I’m halfway through the tour of Germany and
Switzerland and it’s been amazing to meet and share a stage with poets out
here. The audiences are big, between 150 – 350 people per night. The tour started in Frankfurt last week at The English Theatre. A sell out show hosted by my good
German friend Lars Ruppel - a lot to say about this man.
Speaking English has been a barrier some
nights, the audiences speak German, Swiss-German and French. I made an
effort to introduce myself in the local dialect and slow down the delivery of
my poems while performing.
It’s the Slam people come out to see, the
German National Slam Championships are coming up in November and if you make it into
the final your performances are televised throughout the country.
I’ve been participating in the slams some
nights and featuring as “the special guest from London” in others. The
Marburg, Gießen and Freiburg shows were mainly students from the local
universities but Kressbronn was interesting because it was a Slam in ‘The
Literature Hotel’. Every room was dedicated to a German poet with quotes
written on the walls and various collections of their work left on the beds.
The show in Langenthal, Switzerland had the smallest crowd but
has been one of my favorite shows so far because the venue was perfect, amazing
acoustics and atmosphere so big up Valerio
Moser for the space.
Switzerland was special in general, they made it snow just for
me, so me and a bunch of Swiss-German poets went outside, had a snowball fight,
got drunk, then went to a Dubstep warehouse rave, got drunk, had another
snowball fight, then found a cozy bar and played on the pinball machine. In the
morning there was a local election so I followed the poets to the polling
station, then we built snowmen and spray painted them gold. After eating my
Swiss breakfast of bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, croissants, tea and jam I
had a lot of people to thank for the magic.
 |
| CHEERS SWITZERLAND! |
Headed back to Germany and performed in Leverkusen last night,
which was an interesting show, the hosts 'Lasse Samström' and 'Catherine De La Roche' made me feel super welcome.
Now I’m in an area called Cologne for
tonight’s show, Catherine took me up on a rooftop to marvel at the beautiful city.
It’s also great that books and CDs
have been selling after the shows; not sure how many copies I’ll have left when
back in London.
Right, that’s it for now… Heading to
the theatre to prepare for the show.
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