Performance Poetry workshop with Deborah 'Debris' Stevenson. A refection and video.

As part of the Inside Out Festival on Saturday 25th April at Curve Leicester I enjoyed a free poetry writing workshop run by Deborah 'Debris' Stevenson of Nottingham based Mouthy Poets. I couldn't stay for the whole two hours as I had to review a brilliant musical called Mrs Green by Sheep Soup in another part of the building at 12.15pm.

In the time I was able to attend I discovered that it was a delightfully engaging workshop in which the twenty-plus attendees enjoyed the benefit of Deborah's hugely passionate enthusiasm for creating and encouraging poetry and giving people a voice through poetry.  With a cheeky smile she told us that, during the workshop, we would be writing lots and lots of new poems and we most certainly did!

The main exercise after our poetic introductions was for us to creatively respond to titles offered by Deborah on a rapid basis. We were creating a short poem approximately every one hundred seconds. In total we must have each created about fourteen poems in less than half an hour. We broke off into groups of three and read each other a selection of our poems and underlined the positives in each. It appeared I have a talent for writing small pithy poems that the other two ladies in my group said were relatable. I also enjoyed hearing what the two ladies had created too. Always interesting and sometimes surprising to hear what people devise in a restricted time frame.

Deborah 'Debris' Stevenson

I was thoroughly enjoying the workshop when I had to slip out to review Mrs Green. In fact I enjoyed the workshop so much that I decided to perform some of my freshly composed poems at the open mike session later in the afternoon. There were some interesting other performers including Kevin from the workshop. I enjoyed his wry comical poetry very much. I always enjoy performing and it was especially good doing so in front of such an interested audience with the support of the staff members at Curve and representatives of Writing East Midlands. Alas for me the Mouthy Poets gig at Curve was sold out. I have heard some terrific responses to how well their work was received though.

"Deborah, I had no chance or equipment at the time to video myself onstage but have made this short video for you with some of my poems created on Saturday. I hope that you like them. Taking the workshop has made me want to revitalise my latent poetic talents and do something more with them. Big thanks to you and Mouthy Poets for the wonderful workshop and encouragement. "

Phil x Good to meet ya again!

      

Deborah 'Debris' Stevenson of Mouthy Poets

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