Fire in the Head - debut collection launch

Yes, it's finally here. My Debut collection “Fire In The Head” will be launched at Poco Loco, Chatham on the 28th of November at 7:00pm. I wanted to draw attention to the many different stories of Medway, including the time that William Blake was arrested here.

The launch is being held on the anniversary of Blake’s birth. The book remembers the stories, people and myths of Medway that often get overlooked. Medway is a place that has many stories and many people passing through, it is a place of transition and transformation. I include myths woven into the fabric of the place.

To find out more about the event visit the Facebook event page
https://www.facebook.com/SMJenkinWriter
@sajenks42
https://www.instagram.com/smjenkin42/

Reviews of Fire in the head:

“You can taste the tang of the Medway in these sharp, observant poems, where myth and history gang-up on the present to tell new tales. A fine line-up from poet, SM Jenkin, to waken the sleepers and inspire fresh dreams.”

Caitlín Matthews (author of Diary of a Soul Doctor and King Arthur’s Raid.)

“In this collection, Chatham based poet SM Jenkin, interweaves myths of seal wives and Medway mermaids, with her own stories and experiences. She questions what it means, if anything, to be ‘adjusted’ in the world and contrasts her philosophies with rich imagery, exploring the ferocity of nature and her thirst for its wild freedom.”

Isabelle Kenyon (Fly on the Wall Poetry Press)

#Invicted on tour - Once Upon a Mic

The #Invicted collective of Poets from Medway are back on tour

Catch us at Once Upon a Mic, a lively mix of poetry, music and comedy.
Upstairs at the Castle, Whitechapel, last Friday of the month.
£4 online, £5 on the door (CASH ONLY)
Be sure to arrive by 7.30 to guarantee a seat!

We will be performing on Friday, 28 September
The hosts will be the soulful Math Jones & the irrepressible Jah-Mir Early

Details:
Once Upon a Mic
Tickets from Eventbrite
Facebook
 

Big Trouble at Little Roc - Open Mic

A terrific evening of spoken word awaits you at the Little Roc cafe in Rochester. Come and join us, be swept away by the scorching words burned out by the fire in our heads

Where the Medway Delta meets The World....

Coming soon, Issue #4 of Confluence Medway... Where the Medway Delta Meets The World.

Portmeirion Estuary: S.M Jenkin

Issue #4 is shaping up well, prose and poems beautifully illustrated by Duncan Grant.

Submissions for Issue #5 are now open and the deadline is 12 July 2017. There is no theme so you can send any short stories/prose, short plays and poetry on any topic.

Only original unpublished work submitted by the author will be considered. If you would like your work to be considered for inclusion in the next edition, email your submission as an attachment to: confluencemedway(at)gmail.com with ‘POETRY / PLAY / STORY TITLE by NAME’ in the subject line. (Eg ‘6 poems by Wanda Wax’ / ‘Waiting for Charlie by Herbert Berry’.)

In your email please include your full contact details including postcode, and a short biography, no more than 50 words

More details about how to submit work to Confluence are available from the Confluence Blog.

Inspirational Nights - Let's play!

Join Lisa Vigour at the one and only interactive open mic night in Medway. Come to perform or to appreciate the silken words and notes woven onstage for your pleasure.

Can't think of anything to say or to play? Pick one of the prompts on a peg and get going, you may surprise yourself...

Inspirational Nights Rochester, Kent

Mics and PA are provided. There is a piano at the venue you'll be welcome to play. If you want to play another instrument please bring it. All performers at this event get a free drink...

The next Inspirational Night will be at the Northern Seaman on 18 May 2017, from 8.30pm onwards. The Northern Seaman is at 378 Rochester Highstreet, ME1 1DJ Rochester, Medway.

Inspirational Nights are held on the third Thursday of every month. It's a lovely relaxed atmosphere. Come and play.

Confluence Launch Party - 28 August

Confluence is being launched soon - where the Delta meets the world...

Come join us for a smorgasbord of verbal delights Sunday, 28 August at Only Connect 32 Cubitt Street, London, WC1X 0LR

It's FREE and with an open mic available on the night ready to be filled.

We'll be using material from our debut edition, but we'll be looking for contributions for our second edition, due October 2016...

Confluence Medway - online
Confluence Medway - Facebook

ROUNDABOUT NIGHTS PRESENTS - The Defamation Of Mickey Two Suits

Come and join the delta poets tonight as they spin the stories of the damned

Barred... Bard?

7.30pm at Poco Loco Cantina, on the road from Chatham to Rochester

An Assemblance of Judicious Heretics, their exciting collaborative litart project this year is underway. I'm waiting with bated breath.... 

