Sender	Marina Klockow	Back to Inbox
Subject	Rhyme’n’Roll

Heart Beats Poetry Night

Rhyme ‘n’ Roll!

Dear excursion group,

For me, the highlight of our excursion to Liverpool turned out to be — rather unexpectedly, I must admit — a poetry night. As you might remember or not, Katja and I were part of the Poetry Group and in the course of our presentation, we mentioned the Heart Beats poetry night as one of Liverpool’s contemporary poetry events, consisting of live performed poetry and rock music in varying locations. When Lina found out that there’d be a Heart Beats night during our stay in the city, it was soon decided that we wouldn’t miss out on that.

So on Friday night, Johanna, Katja, Lina and I set off to Novas Contemporary Urban Centre, all curious about what might be awaiting us there. As we found ourselves in an industrial-looking city district that was rather run-down and graffiti-besmeared, we grew somewhat skeptical of our sense of direction, but when we noticed a petite young woman, wearing a red beret, red lips, very short shorts and high-heels, casually smoking in front of a large brick building and looking pretty bohemian, we knew we had arrived.

Fortunately, the location looked much nicer on the inside, spacious with a high ceiling, a bar and a cool, loft-like atmosphere. There were only few, but good-humoured people, and as soon as the first poet entered the stage, everybody fell silent. It was fascinating to listen to the poets, and it didn’t matter at all that we weren’t able to understand every single word, because what really mattered was the melody which didn’t need to be translated. I enjoyed how the poets had their own melodies; some would sound almost theatrical when reciting their verses and some would speak so naturally and smoothly that I almost didn’t notice where a poem began and all at once I would just happen to find myself in the middle of the sweetest rhyme. Of course, our red-lipped lady turned out to be one of the poets, too, Tamsin Kendrick from London.

The Liverpudlian band Sex Education was the apt climax of the evening. In contrast to their bold name, the lead singer, a slim person hiding behind a curtain of black hair, was a shy guy who felt visibly uncomfortable when he had to say something between two songs, but when he sang, he was a different person. He said that now that the poets had explained their poems, he felt somehow obliged to explain their songs, too, but didn’t know how - and he didn’t need to, because the music told its own tale. You could see his timidity fly away as the music moved through his body, and the beat was so intense that you couldn’t help secretly nodding and foot-tapping along, trying not to attract attention. It was then that it suddenly occurred to me that Heart Beats was probably the most suitable name for this. Because that night, a roomful of hearts seemed to beat synchronously to the rhythms of rhyme ‘n’ roll… I hope all of you had an equally great time!

See you soon,

Marina