Don’t Fuck a Poet: The Anti-Valentine Slam

DON’T FUCK A POET
The Anti-Valentine’s Slam

presented by Inky Fingers
with Harlequinade
of the Chemical Poets

The City Café
(19 Blair St, Edinburgh)
8 – 11.30pm
Monday 14th February

Entry by donation
(suggested £4/£3)
– it’s a fundraiser!

Calling all the lovelorn, cynical, and still-illusioned! Calling all those without a date for the night, or who want to bring their dates to the hottest, steamiest, nastiest live-lit event in town! Calling worldly wordly competitors and the audience for whose pleasure they will be performing! Calling one and all to DON’T FUCK A POET: The Anti-Valentine’s Slam, presented by Inky Fingers.

We’re calling for 16 brave writers and performers to sign up to compete for a tasty grand prize and the admiration of all. The victor will be eligible for the Scottish Slam Final in Glasgow on 4th March, where they’ll be competing for a £200 cash prize! You can perform anything artful into that mic – stories, poetry, rap, experimental vocalisations – as long as it’s within the time limit and you’re prepared to face the audience judges. The only rule is: no love poetry.

But that’s not all. The audience won’t just be participating in and judging this mock-gladiatorial competition: you’ll be able to buy exclusive D.F.A.P. merchandise, contribute to our fabulous Wall of Love and Hate, and — who knows — maybe find a poet to go home with.

Entry will be by donation, with all funds going towards paying running costs for future Inky Fingers events. That’s for wider publicity, travel expenses for performers from further afield, future venue costs and, potentially, a very special publication later in the year: so come along not just to have a good time but to be part of making Inky Fingers the biggest and best event series for word-lovers around.

Come on down to the City Café for 8pm on Valentine’s Night, and be prepared to have, pace Charlie Dickens, only the best of times.

(Credit for the name of the event goes, of course, to Edinburgh-based writer, blogger and Inky Fingers friend Claire Askew of One Night Stanzas)

Full details on our website (http://inkyfingers.wordpress.com); e-mail inkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com to sign up to compete; find us on Facebook and on Twitter @InkyFingersEdin.

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THE RULES

1. The first 16 competitors to sign up will compete, with no vetting. Extra sign-ups thereafter will go on the reserve list in case of pullouts.
2. There will be four rounds: first, each of the 16 will perform one piece (time limit 2 mins) and the top 8 scorers will go through; second, those 8, with 2 and a half minutes to impress, will be whittled down to 4; third, those 4 will go head-to-head in two semi-finals (time limit 3 minutes); the 2 winners there will then go head-to-head for champion. Ties will be settled by quick-fire haiku rounds.
3. The qualifying rounds will be scored out of 10 by randomly-selected (and non-affiliated) audience judges, taking all factors into account. The semi-finals and finals will be judged by the entire audience.
4. Anyone taking it too seriously, or reading love poetry, will be summarily executed.

Page & Stage Poetry Workshops with This Collection

We’re proud to announce the first of our expanded series of events for people who love words: in collaboration with DIY collaborative art project This Collection, we’re running a series of workshops at Tollcross Community Centre in writing and performing poetry.

Both workshops are free and open to all — which is how both Inky Fingers and This Collection like to do things — though donations will be expected. No matter what your level of experience, if you want to write and/or perform, these workshops are for you; you just need to sign up in advance and bring some of your works.

This Collection are running three months of collaborative art and performance events in collaboration with the Adult Learning Project and Edinburgh-based arts groups, so check out the full schedule for January for more exciting opportunity, and keep watching the This Collection site.

This is just the beginning of Inky Fingers’ expanded range of events — brought to you by a bigger and more ambitious organising group. Expect more announcements over the next few weeks (we’d advise you to keep Feb 14th free, for example . . . ), and if you want to be part of making Inky Fingers an even better organisation for writers and performs, then get in touch.

POETRY FOR THE PAGE: OPEN WORKSHOP
Friday 28th January & Friday 18th February
16:00 — 17:30 FREE! Booking required
An open poetry workshop with Claire Askew, poet, Editor in Chief of Read This Magazine, Lecturer in Literature and Communications at Edinburgh’s Telford College and Tutor in Creative Writing at the University of Edinburgh. Bring up to three poems for discussion, s feedback, hints and tips from a small and friendly group. All welcome — no prior workshopping experience necessary!
Interested? Places are limited so please email poetry@thiscollection.org to reserve your spot!

POETRY FOR THE STAGE: WRITING OUT LOUD
Friday 28th January & Friday 18th February
18:00 — 20:00 FREE! Booking required
Stick around after Claire’s page workshop and find out how to adapt one of your poems for the stage. Alternatively, come along fresh and learn all about the finer points of performance. Hosted by Harry Giles, writer, theatre director, founder and co-ordinator of Inky Fingers and multiple-award-winning slam poet. All welcome, no experience necessary — just bring yourself, and a poem!
Interested? Places are limited so please email poetry@thiscollection.org to reserve your spot!

Second Degree Burns: Open Mic Tuesday 25th Jan

The Inky Fingers Open Mic takes place in the main room of the Forest every fourth Tuesday of the month, from 8-11pm. It’s free to come and free for anyone to perform, regardless of style, experience, or identity. We want to hear from everybody. We want your poems, your rants, your ballads, your short stories, your diaries, your experimental texts, your heart, your mind, your body. We want the essay on your summer holidays you wrote when you were four, your adolescent haiku, and extracts from your eventually-to-be-completed epic fantasy quadrilogy. We want to hear your best new work as well. And we want people to care about the way words are performed.

By felicitous coincidence, the regular Inky Fingers Open Mic slot falls on Burns Night this year, so we’re claiming that prestigious slot to throw the stage open to your performances. we want to hear from the Burnses and the McGonagalls, we want to hear from everyone who loves words. The theme for the night is “Second Degree Burns”; you can choose to write something to that theme, or to celebrate Burns Night by responding in some way to the Scottish writing’s grand traditions, or you can ignore the theme entirely, which is well in keeping with the Inky Fingers way.

Our feature performers this month are Kirsti Wishart and Kevin Cadwallender. Kirsti lives next to a graveyard and tells beautiful and funny stories about Edinburgh and more; Kevin is a Yakker poet and jack-of-many-trades, whose sharp and popular work has appeared in just about every medium you can think of.

Open Mic slots are five minutes long; e-mail inkyfingersedinburgh AT gmail DOT com to sign up and be sure of a slot.

READeasy Writers’ Group: 13th Jan

We’ve set up the  READeasy Writers’ Groupto be a safe and encouraging space for writers to meet up, hear their words read, and get constructive critical feedback. The third open session is at the Forest, Bristo Place, 6 – 9pm, Thursday 13th January.

It’s open to writers of any style, experience, identity and genre — but places each month are limited. To secure a slot, e-mail inkyfingersedinburgh AT gmail DOT com in advance with your name and a piece of your writing attached — and then just come along on the night with cake and a ready mind. See the Writers’ Group page for full instructions (including length limits).

Some things people have said about the group:

“I have always wanted to attend a group like this to share and get feedback on my work. However, I was always too nervous to share my work with so many other writers at one time. The Inky Fingers method is very good because it allows you to share your work anonymously, while still receiving feedback. I found it to be an excellent experience with lots of good discussion amongst a very nice bunch of people.”

“Great, very welcoming group!”

“This discussion gave me the confidence to get up at the next Inky Fingers open mic event and read one of my stories on stage, something I have never done before.”

“The atmosphere was great and the other authors present were an interesting bunch!”