Martin Luther King "I Have a Dream"

The 50th Anniversary Of MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech
Wednesday 28th August / South Bank / London

Gutsy choirs mix it with 21st-century beats, music, film, new commissioned work from poets Hollie McNish, Salena Godden and Charlie Dark plus Zena Edwards, Dizraeli and more…
with a rare UK appearance by the legends Last Poets!!! If you are on twitter you might like to follow @rageandradiate and check out the blog on architectsofourrepublic.co.uk

You will also be able to tune in and watch this show online, live streaming here: http://www.youtube.com/user/SouthbankCentre

Here’s the Southbank Centre link, this is HUGE and its FREE, get involved here: http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whatson/i-have-a-dream-architects-of-our-republic-78235

Book Slam at The Clapham Grand, 29th August

DBC Pierre stars at the next Book Slam alongside Giroplayboy Michael Smith, Salena Godden, Francesca Beard, Matt Okine and Thabo and the Real Deal at Book Slam, Clapham Grand on the 29th August!

NEW: Audio / Voodoo and Tongue Fu

This week I performed at Tongue Fu at London Wonderground. We improvised, to over 300 people in a stunning Spiegeltent on The Southbank. Tongue Fu are the such a joy to jam with, they have so much talent, its always such a laugh to do this gig. 

I performed three short excerpts from my book 'Springfield Road'

you can read them here: http://salenagodden.tumblr.com and
http://unbound.co.uk/books/springfield-road

Luckily for once I also recorded this one and have just posted the gig up, raw and unedited and in all its glory here on my mixcloud.com/salenagodden check out the last piece 'Voodoo' - that particular excerpt went so brilliantly with a Screamin' Jay Hawkins style delivery and backing...

Thanks to the Tongue Fu Band: Patrick Davey, Arthur lea, Oliver Keen 

And thank you Chris Redmond! Enjoy!

August gigs / C O M I N G  U P

August 28th / I Have a Dream: Architects of Our Republic, South Bank

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream' Speech   

Gutsy choirs mix it with 21st-century beats, film-makers and poets Hollie McNish, Salena Godden and Charlie Dark With a rare UK appearance by the legendary Last Poets.

August 29th / Book Slam at The Clapham Grand

With DBC Pierre, Michael Smith, Salena Godden,  Francesca Beard,  Matt Okine and Thabo and the Real Deal at Book Slam South.

Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe

Ella & Marilyn:
In the 1950s, the popular nightclub, Mocambo would not book Ella Fitzgerald because she was black. Fortunately for Ella, she had a powerful friend and benefactor Marilyn Monroe 

“I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt…it was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the ’50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she promised she would take a front table every night. She told him – and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status – that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman – and ahead of her time and she didn’t know it.” – Ella Fitzgerald


We get nowhere alone, thank you for your support! Please visit ‘Springfield Road’ at Unbound crowd funded publishing. http://unbound.co.uk/books/springfield-road

Jane Austen & twitter boycott poem live on BBC World Service

 snapshot taken by Bill Thompson of Gareth Mitchell, 
Paidraig Ready and myself recording #bbcclickradio

This week I was commissioned to write a piece about the twitter boycott 

for the BBC World Service. It was aired Tues 6th August on ‪#‎bbcclickradio‬ 

 listen again here 

Pride and Prejudice

This morning I noticed the sky was a baggy story

I reached up to pull at a flappy bit of old argument

It was a tired and clammy cloud

It was wallpaper from an old protest that was never resolved

Merely brushed aside until she pulled her burnt bra on to make the tea

Before long I had peeled it all away in strips

And once that corner of sky was torn

Behind the story and underneath

There was just the opaque roof of a department store elevator

I wanted to pull the slats apart, to climb up into the lift shaft

And cut the ropes and watch twitter world crash.

And off-line and off-grid

We were all fish out of water

Slapped onto the cold pavement

And we stopped compulsive likelikelike button pushing

Opened the curtains to daylight to celebrate our differences and our sameness

And seeing the barriers all shattered we were forced to go outside

And walk and work side by side

We won’t remember the trolls

We'll remember the bully goat bridge that was built to shelter them

I don’t recall the names of playground bullies

But the classmates that took detention by my side

And with a sinking feeling now I remember the girls

That fingered their blonde plaits and stood by and watched

We are plugged into a distraction

Logged into fiction

Counting sheep and followers

When our dreams are so much more,

More than we ever gave them credit for

We are sleep-walking sleep-talking retweeting parrots

We keep poking and fiddling with the knobs

Like it’s the only way to sound check our speakers

And back in twitterworld we still argue:

Because a woman cannot choose to be silent if she had no voice

Because the invisible women that have no votes have no choice

Because silence is gold but it’s kept in a bank

Because there are so many inspiring women to thank and to rank

Because it isn’t just 140 characters, its your motive and intent

Because twitter is real life and you tweet, threatened and sent

“One word from you shall silence me forever”

That’s Jane Austen

And there's two words

‘Pride and Prejudice’

(c) Salena Godden. 2013

I’m following @Bonn1eGreer on twitter and this tweet rang truest to me:

"@Bonn1eGreer ‪#‎twittersilence‬ is a strong choice. I respect it. But I come from a people who were forced to stay silent. For a long, long time. ‪#‎nosilence‬”

#twittersilence #nosilence #feminism #JaneAusten  #bbcclickradio

Please follow the 'Springfield Road' crowdfunding journey on Tumblr!