ME4Writers

The Heretics on Facebook

Written Worlds, Inspiring Places

Yes, Rochester literature festival is fast coming our way and I'm very excited about it!

The theme this year is Written Worlds, Inspiring Places and I can't think of a more apt description

Is this really the fourth year that the full festival has been running? It doesn't feel like it, but 'tis true Each year following the garden party launch back in July 2012 the theme has been something different, from the first Other Worlds, Other Voices, to the Byronic Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know to the Live'n'Local least year.

The festival will run from Saturday, October 1 to Sunday, October 9 2016 and details of the line-up are available from the festival website here.

Olivetti Typewriter. Image credit: SM Jenkin

Knowing how many people are involved in making sure this is an accessible community event I am sure that details of other events and activities will be added closer to the time

Are you ready to be inspired?

How do you feel now that the nights are getting longer? Are you feeling a little flat? Why not try giving a go to an inspirational night like no other in Medway.

Image credit: Acrylic Artist

Inspirational nights are a terrific blend of music, poetry, and anything else you feel inspired to do. Event organiser, Lisa Vigour, always includes one or two practical inspirational exercises to help kick-start a creative idea for people who want to join in.

Some people come prepared to share their music or words, and others write something on the night using the pens and pads scattered generously around the venue. Don't fancy joining in during the open mic? Just sit back and relax, and enjoy a fun evening.

It doesn't matter if you don't see yourself as a creative person, if you just want to be entertained or to try something new come along. Inspirational nights are free for everyone to come and enjoy.

Want to know more? Try the vigorouscreations blog or follow Lisa on Twitter

My interview with Lisa is on the WOW Kent website here.

The next inspirational night is on 29 October at the Good Intent pub, Rochester. 

__________________________________________

Image sourced from Morguefile

The Judicious Heretics Return

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

And sorry I could not travel both”

The Road Not Taken Robert Frost

The Judicious Heretics of ME4 are back! This time they will be enticing you along the road not taken, with a collaborative Litart exhibition of works inspired by the poem by Robert Frost.  

So, what's unique about this exhibition? It was all produced anonymously. A series of written responses to the poem were created and then sent to the artists, who then produced their interpretation of the new works. As last year, the artists did not know who the writers were and the writers do not know who (if anyone) has produced an artwork in response to their poem or story.  

The exhibition includes art and writing from creatives including: Chris Van Beck, Maggie Drury, Sally Evans, Sam Fentiman-Hall, Sarah Hehir, Heather Haythornthwaite, Philip Kane, Bill Lewis, Maria C McCarthy,  Peter Reeds and Dianne Reeves.

The exhibition of words and art will be launched in Rochester on Thursday, 3 September at 7.30 pm and afterwards will be shown at other locations in Medway. Further information about the launch event and exhibition is available from the ME4Writers or on the community page on Facebook

The full text of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost is available to read or listen to on the website of the Poetry Foundation

Wandering Words

I am very excited to see the blossoming of the Medway and Swale Wandering words  project.

A number of writers have, essentially, walked the land and created some beautiful and original pieces in response to what they have experienced and seen.

Urban Fox, Stood
Image credit:SM Jenkin

The range of responses has surprised me, as well as the flashes of unexpected beauty shared in words and posted on a map. Medway and Swale is made up of many different landscapes, histories, identities, ideas.

The best part, though? Anyone can join in. Are you feeling inspired? You can sign up here

The Heretics are Assembling...

“But words are things and a small drop of ink, 

Falling like a dew, upon a thought produces 

That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think"

Don Juan, Lord Byron

What is the point of poetry, of literature? It is often used simply to tell a story. These stories can be told for any reason, but the question must be asked. Whose stories do we listen to? 

Whose stories are listened to, rewarded and given space in the canon of approved narratives that we hand on to other people? And what happens to the stories that vary with and may even conflict with stories shared and approved in that canon?

Quite often labels are attached to these stories and storytellers, labels  that can be used to discard and ignore what they say, labels such as heretic. Once attached, these labels are hard to shake off, and the storyteller pursued. 

Whose stories are ignored, slandered, labelled? What do they have to say, what is in their words that is so threatening, so heretical?  

The Heretics are assembling. Join us at the Rochester literature festival 25 September - 05 October 2014 to find out...

