Open Mic at Roots on 9th April

Report of the Open Mic held at Roots Café on Thursday 9 April

We had a lovely evening again at Roots Café on Thursday, 9 April.  Interim Chair Marina Gertsen made the statement about the future of HighlandLIT which has already been circulated, and then five of us shared work with the group.

First up was Colm Black.  In the light of the Artemis II moon flight which was approaching its successful conclusion, Colm brought two excellent poems about space.  In one, ‘A Jupiter poem in a week of planetary alignment’ the speaker compared the famous ‘red spot’ on Jupiter with a bruise on his own hand. . The other, ‘Artemis II’ ingeniously linked the space mission with the elderly spinster next door, Miss Moon.

Next, Iris Perrin read a prose work, ‘My Avatar experience’, memorably describing a visit to the cinema with friends in Boston USA to watch the then-new film ‘Avatar’. She vividly described the physical effects of being over-dressed for the sweltering auditorium, after wrapping up warm for earlier part of the day visiting shops in Boston’s cold climate. Wedged in the middle of a row of seats, she struggled to divest herself of clothes in an attempt to cool down and stop her legs twitching.  The 3D spectacles were ‘awesome’, but they brought the action so close that they heightened her stress, so she whipped them off, resigned to watch in 2d.  It was a memorable piece of writing!

Outgoing Chair Paul Shanks read a four-line poem called ‘In relation’, and then read an autobiographical  piece written several years ago which he said had only been heard by one other person before us. It was called ‘Awake’, and was about the rather troubled teenage Paul discovering the works of Samuel Beckett, and feeling an illicit thrill at watching his father’s Betamax recording. But did he actually see these clips then, or sometime later? This was a clever piece about self-knowledge, and recollection, and the unreliable projections of memory. It made you want to hear it read a second time…..

Marina Gertsen read a riveting extract from a novel, ‘These comforting shapes’ which  she has been working on, on and off,  over the last ten years, exploring the impact of a sexual assault on a Highland community .  The novel opens with a vivid description of a fatal car-crash from the point of view of the victim, the driver.  We meet Aunt Kirstie, struggling with life, full of ‘disappointment in herself’.  And we hear that someone called Nicky is just out of prison.  After reading, Marina asked Paul ‘Is it a cliché of have the narrator of a novel s dead person’?  She was assured that this original approach was no cliché.  We look forward to hearing more!

Finally, Malcolm Timperley  read a couple of pieces looking for feedback. The first piece was ‘Heart Attack’ in which a psychiatrist is called into the police station as a witness in a murder enquiry. He’s asked questions about the mental state of his client, who has been found murdered. The plot of the story has intriguing convolutions, and we’re left, while not being certain, thinking we may know the killer’s identity!  Malcolm questioned us about how well the piece ‘worked’ and there was some discussion of this – one of the great benefits of an Open Mic.

His second story, which he said was as yet untitled was typical Timperleyan macabre, with a touch a Roald Dahl’s ‘Tales of the Unexpected.’  The speaker had been advised by his psychiatrist to go back to the seaside town where he last saw his wife Alice. What had happened to her?  Why were the police sweeping the sands in a close search?  And what was the secret of that off-season coffee shop overlooking the beach?  Brilliant!

The emphasis this month was on prose. What will we hear next time we meet?  Why not some along on Thursday 14 May and see for yourself – and add your own work to the menu!