Birmingham Literature Festival

Birmingham’s celebratory literary festival has been taking place for over twenty years and each year showcases a number of talents that largely have some connection to the city of Birmingham. The festival owes that to its long-term success as according to critic Schofield, a “festival must first and foremost reflect the character of its host city”. The founder of the Birmingham Literature Festival, Jonathan Davidson, states that this is done to ensure the quality of ideas and to maintain an interesting mixture in the creativity that stems from the festival. Having just forty to fifty events, the festival ensures that the main focus is kept on engagement with artists and helps to increase involvement with those present in the local community “by bringing people together, in one location, [especially] people with similar interests”.

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The fact that the festival ran for both the Spring and Autumn seasons this year is a testament to the successful curating of the events and the rising levels of audience participation in a festival that is entirely structured around the interests of the various communities in and around Birmingham. It is an even bigger success when considering that art is easily accessible from the comfort of one’s own home, so having people that come together to discuss literature and open their minds to ideas they have previously had little experience of also highlights the uniting nature of the festival.

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First Impressions

I had attended the festival a few times before and so I thought I was certain I knew what to expect when it came to booking my tickets for Raymond Antrobus’ event. It was upon a recommendation from a friend that I decided to attend the event even though I had heard very little about him. Having the knowledge that he was a performance poet, I had the expectation of yet another poet showcasing their work in the way that most poets do – reading aloud from their poetry collection, almost detached from the audience in front of them. However, upon arrival into the The Studio at The REP on Saturday 13 October at 6 pm, I was pleasantly surprised with the set up in front of me. In the middle of the stage were two red sofa chairs placed opposite each other and I automatically got the sense of a more intimate set up compared to the previous events I had attended. This was further exacerbated with the fact that there were only a few dozen people in attendance, thus putting forward a deeper sense of familiarity.

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Moments later, Antrobus came out onto the stage and placed himself on a seat, ready to have an informal question and answer session with one of the curators of the festival. This session gave an insight into his works and the reason he started writing in the first place. As a d/Deaf poet, he explained that words to him were a coping mechanism and at a young age, he realised there is a power to language, stories and poetry. One such story Antrobus wrote at a young age after fights with his sister, personified him as a pony that horses would trample on and the ponies would not be able to revolt against them. His sister read the stories and the dynamic of their sibling relationship changed and he therefore found that reading stories highlighted a powerful change in individuals.

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The Hackney-born writer recounted various points in his childhood that portrayed the difficulty in his journey, in particular, being a child who had his severe learning difficulties attributed to dyslexia because his deafness was picked up late. It is for this reason he felt out of place with both the hearing kids and the d/Deaf kids who taunted him for not being able to use British Sign Language as competently as they could. It is almost ironic then that he received the first MA in Spoken Word Education from Goldsmith’s University and now takes the time out to teach in d/Deaf schools in London as their poet in residence.

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This personal insight into Antrobus’s life helped gain and maintain my interest and so I looked forward to when it was time for Antrobus to take the stage to perform some of the poetry from his “electrifying” debut collection which has recently been named by The Guardian and The Sunday Times as Poetry Book of the Year.

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Antrobus’ Poetry Performance

He started off by explaining that each country has developed their own sign language and so provided context for his poem ‘Two Guns in the Sky for Daniel Harris’ which included a clever play on the American Sign Language word “alive”. The poem was written with the tragic story of Daniel Harris in mind, a d/Deaf man who was shot dead by a trooper in America. The case highlighted the lack of education of people in regards to how to communicate with d/Deaf individuals and Antrobus portrays the tragic nature of this incident by using the word “alive” which is signed with two fingers pointing up which he likens to two guns pointing up at the sky. This evocative image garnered an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience members, including myself and set the mood for the rest of the poems the British-Jamaican poet was to perform.

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His next poem provided his own take on Ted Hughes’ poem, ‘Deaf School’. Antrobus explained that the National Theatre had commissioned Ted Hughes to research how people live without language. He assumed that d/Deaf people do not have language and in the poem, used words like “lacking dimension”, “simple” and “monkeys”. In the collection, Antrobus crosses out each line of Hughes’ poem, making a visually stunning point about the ignorance of Hughes. Antrobus writes his response entitled ‘After Reading Ted Hughes’s “Deaf School” by the Mississippi River’ next to it. The poem is set in New Orleans amongst its lively ancestral history and culture. It uses the Mississippi River as an extended metaphor for d/Deaf people and the river eventually ends up drowning Hughes out with Antrobus declaring that Hughes is simple. This particular poem resonated with me as I had previously come across it and recognised the problematic nature of it. To see it redacted by Antrobus helped to bring out his feelings of intense anger by penning an intelligent response to it. The way he utilised poetry as a way of resetting a narrative by writing back to troubled, problematic histories also resounded with me as in my writing, I also like to revisit and rewrite existing pieces of literary texts.

