Big Mouth Masterclasses in Performance Poetry 2006-2007
Peter Finch
www.peterfinch.co.uk
I’ll be running a class on Writing from Nowhere - how the performer can create new material when inspiration is low (or even no there at all) - how to deliver this and how to involve the audience in doing the same.
Poetry from Nowhere
No inspiration? Can’t think where to turn? Don’t worry. Peter Finch will show you how to create deliverable masterworks right out of the air. Peter's master class will cover chance, cut-up, permutation, appropriation, collage, imitation and hell-fired permanent creation. Get the third mind working, access the subconscious, bounce it, shout it. Start here.
Peter Finch is a poet and short story writer living in Cardiff, Wales. He works in both traditional and experimental forms and is a performer on the reading circuit. In the sixties and seventies he edited the ground-breaking literary magazine, second aeon, exhibited visual poetry internationally and toured with sound poet Bob Cobbing. In the eighties he embraced performance poetry, was a founder member of Cardiff’s Cabaret 246 and of the trio Horse’s Mouth. This was work with props owing as much to theatre as to literature. But Peter Finch could never actually leave the book. While others recited their work by rote he chose (and still chooses) to work from the written text. Today he is much in demand as a reader as well as a lecturer at festivals and venues up and down the country.
Finch is author of a number of works on poetry and book publishing, compiles the poetry section of Macmillan’s annual Writer’s Handbook and the self-publishing section for A&C Black’s Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook. He is a regular book reviewer and writes on the business of poetry. His poetry is widely published in magazines and anthologies. His most recent books of poetry are the very well received Food (Seren), the innovative post-modern Antibodies (Stride) and a large bi-lingual (English/Hungarian) collection Vizet/Water (Konkret Konyvek). Seren will publish his New & Selected Poems in 2006.
In addition to the readings Finch also delivers a number of entertaining presentations on the poetry publishing scene, on the history of sound poetry, on the writing of short fiction and on the history of the small press. He works with schools and has led young people’s writing squads in co-operation with local authorities. Finch has recently been working on historical, topographical and fictional material concerned with Cardiff. His Real Cardiff #1 which appeared from Seren in 2002 to great acclaim. It sold so well that it was reprinted within three weeks. Sections of the book along with Jan Morris’s warm commendation appear on his website at www.peterfinch.co.uk His Real Cardiff Two has just been published. With Grahame Davies he is editing The Big Book of Cardiff, an anthology, for Seren Books 2005.