.



[1] Winterson, J. (2012) Why be happy when you could be normal? London: Vintage, p40.
[2] Heddon, D. (2008) Autobiography and Performance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp2-3. iogrn, D. (2008)  and author Drr Dr.
[3] Sacks, O. (1985) The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales. New York: Harper, p110. 


Saturday 12 May 2012

These be the verses #2

Staying in the mystical realm of the poetic imagination, or rather staying on the theme of poetry and my recent amblings in this district, there are a few things I forgot to say in my last post...

1) We are doing a bit of a recruitment drive for my poetry group at CoolTan Arts, so if anyone is interested in joining (girls only, I'm afraid) or knows of anyone who might be (friends working in community arts: are you working with any groups which have some creative ladies who might fancy joining our very supportive and welcoming group?) please get in touch! We are working towards a publication, and all levels are welcome. 

2) I also need to share, my week was made last week when one of my lovely colleagues at CoolTan emailed me in the FORM OF A HAIKU! Completely unprompted. Just a beautifully concise message in ancient Japanese poetic form. More people should do things like this. It makes the world a better place.

Send me a haiku
It breaks the monotony
Of shit life admin

3) I have just read Jeanette Winterson's exquisite autobiography: Why be happy when you can be normal?, and had to go out straight away and buy my own copy, so I can have it and lend it to people. I read this passage about our need for poetry, and what I see as the power of the arts, and wanted to share it:

I was confused about sex and sexuality, and upset about the straightforward practical problems of where to live, what to eat, and how to do my A levels. 

I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot [book] helped me.

So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn't be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers - a language powerful enough to say it how it is.

It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place. 

(pp39-40)

Discuss...

Saturday 5 May 2012

These be the verses

A bit behind on my intended blog posts, as per usual, although this time predominantly influenced by the fact that I have been in bed with the 'flu for the last fortnight. I've got at least three things I want to write about, so shall start from the beginning (a very good place to start, as we established when this blog was born), and move through my excitements chronologically. Probably.

On 17th April, I attended a fantabulous writing masterclass with Patience Agbabi, Professions and Confessions: Creative Character Writing, at the Free Word Centre, as part of Apples and Snakes' Artists' Development Programme. Apples and Snakes is the 'leading organisation for performance poetry in England, with a national reputation for producing exciting and innovative participation and performance work in spoken word' (yes, that is stolen from their website), and is splendid. They have years' experience of great education work, and have also champion and celebrated the best of performance poetry talent since the early '80s. I got to know the organisation better when I worked with them earlier this year as one of the 'Young Writers' in Indiana Jones and the Extra Chair, which was a partnership between A&S, The Albany, and performance poet Simon Mole.
Photo of Simon Mole
Simon Mole

I meant to write a blog post about IJatEC when the project finished in March, but....life.... and now it seems like a really long time ago. Although I think it was sunnier then! Anyway, it was a fantastic project to have been involved in - themed around family, festivities, food and heroes - and I felt privileged to have had the chance to work with so many lovely, talented people.  The performance nights were particularly memorable: more of an event than a performance, with us all sitting with the audience, sharing stories, food and laughter, and writing spontaneous poems. My 'parts' were to tell a story about how my primary school teacher is my super-hero (she is) whilst painting half my face like Spiderman (bizarrely it worked - the directorial genius of Peader Kirk) and to wander around with a feather duster reciting my little poetic piece 'How to Combat Stains and Spills' ("it's not just a stain, it's a particularly dirty stain...").
Patience Agbabi

So, after my adventures into performance poetry early this year (and my life getting a lot more poetic, through my creative writing work with CoolTan Arts and at Munster Rd. since then), I've tried to keep my ear to the ground for happenings in London, and Apples and Snakes have helped me do so.  Also, if I can avoid it, I NEVER turn down a free master class! And thus I found myself, on a very wet Tuesday afternoon, rocking up to profess and confess with Patience Agbabi. Well, write poems. From a character's perspective. Indeed, through a cleverly crafted workshop exercise, I developed - through no fault of my own - the tale of an actuary (the profession) who had run over her neighbour's dog, buried it, then helped them look for it for a week (the confession) - have you spotted the link to the title yet?

I was slightly terrified when we all read them back, as everyone else's were REALLY GOOD. Cue agonizing self-doubt about why I was there in the first place and related Imposter Syndrome feelings. Which is why I nearly fell over when a stand up comic there told me I was FUNNY. Which is pleasing. Particularly so, as little did I know I would return home that day only to leave the house despairingly little over the next two weeks. Apart from those occasions when I tried out, and failed at, being well enough to do things like go to conferences. They just looked like too much fun to miss! I'm not even joking (despite having established that this may be where my next career could be forged). But enough - I shall write about the excitement of my various conferi (plural??) next time. I may even think of a pun or two to throw in.