Radical fairies, the state of the gay nation, jerk chicken and stuffed vine leaves, pyjamas, Edgeworth Bess and Vita Lampada

It has been a while - too long - since last I traversed the portals of the Royal Festival Hall function rooms, but last night a troupe of us (me, John-John, Paul, little Tony, Emma, Wayne et al) gathered for the last outing of "London's peerless gay literary salon" for 2016 - the ninth birthday of Polari (where does the time go? I've been a regular at this event for eight years)!

Host Paul Burston was appropriately attired in his fabulous new silk suit (from the swanky Brighton and Spitalfields tailor Gresham Blake) for the occasion, as he introduced the readers for the evening.



Opening proceedings was a genuine pioneer: founder member of the Gay Liberation Front in the UK, and stalwart of the anarchic drag troupe Bloolips (alongside our fave "Homosexual Hall of Fame"-er Miss Bette Bourne - see here, here, here and here), Mr Stuart Feather. He read a few wonderful recollections of the characters from those remarkable days of proto-revolutionary gay politics and communal living from his new memoir Blowing the Lid - Gay Liberation, Sexual Revolution and Radical Queens, and I was bewitched by it all...

There is, as is inevitable with a "limited-edition publication" such as Mr Feather's, nothing resembling an extract online, so instead here is the great man himself, with the aforementioned Ms Bourne, talking about Polari (the lingo, not the literary evening):

Stuart Feather and Bette Bourne talk about Polari

Next up was Mr Matthew Todd, former editor of Attitude magazine, whose insights (following Mr Feather's recollections from our cultural history) into the "state of gay society" into the here-and-now from his masterwork Straight Jacket made for some occasionally uncomfortable listening:

Culturally, homosexuality and misery have been linked so tightly by the haters over the years that they have become an offensive cliché to the point where any discussion is dismissed as prejudice. But discuss it we must.

More and more statistics reveal that LGBT people have higher levels of depression, anxiety, addiction and suicidal thoughts. The British Crime Survey 2009 showed that gay men used illicit drugs three times more than heterosexual men. It’s hardly a surprise. As therapist and author Joe Kort states so well in his book 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives, what’s wrong is not our sexuality, but our experience of growing up in a society that still does not fully accept that people can be anything other than heterosexual and cisgendered (i.e. born into the physical gender you feel you are). It is the damage done to us by growing up strapped inside a cultural straitjacket - tight-fitting, one-size restraint imposed on us at birth - that leaves no room to grow. It makes no allowances for the fact that, yes, indeed, some people are different and we deserve - and need - to be supported and loved for who we are, too.

His whole reading was serious, yet not stifling in its analysis of the problems gay people still face coping with our social-media-savvy, drug-fuelled, abs-obsessed scene. There was much nodding of heads among our audience. I sincerely hope there will be many more people out there in the hedonistic "real world" who will read and learn from this book.



The very cute (with his new cropped-hair and glasses-free change of image from last time we saw him) Mr Dean Atta took to the stage to complete our triumvirate of talent for the first half. Entertaining and charming as always, he treated us to some powerful insights into life, loss, and relationships through his marvellous poetry (from his wildly popular compilation I Am Nobody's Nigger), including this one - his answer to the frequent question "where do you come from?":

I come from shepherd’s pie and Sunday roast
Jerk chicken and stuffed vine leaves
I come from travelling through my taste buds but loving where I live

I come from a home that some would call broken
I come from D.I.Y. that never got done
I come from waiting by the phone for him to call

I come from waving the white flag to loneliness
I come from the rainbow flag and the Union Jack
I come from a British passport and an ever-ready suitcase

I come from jet fuel and fresh coconut water
I come from crossing oceans to find myself
I come from deep issues and shallow solutions

I come from a limited vocabulary but an unrestricted imagination
I come from a decent education and a marvellous mother
I come from being given permission to dream but choosing to wake up instead

I come from wherever I lay my head
I come from unanswered questions and unread books
Unnoticed effort and undelivered apologies and thanks

I come from who I trust and who I have left
I come from last year and last year and I don’t notice how I’ve changed
I come from looking in the mirror and looking online to find myself

I come from stories, myths, legends and folk tales
I come from lullabies and pop songs, Hip Hop and poetry
I come from griots, grandmothers and her-story tellers

I come from published words and strangers’ smiles
I come from my own pen but I see people torn apart like paper
Each a story or poem that never made it into a book.

Fabulous.



Speaking of fabulous, after the swift fag'n'booze break, in which I had a chance to catch up with the lovely Uli from Gay's the Word bookshop, we welcomed to the mike Polari stalwart VG (Val) Lee.

Doing her best to fit in with the "Being a Man" festival-themed evening, she read a couple of "pyjama-related" extracts from her new book Mr Oliver's Object of Desire, not least our eponymous hero's encounter with the predatory "Doreen":

VG Lee reads at Polari

As ever, a crowd-pleaser. We love her...