___________________________________________________________

Image credit: StephenMcleod - International Man of Mystery via photopin cc

Roundabout nights - ME4

Fasten your seat belts - the ME4Writers are ready to spin your head clean off!  Not content with assembling some Judicious Heritics- Medway's answer to the Avengers, they have set up the Roundabout nights @the Alexandra pub in Chatham

Roundabout nights is an ambitious live literary night, with an ever-revolving series of events. Once a week, every week on a Monday night. 7pm-10pm, the ME4Writers will host an event highlighting the spoken word. Here is a line-up of the next few meetings:

~ 1 September: She Writes – short plays about holidays

~ 8 September: Type’n’gripe at ME4-rum

~ 15 September: Spoken word

~ 22 September: Guest slot: Politics, plays and policies. Plays inspired by political themes

~ 29 September: She Writes – plays on a Byronic theme

~ 6 October: Type’n’gripe at ME4-rum

The roundabout nights are hosted upstairs at the Alex pub, unfortunately this is not yet wheelchair accessible.

An assemblance of judicious heretics…

The Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know are coming to Medway... and it is a work in progress

Image credit Doctor_Bob

As part of the Rochester literature festival, the ME4Writers are curating an intriguing exhibition, and they would like to invite you to take part. Are you interested?

The assemblance of judicious heretics is an open access collaborative project. The idea is to encourage artists of all styles to send in work to complement a series of writing pieces on the theme of Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know.

The exhibition will be displayed in Rochester during September and October. If you would like to know more, please see the details on the ME4Writers blog here. You don't have to be based in Medway, you can send in work as long as you can deliver the art to Rochester. 

Good luck!
_____________________________________________________________________
Image source: Morgue file.com

ME4Writers - Book jackets for books never to be written

The ME4Writers have shared a sneak peek of one of their works in progress. It goes by the intriguing title Book jackets for books never to be written

It's an on-going project that encourages collaboration between writers and artists, and the idea is to design a book cover for a book that will never get written.

I've seen some of the designs, and they are quite startling. Would you like to be involved? Either an an artist or writer, please give it a try. You never know what you are capable of until you do it.

If you would like to contribute either a book jacket blurb or design a cover, more information about the project is available on the ME4Writers blog here

Personally, I think it's quite sad these books will never be written, they're quite original...

Seasonally Effected March 2014

Hello there - the wonderful Seasonally Effected open Mic is back!

Please join us at the Dot Cafe in Rochester Wednesday, 26 March for an evening of aural pleasures

Anything can happen at one of these gatherings. Dancing, music, films, existential comedy, as well as poetry, singing, stories and alien abduction.

Image Credit: Cohdra

If you do miss the evening, or want to re-live it, the organisers will add a podcast to their website soon after the event

EDIT 02 April. Oops - spoke too soon. The organisers won't be adding live podcasts anymore. But what they will do is add personalised podcasts of performers who have appeared at the open mic. The first one is of Sam Fentiman-Hall and can be downloaded here
____________________________________________________________________
Image source: http://www.morguefile.com 

p.s. I'm kidding about the alien abduction. Probably.

Mindful Writing 35 - Capstone Country Park

Above me, a blackbird shimmies his feathers. The fog erases boundaries, smudge and sooth over the edges of the winter. Inside it's gentle breath, the wood expands into infinite possibility. Ascending songs echo, resonate while I turn the corner and bare green branches twist into focus; gain a layer of ivy

Image Credit: SM Jenkin

At the edge of the field the fog curtain brushes the grass.; beside the path link green and seasoned slim brown fingers. The sharp angles strewn at right angles with spider webs are garlanded with dew drops, inverting the world.

__________________________________________________________
Mindful writing is the art of paying attention - being fully present in a moment and then describing it

Mindful Writing 34 - View from the Delce

The fascia gleams so brightly I cannot tell where it is on the spectrum. The spring blossom glaring back at me from the hill covers orange, pink, daffodil yellow. I move forward only in the certainty of his warm hand in mine. Approaching the dip, the glare sharpens into a box window, twin suns reflected back, trapped in the square.

Image Credit_ J Durham

__________________________________________________________
Mindful writing is the art of paying attention - being fully present in a moment and then describing it

Image source: http://www.morguefile.com

Mindful Writing 33 - Near Wouldham

The low hum fills the air, drowning out the reeds rattling in the gusts skimming across the swollen new banks of the Medway. It's the eerie sound of someone blowing across the top of an empty bottle. But the cloud-sodden sky, grey against grey waves, is empty. The river laps against empty mud trails. The power relay buzzing into view; mystery solved. 

Picture credit: Wally ir

__________________________________________________________
Mindful writing is the art of paying attention - being fully present in a moment and then describing it

Image source: http://www.morguefile.com

Mindful Writing 23 - Chatham station, Island

At Chatham station,
beneath the leaking pipe on
platform 11, a moss-soft green world
blooms and flourishes;
encircled by the rainwater moat.

Picture credit: r_brevity

______________________________________________________________
This is part of the small stones writing challenge
The art of paying attention
Image source: http://www.morguefile.com/