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A Magazine for Sheffield

Collated and edited by Joe Kriss.

9th February @ Café Euro.

Write Down Your Street is an Off The Shelf Festival project in which arts organisation Art In The Park have provided community writing workshops across the south of the city. A book has been produced of the work created during the workshops, which will be launched at a celebration event on 9th February, 6-8pm, at Café Euro on John St. The event will also feature an open mic, free hot food and cake for the first 40 people.

If you are interested in performing on the night or would like more details about the ongoing writing groups, please contact Cassie at cassie@artinthepark.org.uk.

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11th February @ Theatre in the Mill, Bradford.

Taking five poets and one musician, we have a stellar line-up of international award-winners and critically acclaimed performers, including Kat Francois, OneNess and El Crisis, with a special guest appearance by Joolz Denby. Spoken Word All Stars journey began at Latitude Festival 2010, and recently featured in a Sky Arts documentary. Bradford is only a quick hike on the train, and this is rare chance to see a group of touring performance poets collaborating with internationally recognised musicians.

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Early April 2011.

Events are still being booked, venues prepared and poems being written, but Sheffield's first poetry festival is going to have an action packed schedule of events over the first weekend of April. With scratch showings of new theatre/spoken word pieces, readings and slams, the festival should have enough to cater for most tastes and a few high profile poets to boot. Check back here over the next couple of months.

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Numbing duvet
Joyous herald of unexpected days off

Neighbourhood bonder
Defeater of cheap tyres

Like a sparkling new relationship
Full of fresh delights and challenges
Gradually turning familiar
Then dull

I'll miss you when you're gone.

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There were plagues of insects and seeds that day
as we hid in the shadows
and cracked open
in the sunlight,
warm lager and ice cream
in our bellies.

Dandelion clock fuzz clung
to the witch-house
like spiderwebs,
enchanted and sparkling
under the glare.

Watching the children
waft aphids from their curls,
we were too old
for playground follies
preferring to loiter
in charity shops
and beer gardens

As the sun passed over
the yard arm
and the low grade
orangeade
overspilled into syrup on my lap,
the sticky-crotched haze
of the day bound us together,
like slugs in cider.

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Beads of melt-water flow in horizontal lines.
Beyond the cold glass, snow whitens hills and fields.
Sky and land merge, trees and bushes are inky prints,
the sun, a pewter disc.

Piebald cows, milk-heavy, wade through drifts.
Trudging to the shed, their huffing breath
is mist. Through the left-hand window
the North sea drowns a strip of beach.

At Berwick-on-Tweed we are stuck in the station.
The train ahead has broken down. It occurs to me:
I must get off the train, now, walk back to you
through the clean snow.

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The clocks go back tonight -
hint of Autumn in the air.
The sky is riven streaks
of purple, pink and gold,
the sun, a glowing globe
is setting in the west -
Totley Moss's moors
dark edge against the flame.

On Greenhill Parkway's tarmac strip
cars and buses make their way,
ferrying home the workers
at the end of a busy day.
Soon the street lamps will light up -
pale copies of the disappearing sun.

St. Peter's silver spire
is turned to burnished gold,
dark silhouettes of beech and oak
stand proud against the sky.
A flock of starlings wheel
and tumble on the evening air
before they fly to roost in woods nearby.

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