Kevan Manwaring's Blog: The Bardic Academic, page 17
October 28, 2019
My Ink-stained Year
This year I didn’t manage Inktober, but did a few sketches now and then…
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September 30, 2019
Trees, Poets, & Fairies: Sketchtember 2019
Having started Sketchtember last year (as a kind of prelude to the popular Inktober) I felt duty-bound to have another go this year, although as John Lennon once sang: ‘Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans…’ It’s been a hectic month, and I only got around to a bardic dozen, but for the record – here they are. I enjoyed doing them, and, of course, it’s about process, not product – I find sketching can be relaxing when I’m not too tired. I wish I sketched more often, without any arbitrary goals like this – but, there you go! It helped stop my sketching muscle from completely atrophying. Now all I have to do is keep the practice going all year round…
September 29, 2019
Extinction Cabaret Podcast
‘Welcome to Extinction Cabaret!’ Kevan Manwaring performs as Dr Greenlove
Come to the Extinction Cabaret and sing the songs of the Earth! Share your praise-poems for our precious planet! Recite your monologues of love and sorrow! Weep and laugh at the madness of it all, and inspire yourself and others to take positive action!
Extinction Cabaret was organised by Kevan Manwaring, and took place on Sunday, 13th October, Downstairs at The Western, Leicester, 7-10pm. It was part of the Everybody’s Reading Festival 2019.
TRACKS
Planet Blues: Sara Vian
Introduction: Dr Greenlove
Choices: Kevan Manwaring
Extinction Rebellion: Judy from XR Leicester
House on Fire: Sara Vian
Do What’s Best for the Planet: floor spot from Tony
Lament for the Trees: Paul Francis
3 Short Poems: Steve Wylie
When Life Gives You Lemons: Sara Vian
Zero Time: floor spot from Greg
Washing the Sea: Paul Francis
Blessed is the Mother: Kevan Manwaring
Keep Your Faith: Sara Vian
Bellwether: Kevan Manwaring
The Sailor and the Magician: Paul Francis
The Calving of the Berg: Kevan Manwaring
Beautiful Love: Sara Vian
Silent Watchman – Steve Wylie
Beautiful Soul – Sara Vian
Don’t Push the River – Paul Francis
Thank you to all the contributors, especially to our special guests Sara Vian and Paul Francis, to Everybody’s Reading Festival, to James and the staff at The Western, and to Chris Watson from Music Eye for recording it all.
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Sara Vian
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Paul Francis, Troubadour from the 7th dimension aka Dr Space Toad
September 23, 2019
Time To Get Out the Shovels
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A Friend of the Earth by TC Boyle –
A Retro Review
This novel feels eerily relevant even though it was published in 2000. Boyle tragic-comic novel imagines the world in 2025 – one of perpetual Climate Chaos, Biblical deluges, mass extinctions, resource stress, and an endemic breakdown of civilisation. Yet despite this bleak (and all too plausible) scenario, Boyle somehow manages to import some black humour into the situation. The central protagonist is the colourfully named Tyrone O’Shaughnessey Tierwater (mirroring the author’s own Celtic nomenclature), a septuagenarian environmental activist turned glorified zoo keeper for a Mick Jagger-esque super-rich rock star, who has a wish to preserve the unloved species of the planet – the hyenas and other scavengers – within the compounds of his West Coast estate. We find Tierwater drolefully eking out his autumnal years, obsessed with his failing body and lack of sex life, when the arrival of his ex, the deadliest of species, Andrea – a formidable, and still attractive powerhouse – and an annoying tag along, April Wind, who wishes to write the story of Tierwater’s daughter, Sierra: a heroine of the protest movement. The narrative bifurcates at this point – between the dramatic present, told in first person, and the vivid flashbacks, related in close third person. The vignettes from the more reckless, seemingly resource plentiful past, provide an ironic counterpoint; and the accounts of Tierwater’s increasingly reckless direct actions offer a poignant thumb-in-the-dyke to the consequences of a world past tipping point, where the floodwaters rise and no Noah is going to save the animals. The monkeywrenching is comically related, and Boyle’s book consciously picks up the baton of Edward Abbey’s 70’s classic, The Monkey Wrench Gang – updating it with millennial sensibilities. Boyle’s book is filled with brilliantly rendered characters and a vividly-realised, convincingly researched world. Even in the chaotic cascade of it all, one still comes away with a crazy sense of hope, but one tempered by the reality checks of the severity of what we face, and the fallibility of those who must deal with it: the Augean Stables of it all. Time to get out the shovels.