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He then moved onto his next performance but what was different about his next performance was the fact that he was accompanied by a woman dressed in a black t-shirt and trousers whom he introduced as Claire. She was his BSL interpreter for the night and this feature added a different dimension to his poems which was completely unlike other performance poets I have seen. He stepped back in order to let her take the spotlight and it was almost as if she became his voice in the performance of ‘Dear Hearing World’. The poem, like much of his poems in The Perseverance, opens up the mind to the d/Deaf experience.

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Obstacles d/Deaf individuals have to overcome

Hearing the poems out loud helped give a voice to those individuals that have grown up with various obstacles as a result of their deafness. Antrobus delved deeper into this issue and opened my own mind up to an experience I had not engaged with much prior to this event, which I saw as proof of the powerful connecting force that is the Birmingham Literature Festival. 70% born profoundly d/Deaf in the UK grow up illiterate and when the spoken word artist worked in Jamaica, he found that 90% of those people born profoundly d/Deaf grow up illiterate as do 97% Trinidadians. This hints at the fact that worldwide, d/Deaf education is extremely underfunded; children are forced into mainstream education and don’t get the support they require. It was hard-hitting to hear that even in a well-developed country such as the UK, it is difficult for those individuals experiencing deafness to get the required resources in order to help them overcome it, especially with all the cuts in funding that are currently occurring as highlighted in this Guardian article. What drove this point even further was witnessing Antrobus and all that he has achieved after finding the right resources to help him develop himself from a spoken word artist at the age of 18, which helped him to embrace the true foundations of poetry, right through to achieving the position of an inspirational published poet, twelve years later.

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Relationship with sound

After a delightful performance of his poems, members of the audience were invited to engage in a Q&A session with Antrobus, giving us an opportunity to engage on a personal level with an artist who already puts so much of his own identity into his perceptive poems. One question that gave an insight into his journey was asked by a woman all the way from America and required him to give details of his relationship with sound. Antrobus spoke of how hearing aid technology has changed in his lifetime and how that has evolved the way he writes on a subconscious level as he has a better understanding of the world around him and so can scribe his experiences in a manner that suggests that understanding. He detailed how through the elevation of sound and the transformative nature of poetry, he is able to feel included in a world that previously he felt like he had no place in.

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UK vs US funding for creatives

Another aspect of the Q&A session entailed his experience with fellowships he received in the US. He spoke about how they gave him emotional and financial support as well as inspiration and affirmation of his poetry skills. He also declared that in the UK, poetry isn’t taken that seriously as a career so it was hard to find support to continue writing and complete a book. This is apparent as according to this Guardian article, poetry as an art form, is well and truly dead. This is a stark contrast to creatives in the US that are entitled to a philanthropist’s fund for their work. He also stated that the main focus for artists in America is on how your work will add to the existing history of the country which makes you feel a part of an exciting lineage of poetry. On the other hand, the UK’s Arts Council Fund does not focus on developing art much which for aspiring creatives like me, is a concerning factor. Seeing Antrobus and the perseverance in developing his art, however, has left a lasting impression on me and it is clear to see that if the talent and creativity exists, then you’ll certainly find those who care to nurture that.

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Overall Impressions

In comparison to other poets I have seen showcasing their works, I felt that Antrobus found a tone that alleviates ego and focused mainly on the power of poetry. He even declared himself that he ‘wouldn’t have a relationship with people if [he] didn’t have a relationship with poetry’. After meeting him when the hour-long event was over and having a conversation with him about how the written word can be a powerful force that offers a satisfying sense of escapism, I can definitely say this was one poet whose works have inspired me. It truly fascinates me with the amount of talent we have in this city that is brimming with a whole variety of creatives. Attending this event helped me realise how lucky we are as a city to have an entire festival dedicated to showcasing eye-opening artists who can share their view on the world in a humbling, yet creative way. It would be apt to sum up this highly stimulating event with Antrobus’ quoting of Michael Langley’s famous saying: “if I knew where poetry came from, I would keep going there”.

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