This is probably because I spend most weekends seeking out the legendary Emerald Gin that is fabled to flow behind the bins at M&S if you are pure of heart and strong of stomach.
But even when I take a break from such frivolity, the A Few Wise Words Festival isn't on in Canterbury every weekend. If it was….it wouldn’t really be a festival. More of a thing that happens. But I digress!
For those not yet in the know, A Few Wise Words is the spring-time sibling of the larger annual Wise Words Festival (which debuted in Canterbury last September). I was invited to attend its first outing, which ran from Friday 4th April to Sunday 6th April in Canterbury’s beautiful Greyfriars Gardens, and around the city streets.
The Wise Words concept was born in 2010, when arts
organisation Workers of Art decided to create an event that brought the streets
of Canterbury alive through poetry and literature-inspired activities, using
the city as its canvas and the people as its inspiration.
What started as a community poetry project with interactive arts event in the city centre eventually grew into a full spoken word festival in 2013. Do read all about its first outing here...
Twas a big hit with audience, so much so that some just couldn't stand to wait a whole year for another dose of
wordy wisdom. And so, A Few Wise Words was launched
to bridge the gap.
Workers of Art creative director Beth Cuenco said: “It is
lovely to have something happening in spring – a time of renewal. So, we have
seized this opportunity to create a smaller festival that is a space for us too
to learn and test some of our more innovative ideas.”
So, here we are and there I was - at a festival of words, of many words and
witticisms, presented to us by an eclectic mix of poets, performers and
philosophers, journalists and wordsmiths, musicians and musettes*.
I decided to start my #AFewWW experience at the deep-end - with the Friday night Spoke N Word session in the festival yurt (yes, they had a yurt!), featuring various poets warming up ahead of the evening’s big Slam Poetry event at the Gulbenkian Theatre.
I will level with you: I don’t often go to poetry readings. There are so many
incredible poets out there, but having been a journalist and a writer of sorts for
several years means I have more often than not been subjected to the awful ones. The sort of 'poets' who scamper up to you, cooing “Oh I hear you’re a journalist, you must review my book! Oh I hear you do
am dram, you must listen to my performance poetry! Oh I hear you’re alive,
please read these eight poems I wrote about my dreams for the next 30 minutes.” Listening to them is like enduring a leg cramp while reading a gas bill.


The full programme was a solid mix of poets, performers, and speakers. You could learn the virtues of how and what we eat, discovering writing through chronic illness, new ways of living and learn of the restorative powers of poetry for incarcerated women. You could also try your hand at guerrilla knitting (oh yes), and there were further headline performances from sensational poets Hannah Silva and Danny Chivers.
In addition, organisers tweeted each day about extra last minute 'pop-up' events to enjoy around the city, and Twitter was on fire with RTs from supporting businesses, visitors and participants. The revolution truly was live.
With such a packed programme it was hard for me to see everything on offer. Luckily, my arch-nemesis/friend Miscriant was also covering the festival, and has some excellent write ups on events I missed. Please read her posts, for they are most good.
But I was able to visit a few other non-poetry related
performances on my travels. The young pupils of The Spires Academy led the way in The
Stories From The Stour on Saturday afternoon, with the talented youngsters
using different sections of the stunning Francisican chapel and its grounds to
stage various tales based around the River Stour.
Good Morning Sunshine, The Earth Says Hello! was a
particularly eccentric break from the norm. Organised by Playne Face Theatre, a
section of the festival gardens was transformed into the island of no return for
visitors to explore and search for clues to pieces of a salty-sea story based
around Shakespeare’s The Tempest.


I spent Sunday asking myself a lot of questions. And not the usual kind, such as 'what was the name of that late night TV show I saw once in the 1990s, with adults in animal costumes? Like alligator costumes...and there were puppet cockroaches too.....Gophers, that was it!"
No, this Sunday the festival provide much finer brain fodder.
No, this Sunday the festival provide much finer brain fodder.
There was an excellent talk from Julian Baggini on ‘The
Ego Trick – Who or What is the Real You’
in
the yurt. This was a fascinating talk about the concept of the self, and if
such a thing even exists. Are we just the some of our parts, like a cart or a phone, or are all
our parts attached to a thing called a ‘self’ or a ‘soul’ underneath? A simple
question inspired the most debate: if you could live your dream life
and be your dream person on the condition that you would forget absolutely
everything about your current life and personality, would you do it?
My evening ended a little early, for I could not stay for
the peddle-powered cinema. But I was able to listen to noted foreign correspondent
Patrick Cockburn on Syria, Iraq and the rise of Al-Qaeda following 9/11. This was
a glorious debate from a highly intelligent and experience journalist, giving
us an insider’s look at the value and motives of the ‘war on terror’, and how
the crisis in Syria is perceived by those caught in the middle.
Before that talk I was not aware that since 9/11
and the start of the ‘war on terror’ that Al-Qaeda – at the time a fairly small
group – has allegedly grown to control an area in the Middle East the size of Britain.
Food for thought…
It was at the end of the weekend, as I nestled on a
cushion in the yurt, sipping my travel wine**, that the value of the festival
really hit home. I felt very lucky to have enjoyed such diverse debate and
inspiring performances in my home town, without having to take out a second
mortgage to do so. I also met some lovely people, and engaged in furious
wordplay on Twitter (Tent puns – they are the future).
The good news is that Wise Words will be back in
September, and I strongly urge/beg/seduce you to visit and support it.
This is a festival to cherish and to be part of. We have a great deal of talent in our fair city and, thankfully, people who want to celebrate it.
*Okay, there were no musettes. Apparently no one wants to
cavort around to the music of a small bagpipe popular in the French courts of
the 17th Century, no matter how much I yell.
**I never go anywhere without it in the event that I
suddenly need to be charming and drunk
This another of those things that you hear about but don't go to as you have nobody to go with :(
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