Kevan Manwaring
September 22, 2019
Choices
Choices
by
Kevan Manwaring
Fill your house with plastic,
and the oceans too.
Fly at least one long haul flight
every year.
Drive a dirty diesel, or a 4WD,
even though you don’t live off-road.
Eat meat every day and
insist on out of season produce —
the more food miles, the better.
Have loads of kids, and
encourage them to do their bit for Malthus.
Vote for Climate Change denying,
oil-lobby funded politicians.
Make sure you have a job that
makes you sit in a traffic jam twice a day.
Only buy junk you know you’ll need
to throw away, or fill your garage with.
Learn the art of head-sand-sticking:
every night have one more drink,
and watch one more episode until you pass out.
Pretend nothing is wrong,
and whatever you do,
don’t plant any trees!
Or, choose to act
to save the Earth
before it is too
How to reduce your carbon footprint
The Golden Room podcast: Episode #2
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The Golden Room podcast #02
An Ecobardic Showcase (part 2)
Welcome to The Golden Room podcast – a celebration of poetry, storytelling, music, song, conversation, and creative fellowship.
Created and hosted by writer, poet, and storyteller Kevan Manwaring, the plan is to release a new episode on the 3rd Sunday of the month – with this double launch on the Autumn Equinox being the exception! Roughly an hour long, each episode offers an immersive and relaxing medley of contributions – ideal to commute to, cook to, or sit back and unwind to: however you listen you are most welcome into The Golden Room.
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The first two episodes offer a chance to eavesdrop upon An Ecobardic Showcase, a special evening which took place in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 17th August, 2019. It was a double-celebration of Kevan Manwaring’s 50th and his doctorate. Proceeds went to Tree Aid – a worthy cause which you can still donate too (see below).
The evening was excellently MCed by the inimitable Anthony Nanson. His links and much of the convivial atmosphere is edited out, to tidy up the raw recording (expertly done by Chantelle Smith; with help from Brendan Georgeson on PA, and thanks to Simon Fairbourn for loan of the recording device) , but we hope you still get some sense of the atmosphere.
LISTEN TO THE GOLDEN ROOM PODCAST #02 HERE
Tracks:
[00:00] Intro by Kevan Manwaring/Reverie by Rosemary Duxbury
(Catherine Musker, viola and Patricia Siffert, piano)
[02:14] Welcome – a song by Chantelle Smith
[02:38] The Harvest of Friendship – a poem by Kevan Manwaring
[04:28] Skaldic Birthday Tribute – a poem by Svanur Gisli Thorkelsson
[07: 03] Both Sides o’ Tweed – song by Dick Gaughan/performed by Marko Gallaidhe
[09:45] The Tories are Going to Eat Us – a poem by Robin Treefellow
[12:13] Un garçon pas comme les autres – a song performed by Violette Aubry
[15:00] Lob – poem by Edward Thomas; with additional text from William Anderson; adapted and performed by Paul Flinn
[18:10] The Corn King – a song by Earthwards (Jehanne & Rob Mehta; Will Mercer)
[22:03] Extinction Rebellion/No, I Don’t Want to be Arrested, Helen – poems by Steve Micalef
[22:57] Stoats and Rabbits – a tale by Peter Please
[32:07] The Field of Runnymede – a song by Earthwards
[36:03] The Axe: the call of the Earth – a story by Kirsten Bolwig
[43:26] The Magic Arrows – a story by Anthony Nanson
[51:19] May Queen – a song by Simon Andrews
[54:49] Once Upon a Pimplov – monologue by Jim Tom … Say?
[59:13] Jack in the Green – a song by Simon Andrews
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If you have enjoyed listening to An Ecobardic Showcase please donate to Tree Aid and help fight poverty & protect the environment…
https://www.justgiving.com/treeaid
NEXT UP – THE GOLDEN ROOM EPISODE #3: An Extinction Cabaret special!
September 21, 2019
The Golden Room podcast: Episode #1
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The Golden Room podcast #1
An Ecobardic Showcase (pt 1)
Welcome to The Golden Room podcast – a celebration of poetry, storytelling, music, song, conversation, and creative fellowship.
