Scrawling on the Megalith

Scrawling on the megalith

By Mark Cantrell

"QUIET in the cheap seats," Howard Frost growls. He turns to glare at
the motley collection of writers gathered around the table.

Eventually they pay attention, like a bunch of unruly school children,
and settle down to listen to the words of a fellow scribe.

This ritual takes place every Tuesday in the downstairs bar at the
Priestley Centre for Arts (formerly the Bradford Playhouse), when the
members of the Interchange (Bradford Writers Network) gather for their
workshops.

Don't let Frost's mock stern nature fool you, it's a friendly and
informal group. Unusually, it deals with just about every form of the
written word: poetry, short fiction, novels, theatre and film scripts,
memoirs, journalism as well as catering for singer songwriters. The
group is as eclectic as it is gregarious.

Interchange is one of several literary groups operating in the city.
Members flit between them in an almost incestuous excursion that helps
to feed the vibrancy of the city's literary scene.

"We believe that no matter who you are, if you write then your voice,
your input, your words matter," says member Ian Reed.

Frost agrees and adds emphasis when he says: "Interchange has always
been about helping people find their own voice, value that voice, and
help it to grow stronger by having a wider audience."

An audience is important to any writer, regardless of whether their
main purpose is to develop their work for the performance circuit. The
typical image of a writer is of someone working in isolation, sweating
blood over piles of paper in their garret. Sometimes that image can be
true, but for those who step outside the musty room, they find a
vibrant world of fellow scribes waiting to share their literary
needs.

It provides an environment of support and positive criticism that helps
the writer to develop. Even the process of reading work and gauging
people's response can work wonders to develop a scribe's words as well
as confidence.

Maintaining this kind of environment is of crucial importance to the
group. It consequently has few rules; the main ones being that only
constructive criticism is allowed and there is no self-deprecation. The
onus is on the words and on honing them as close to perfection as is
humanly possible.

At times, it seems anarchic and chaotic, but there is method operating
within its lack of structure. Whatever the magic, it seems to work and
has held the group together until it has become one of the longest
established in the city.

Interchange was formed 15 years ago as the Bradford Writers' Workshop.
It emerged from an event called 'Poetry Live' that was organised by
Nick Toczek and 'Wild' Willi Becket. Using the event as a focal point
for attracting writers, they assembled the first motley collection to
form a permanent writers' organisation. To their delight, they
discovered it worked.

Writing under her married name of Mellor, Alex Krysinski wrote in the
foreword to the group's first anthology, Flakattak (1993): "In no time
at all [it] turned into the equivalent of AA. People could come and
confess their addiction to pen and paper and hardcore word processor
punters could offload their guilt, helping each other to take control
of their mutual habit."

True to its aspirations of developing literature in the city, it has
expanded beyond its weekly workshops to organise performance events at
a number of venues.

Initially, it performed at the Love Apple Cafe, but in the Summer of
1998 the group moved to its current monthly venue at the Melborn. To
mark this move, the group relaunched itself as Interchange.
Today, this is one of the group's main performance events and it takes
place on the last Wednesday of the month. The second main event takes
place at the Monkey Cafe Bar in Wakefield (in conjunction with the
Black Horse Poets), on the first Wednesday of the month.

Both are open mic events, where performers can come along and take the
stage by storm. All they are asked to do is arrive from 8pm to sign up.
Performances begin at 8.30pm. These have become regular and
well-attended venues on the city's arts scene.

Along with the regulars, the group has organised a variety of one off
events and taken part in festivals throughout the district -- and
further afield.

In 1999 six members of the group -- calling themselves 'The Bradford
Six' -- self-published their work both in book and audio CD format. Not
content with a UK audience, they took Release to the States to perform
in cafes, bars and festivals.

Later in the same year, the group supported member Karl Dallas in a
multi-media celebration of the Russian October Revolution.

Despite some misgivings about the 'political' nature of Red October (as
it was called), the group was inspired to help stage the event by the
selection of literature.

To music and a back-drop of computer-generated slides, the performance
included works by Akhmatova, Bertholt Brecht, Hugh MacDiarmid,
Mandelstam, Mayakovsky, Lenin, William Morris, Pasternak, Yevtushenko
and J B Priestley's They Came To A City.

The centrepiece was a dramatised performance by Karl Dallas of Alexandr
Bloc's controversial poem The 12 (1918); a warts and all depiction of a
squad of Red Guard patrolling the streets of St Petersburg, who find
themselves following the figure of Christ bearing the red flag of
workers' revolution.

It was a challenging performance, for which the 'actors', particularly
Dallas, benefited from the theatrical experience of director Howard
Frost.

"It's always a challenge to do a one-man show," Frost said at the time
of rehearsals. "The challenge has been to create something worth
watching for its own sake without overtaxing the abilities of the
actor. I think at the end of the day we'll both be able to say we
achieved what we set out to do."
When the audience subsequently trooped out of the Priestley's Studio
Theatre, both men, and the other performers, were indeed able to say
just that.

With the turn of the century, the group decided to herald the New
Millennium in verse with the Festival of 2000 Voices.

This was a year-long event, taking in a host of specially organised
events, along with the regular gigs. The aim, by the end of 2000 was to
have that number of poets and writers perform their works.
Each performer signed a 'performance book' to mark the event, along
with a giant banner that was displayed on the last gig of the
year.

As well as celebrating the Millennium, it was also intended to promote
performance poetry as a distinct form, as well as find new
voices.

Ruth Malkin, who organised the event, said: "I think of performance
poetry as the popular form of the genre. Rather like the distinction
between 'popular' and 'classical' music. The two can co-exist and just
as in the music world there is some overlap. Funders of poetry and
literary academics sneer at performance poetry, but they also reap the
rewards of its popularisation of poetry in general."

Alongside the Festival, the group was also working on its second
anthology: Love, Sex, Death &; Carrots. Published at the end of
2000, and formally launched at the first Monkey event of 2001, it
presented a host of old hands alongside the new.

Highlights of a busy group. Along with these have been other one-off
events as well as the activities of individual group members. Within
this varied activity, the core of the group - its very heart and soul
if you like - remains with the weekly workshop, where talent is
nurtured and developed. Fifteen years on from its inception, the group
still shifts, grows, evolves -- just like the writers themselves. It's
hard to imagine Bradford's already vibrant literary scene without
Interchange.

"People have come and gone, some to extinction, some to glory,"
Krysinski added in Flakattak. "The workshop remains like a megalith,
awesome and covered in graffiti."

Despite a change of name, the same can be said today.

ENDS

Mark Cantrell,
Bradford, 21 July 2001

Copyright (C) July 2001. All Rights Reserved.