Insider Tip
For me the “Heart Beats” evening was
the highlight of the Liverpool excursion.
Lina’s job shadowing boss had told her about a poetry evening called “Heart
Beats” that took place the Friday when we were in Liverpool.
She told us about this event and as Marina’s and
my project work concerned poetry in Liverpool,
we decided to go there and to experience a bit of modern British poetry. The
event took place in a culture centre that is installed near the Cains Brewery.
The centre is really interesting as one wouldn’t imagine such a nice place in
an old brick stone building that looks from the outside rather run-down, even
uninhabited. As far as I could tell, we were the only tourists at the event,
which was quite nice as it gave me the feeling of experiencing something that
not every tourist would see.
There were three women who read
poems they had written themselves. Two of them had travelled to Liverpool just for the event. It was nice to listen to
them reading their texts, because even though I couldn’t understand everything,
just to hear the rhythm of their voices brought life to the words. The poems
were all very different, telling about love and life or just about daily
experiences. The poets explained what they had written and what they wanted to
say with the poem or why this text was special to them. This was something that
I liked very much, because most poets whose poems are read in school or at
university are already dead and therefore one can’t ask them what they thought
about when writing their poems. Here one had the possibility to get to know a
bit more about the context out of which a text was developed. Additionally to
this informative aspect, the women were all very funny and the stories that
they told made the audience laugh out loud.
Apart from these three poets, there
was also a band playing really good music. The event ended with the performance
by a poet who combined music, rhythm and poetry by presenting his texts like a
kind of rap. I like this idea, but the poet himself just didn’t match his
performance as he was wearing a suit but making moves like a shy rapper.
Unfortunately we could not stay until the poetry evening was over, as we wanted
to catch the last train to Mossley Hill. But still, the evening was special,
fun and very interesting!
Katja Schneider