Created and hosted by writer, poet, and storyteller Kevan Manwaring, the plan is to release a new episode on the 3rd Sunday of the month – with this double launch on the Autumn Equinox being the exception! Roughly an hour long, each episode offers an immersive and relaxing medley of contributions – ideal to commute to, cook to, or sit back and unwind to: however you listen you are most welcome into The Golden Room.
[image error]
The first two episodes offer a chance to eavesdrop upon An Ecobardic Showcase, a special evening which took place in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 17th August, 2019. It was a double-celebration of Kevan Manwaring’s 50th and his doctorate. Proceeds went to Tree Aid – a worthy cause which you can still donate too, here:
https://www.justgiving.com/treeaid
The evening was excellently MCed by the inimitable Anthony Nanson. His links and much of the convivial atmosphere is edited out, to tidy up the raw recording (expertly done by Chantelle Smith; with help from Brendan Georgeson on PA, and thanks to Simon Fairbourn for loan of the recording device), but we hope you still get some sense of the atmosphere. Finally, many thanks to BAFTA composer Rosemary Duxbury, for kindly allowing use of her sublime track, ‘Reverie’. Check out my interview and review of her latest release, ‘Thread of Gold’, after listening to the show.
LISTEN TO THE GOLDEN ROOM PODCAST #01 HERE
Tracks:
[00:00] Intro: Kevan Manwaring
[00:47] Reverie: Rosemary Duxbury (Catherine Musker, viola & Patricia Siffert, piano)/[02:15] The Golden Room by Wilfrid Gibson, read by Kevan Manwaring
[07:59] Welcome: a song by Chantelle Smith
[08:22] Fifty: a poem by Kevan Manwaring
[10:46] Mist-covered Mountains: a song by Chantelle Smith
[13:20] The Dog: a story by Wayland the Skald
[21:21] A Valentine for New Albion: a poem by Jeff Cloves
[29:18] Overheard at Ascot; What the I Says: poems by Gabriel Bradford Millar (with Anthony Nanson)
[32:35] Pan at My Window: a poem by Richard Austin
[34:44] Planet Blues: a song by Sara Vian
[37:51] Therapy: a poem by Brendan the Pop Poet
[40:22] The Earth, She Moves Within: a poem by Joziat Khimba
[45:45] The Butterfly Bishop: story by Kirsty Hartsiotis
[55:21] Claw-hammer: Banjo by Scott Freer
[59:10] Outro: by Kevan Manwaring/Reverie – reprise.
NEXT: THE GOLDEN ROOM EPISODE #2 An Ecobardic Showcase pt 2 – available from 22nd September.
Look out for episode #3: 20th October – An Extinction Cabaret special!
September 19, 2019
The Harvest of Friendship
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The Harvest of Friendship
A seed is sown in a smile,
in a hand offered in fellowship.
The eyes can fertilize
with a curious glance,
a knowing look.
And a single word
the bud of love compels.
A friendship can grow
in the stoniest of soil,
Tested by cruel frosts
and the bite of wind.
Blessed by the bounty of rain,
by the kiss of the sun.
Fair weather or foul, it flourishes.
In every cycle of the day,
the moon’s tide, the year’s wheel,
friendship’s crop is strengthened.
By those four chancy siblings, the seasons
it is forged, by icy time itself
it is tempered.
and iron stalks to golden grains transmute.
Then, when it is ripened
what riches it shall produce –
the sacred bread of trust,
the holy wine of tears,
the sweet mead of laughter,
of secrets shared and truths revealed.
And all shall share in its feast.
The goodness is gathered in by all –
the tithe of effort for the tribe,
who fill their grain store with it.
Their barns brim with its bounty,
its gleaned treasure spread
to all those in need.
Friendship,
the harvest of a life well-spent.
Kevan Manwaring
Lammas, 2019
Look out for The Golden Room podcast – the finest poetry, storytelling, song, and conversation, in celebration of creative fellowship – launching on Saturday 21 September – a live recording of this poem by the author will feature in episode 2. Watch this space!
August 31, 2019
Striding Edge
Striding Edge, Helvellyn, Cumbria, K. Manwaring, 2019
Striding Edge
To walk in the light
after hours, years,
of effort.
The view from up here
is vertiginous,
the visceral kick
a real high,
as long as you hold
your nerve.
Stay straight and true,
make each foot fall
count.
Every step up here
counts for hundreds
below.
And then, heart pounding,
you are on the other side,
and can look back
full of pride and relief,
before you turn to the
cliff that awaits
to be climbed.
Kevan Manwaring
