The Shattering of Illusions

 

Yesterday, I went to a literary event, held in the nearby park, to see storytellers and performance poets.

Sadly, the event wasn't well-supported.

Kaye Vincent found that she only had two people in her audience; and Fay Roberts fared even less well, discovering she had half that.

Later, I suggested to the festival organiser that perhaps calling it the, 'Gay and Lesbian Literary Festival' might have had something to do with putting people off slightly. I certainly had had second thoughts myself, but had gone along in the end as I love listening to stories told by professional story-tellers.

So this is my story of going down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place.

Since I was getting over a cold, I thought I would just pop along for a single hour, but having arrived far too early, punctually being one of my vices, and finding that the marquee had only just been erected; and after helping out with the chairs and bunting, I decided to stay for first session, which was just about to begin.

In the end, I stayed for all.

This was because I felt so sorry for the authors; who each arrived, going down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place, expecting to have an audience to entertain; and who, each in turn, discovered to their chagrin that they only actually had only one person sitting before them: me.

There is nothing sadder in the world... well there is actually, so this is just a tiny touch of hyperbole... but there is nothing sadder in the world than seeing an author trudging down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place, and then across the park grass towards a marquee, dragging behind them on wheels a small suitcase stuffed full of their books: books which they had hoped to sell. Who then discover upon entering the marquee, and bowing beneath its rainbow-coloured bunting, that there is in fact only one person sitting there in the shadows, waiting for them... and worst of all, that that person is me.

Then their world implodes when they next discover that this person has never even heard of them. That she has never read any of their books, nor their poems. Nor is she gay, nor bisexual, nor even heterosexual, so she is most certainly not coming to their work from that perspective; and lastly, but perhaps the most damning of all, that this person doesn't even write poetry. (This was the experience of the poetry workshop lady).

Now, I guess, that this wouldn't have been too bad a problem, if the sole member of the audience was at least an articulate being, someone with whom they could have had an interesting conversation, or two. That would have been something, but unluckily for them, we are talking about me. Me, shyly bedecked in hat and thick jacket, muffled by a scarf.

They had taken such pains to look beautiful. They were colourful and elegant. They had ruffles, dyed-red hair and knee-high leather boots. Whereas I had the sniffles, a bright-red nose and flat sensible shoes. They sat upon a chair as if it was their throne, their long-sleeved cardigans draping regally around their feet, whereas I sat upon a blue-plastic chair wearing my shrunken, second-hand Primark vest.

They were passionate and emerging; whereas I was all past-it-all and fossilised. They had Facebook and Twitter; whereas I was a twit with a face.

And yet despite finding this unpromising specimen before them, each and every one of them, did a first-rate job of delivering their subject matter. All gave really wonderful talks.

But of course, I always end up in the spaces in between. Those gaps in meaning. The places poetry tries to fill with sacred words. So I remember little, and can recount even less.

Except, that I learnt, for example, from the first, Kaye Vincent, that if ever you go down to the American Embassy in London, you must first go down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place to a chemist shop.

There is apparently a reason for this. This is not a gay and lesbian thing. Even Adam and Eve after the fall are not exempt from this requirement.

Neither is it one of those old laws that have yet to be rescinded, a "You can shoot a Scotsman in York" kind of thing. Where apparently, even to this very day, or rather this very night, you can still go down the hill, over the bridge, and across the market place, and legally shoot a Scotsman in York with your bow and arrow on the very stroke of midnight, and not be found guilty of his murder should your arrow fly straight to his heart.

Or if you happen to find yourself all a quiver in Herefordshire, then you can legally do the exact same thing, at the exact same hour, should you happen to chance upon any passing Welshmen.

If ever I decide to go hunting for a man, I shall most certainly give this method a try, using blank arrows of course.

No, but anyway, getting back to Kaye Vincent and the American Embassy, it appears that eBook authors need to go to there, together with their filled-in forms, to avoid paying 30% American tax duties on eBook sales through any American outlets.

But apparently first, you have to go to a nearby chemist, and there leave all your gadgets, including electronic car keys, in one of the chemist's safe deposit boxes, and unless you do so the American Embassy will not allow you in. Which I thought, all in all, was a very useful piece of information.

From Alex Ultradish, the storyteller. I learnt that the name 'Jack' in our more traditional tales is the English term for 'fool'. In her story Jack went off down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place carrying a cow on his head. Thus winning the love of a princess. Things were so much simpler in those days.

Alex Ultradish had more of an audience. Nine people in all. But it later turned out that one of them was her friend, and most of the others were family members, including a baby, whom she aptly referred to as 'Misery'. You can imagine why.

The minutes then ticked by, and the storyteller's audience took flight leaving me exposed as a stool pigeon.

It seemed that the poet, Fay Roberts, was lost. Instead of going down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place; she had gone to the ducks.

When her session finally began it was just me, and the event organiser; and then a pale, spotty, gawky-looking young man, with an Andy Murray neck, who came in about half-way through; and so we battled with words and sentences, in a poet's and non-poet's duel, writing the contra, until we had six poems and five haiku between us.

For the latter we had been given a one word starter... a word which had probably been inside her head ever since she had stepped inside the marquee and had discovered what awaited her there, 'Lemon!'

The tragedy of this modern age is that writers have become travelling salesmen; and so very much like the travelling salesmen of the past nobody really wants to buy their wares, despite the handing out of business cards.

The final person, had attracted the biggest audience. Oblivious of the emptiness, in terms of the audience numbers, which had gone before, she confidently strode to the front; and for the first time, here was a person who was officially introduced: Sophia Blackwell.

Sophia Blackwell is a striking young woman. A fearsome lesbian. And a performance poet, though you must understand that the words 'fearsome' and 'performance' are interchangeable here. She took no prisoners!

Her poems were fired off, without the touch paper being lit, so that for me her words were sounds without meaning, air pockets of noise in my rattling pipes.

If her poems were brilliant, then the audience was mesmerised. If they resonated with meaning, then her audience sat there in shock; but only whenever her words took me down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place was I also enthralled.

And so of course, it was just as Sophia was in the middle of one such; giving a rendition of something dark and angst-ridden, that just to give her a taste, just a little indication of all that had gone on before, a little old woman with grey hair appeared at the marquee's entrance.

"The toilets are leaking. There's a flood in the block over there."

She held us spellbound, as she looked at Sophia, as if knee-high black leather boots, a short, tight-fitting black skirt, and an even tighter-fitting expensive floral jacket top marked her out as being nothing less a plumber, or mop lady.

This women was certainly no poet. Having created a vacuum from which all meaning fled, and then having sucked the air from the marquee, away went this women down the hill, over the bridge and across the market place, carrying with her all the sacred cows on her head like jewelled crowns, just as Jack had once done before her.

Leaving behind her in her wake all illusions shattered.

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