20/4/18 - In Wake of Twisted Tongues Birmingham

Hello everyone! I know this post isn't part of my usual blogging schedule, but I have managed to eke out a short moment in order to write a post about what happened on Thursday 19th April - the day of Twisted Tongues' Birmingham's Launch Night!

I was in an amazing position when this event was created - I had already created and achieved every single spoken word goal I possibly had for this academic year, and I managed to do that back in October of 2017, a mere two months into pursuing said goals! It was an amazing feat.

At the start of this academic year, I had established several goals that would be pushed ahead to be aspired for in my third year at the University of Derby. One of them was to perform in another city - one that was not Derby, or my hometown. Of course, one could count my participation in UniSlam 2018 to be the completion of that goal, but my performances were competitive, as opposed to recreational. That meant that my first actual performance took place on Thursday 19th April 2018, at the launch of Twisted Tongues Birmingham!

Twisted Tongues was the event that pushed me to start chasing a path in spoken word poetry, and I was, therefore, determined that I would get to continue to support the team in their newest venture. I was so eager to do so, that I pre-booked my performance slot with the team and planned out my performance slot. I was going to read my UniSlam solo along with a character piece called 'She'.

When I got to the event, however, things changed. I was approached by some of my fellow poets from Derby, Aoife and Tamara, when they asked me about my set, I informed them of my choices, and they encouraged me to perform a different piece - my UniSlam audition piece; Red, which was one of their favourites. Upon some brief consideration, I decided it was better to perform that piece instead.

Photo Cred: Favourite Child of the Sassy Apollos  

The above image depicts me during my performance. I was very nervous to go up and speak in front of a crowd where very few people knew my name or face. My fellow poets from Derby had all clustered in one spot, so at least, I knew there were people in the audience that wanted to hear what I had to say.

I was delighted with the reception I got in Birmingham, and cannot wait to participate in the next event in May, the last spoken word event I will do before I return home for the summer.