Tuesday 30 August 2016

Dates for your diary: September / October 2016




Nov 30th Unity Words, Wakefield

Salena’s Bookshoppe: http://salenagodden.bigcartel.com
Salena Godden: Author of literary childhood memoir Springfield Road which was successfully crowd funded and published with Unbound in 2014 and author of Fishing In The Aftermath: Poems 1994- 2014 published with Burning Eye Books, marking twenty years of poetry and performance. New short fiction Blue Cornflowers was shortlisted for the 4th Estate and Guardian short story prize in June 2016. Shade is the title of Godden's contribution to The Good Immigrant which was crowd funded in record time and will be published by Unbound on September 22nd 2016. 

 Salena Godden is one of Britain's foremost poets and a regular performer at literary festivals nationally and internationally. She's appeared as guest and writer for BBC radio programmes such as The Verb, Saturday Live, Loose Ends, Fact To Fiction and as poet in residence on BBC World Service programme Click. Salena has written and presented several arts documentaries, these include Seaside On The Rocks for Channel 4, Stir it up - 50 Years Writing Jamaica and Try A little Tenderness - The Lost Legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks both for BBC Radio 4. Widely recognised as a trailblazer for fellow performers, Salena Godden is a true renaissance woman, her stage presence is distinctive, her performances are electrifying, intensely powerful and full of laughter and warmth.
2016 Books:

Poem My Tits Are More Feminist Than Your Tits published in the Untitled Two anthology edited by Neu Reekie. London fiction The Camden Blood Thieves was published in The Unreliable Guide to London with Influx Press Commissioned essay Shade by Salena Godden is included in The Good Immigrant edited by Nikesh Shukla, published by Unbound. And various poems are published in the Word Life 10th anniversary anthology, published and launched 30th September 2016.

Cahier Africain is a feature film documentary produced by award winning Swiss director Heidi Specogna with English narration by Salena Godden. The Cahier Africain World Premiere was at Locarno Film Festival August 2016 where the film was awarded the Premio Zonta Club Locarno award which is given to the film which promotes a better justice and social ethics by the Jury of the Semaine de la critique, Locarno. Film trailer: https://vimeo.com/130997211   

 In other film news this year, Salena Godden played a small part in Brakes which premiered at Edinburgh Film Festival 2016. Brakes is an Independent UK debut comedy directed and written by Mercedes Grower and it stars Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt and many familiar faces of British comedy. Film trailer: https://vimeo.com/164458037



Waiting For Godden: www.salenagodden.com

BBC archives, poems & songs: https://soundcloud.com/salena-godden



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Monday 15 August 2016

Performance: 'Can't Be Bovvered' live at Festival 23





Can’t Be Bovvered

Of course it’s difficult! That’s the whole point, tell me something I don’t know, if it was easy everybody would do it, you CAN’T, that is the point of hard and difficult things. They are hard and difficult. What is the point of doing something easy? What is easy? Is it easy being a CAN’T? Or a bank robber or a pilot or a heroin addict or a lion tamer or a millionaire? Is it easy to be honest? Is it easy to be first? Anything worth doing is hard and worth doing really hard and for hours and every day until you have it down and you have done it the best you CAN otherwise it’s pointless doing it, you CAN’T. Even being a total CAN’T takes hard work, hours of dedication and you should know that, you CAN’T. Every day you are shown evidence against being a CAN’T but every day you persist in being a total CAN’T, you lie there in your hot little bed planning what you CAN’T do or CAN’T say, planning where you can't go...

If CAN’T's like you had your own way no books, songs or paintings would ever be completed because it might be a wee bit of work. Hello my name is Jimi Hend… dunt matta… Hello my name is Ludwig van Bee… bovvered. May as well stay in bed picking your nose and wiping it off on the sheets because it dunt matta wotevaaa, CAN’T be bovvered, CAN’T be bovvvered… I had a dream… yeah woteva. Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art… CAN’T be bovvered. If it was left up to you churches would be left half built and Neil Armstrong would be still on the moon waiting for a ride home and people would die in the middle of CAN’T be bovvered brain surgery and Jesus Christ would be left hanging there from one hand because it was a bit hard and it took a bit of energy to get the nail in through the palm of the other one, might as well leave it, just leave the son of God dangling by one arm, you CAN’T, now look the son of God just snapped at the ankles, headbutted his old dear and bloodied her nose because you, you sloppy CAN’T, you didn’t even hammer that one in properly, you have a break, go on, dunt matta, dunk your Kit Kat.

CAN’T be bovvered going to galleries or reading books, dunt matta, you want pizza and lots of telly, you shit what you are fed… telly about telly, footage of fat ugly people bickering and scoffing pizza, you are watching yourself on telly, you CAN’T. How much imagination must it take to convince yourself that anything difficult, anything that takes a bit of thought or work must be avoided and ignored until someone on telly tells you it’s kinda like pizza and maybe worth checking out? Once upon a time when you were a baby CAN’T it was very hard, very difficult to learn to stand and then to walk and even a CAN’T like you managed that… then it was hard and difficult to learn to speak CAN’T, and you speak CAN’T fluently, like it must be your first language. Then it was very hard, very difficult to learn to read and to write, to build ideas, to understand theories, histories and create things, and that’s where CAN’T’s like you stop whilst the rest of the world evolves and involves in spite of itself… in spite of you, you CAN’T. Outside it’s filthy with life, with new ideas and a curiosity of how the world works and spins with the weight of thinking, questioning, the perfection of gifts and talents and finding fantastic ways to communicate dreams and visions, it’s called seeing things through, you CAN’T, it’s called being awake you CAN'T and its called being alive, you CAN’T.

Paint a church ceiling? Paint a church ceiling, you sure? Oooooh, that will be very very hard, very very difficult, I wouldn’t bovver if I was you, wotevaaa, your name is, ermmm, Michelangelo… woteva, Sistine Chapel… dunt matta… woteva… CAN can can can can can can can can can can can… you CAN’T.

YOU. CAN.

(c) Salena Godden




 'Can't Be Bovvered' by Salena Godden

 youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AENTcLH1q7A

 Live performance for The Cosmic Trigger Cabaret at Festival 23

 Filmed with thanks to Adam Baker - July 23rd 2016

 Published in 'Fishing In The Aftermath Poems 1994-2014' by Burning Eye Books

Please visit our new online store, Salena’s Bookshoppe: http://salenagodden.bigcartel.com




GIGS, FESTIVALS AND PARTIES




August 25th:  Verse Clique, The Poetry Club, Glasgow

August 26th: Neu Reekie, Edinburgh International Book Festival

September 2-4th: Churchtown, Cornwall

September 16th: The Beacon, Hastings

September 30th: Wordlife launch, Rich Mix, London

October 7th: Cheltenham Literary Festival

October 12-15: Durham Literary Festival

October 19th: Manchester Literary Festival

October 21st: ArchWay With Words Festival supporting Suzi Quatro







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