Our headliner for the evening was the bestselling author Mr Jake Arnott, who has a new novel The Fatal Tree out early next year - "a world of 'academies' (brothels), 'bung-nippers' (pickpockets), 'buttocks' (prostitutes) with 'Covent Garden Gout' (syphilis) being chased by 'prig-nappers' (Thief-Takers), it tells the tale of the notorious prostitute and pick pocket "Edgeworth Bess", and her escapades in the seedy underworld of 18th Century London with the gangs of ne'er-do-wells who met at Mother Clapp's Molly House. Sounds complex and deliciously intriguing, Mr Arnott's literary talents always impress - and I look forward to reading more about the terrifyingly amoral "Bess" and her motley crew when the book arrives in February.

However for us, he read a piece from his last novel, the equally mysterious House of Rumour, which wove an even more extravagantly decadent tale involving the mysterious disappearance of yet another "amoral" anti-heroine called "Pirate Jenny", and the rumoured involvement of transvestite prostitute named Vita Lampada. What actually became of all of them was about to be (literally) revealed in the middle of an encounter between a slightly-too-nosey female reporter and the book's protagonist "Jack". Exhaustingly curious...



And, on that note, with the customary curtain call and the usual round of schmoozing and "Happy New Year" wishes to all the assembled literati, that was it until - gulp - 27th January 2017. On that occasion, our erudite stars will be Stella Duffy, Rosie Garland, Nathan Evans, Chris Chalmers and Ann Mann. And I can't wait!

We love Polari.

A murderous lion, a transsexual diva, the N-word, tuberose, evening wear and Miss Lederer

We decided that on such a noteworthy occasion as the sixth anniversary of "London's peerless gay literary salon" Polari - for one night only relocated to the prestigious (if a bit soulless) Purcell Room for the occasion - and the announcement of the winner of the Polari First Book Prize, we would dress up a bit. We all (Madam Arcati, Paul, little Tony, Jim, Wayne and a host of regulars including Alex, Paulo, Lauren/Rebecca, Diane, Val, Peter, Emma, Toby, Anni and the rest, and non regulars including Mzz Kimberley) looked very smart indeed, I thought!



Paul Burston appeared as proud as punch at the turnout, and with good reason - in six years, Polari has risen from "just another" author evening in a bar in Soho to one of the most respected regular literary events that the Southbank Centre has! Always brilliant, always entertaining, and a firmly-established part of London's premier artistic showcase. Tonight's line-up was certainly something rather special...



Opening the show was the marvellous Ms Rosie Garland - in another life she is known as "Rosie Lugosi the Vampire Queen, cabaret chanteuse and mistress of ceremonies" - whose estimable talents have turned of late to writing. Indeed her first novel Palace of Curiosities, from which she read us an extract, was only published earlier this year.

It seems a quirky, sinister, brilliantly-written tale - the piece she read graphically described the moment when the mangy and tortured lion ("Jambo") in a Victorian circus finally turns and rips his tormentor the trainer's throat out (before itself being killed) in front of a horrified audience. Well, almost all horrified. The narrator of the book just happened to be conceived that very night, as her mother, evidently consumed with perverse passion at the carnage, takes the opportunity to consummate her relationship down an alleyway...with the lion's blood still dripping from her clothes. What the resulting freak-child is like and how her subsequent life story unfolds is for us to discover in the rest of the book, methinks... Here is Ms Garland (with short snippet from the book) at a recent spooky “Crime & Fear“ event at Staffordshire University:

Rosie Garland at Crime & Fear

As Mr Patrick Flanery quite rightly said, "How do you follow that?" An American ex-pat resident of London, Mr Flanery has two well-received novels under his belt - and a third on its way - and he read first from one of those Fallen Land, a convoluted tale of the paranoia that engulfs a selection of haunted characters tainted by their doomed pursuit of the "American Dream". It was difficult to get the measure of this complex story, as it was with the taster he gave us of his next novel that features the agonies faced by a closeted gay actor in the midst of the "studio system" that ruled the Golden Age of Hollywood - whether it was the pace of the reading itself, the acoustics of the cavernous hall, or merely the multitude of interwoven conversations between Mr Flanery's characters, I don't know. Maybe a more leisurely read of the books might unravel the threads, but we were exhausted.

Thankfully, entertainment of a simpler, more musical kind was to follow.



Miss Dee Chanelle, the glamorous trans founder of the annual Miss Diamond Queen contest, sang (beautifully, admittedly) two songs that are not exactly our cup of tea - Luther Vandross' dreadful Dance With My Father and Emeli Sande's Clown - but finished off with the most faboo version of Dame Shirl's eternal classic This Is My Life [please excuse the crappy clip - as with all such hand-held phone videos, the audience "participation" rather ruins the impression one gets of the singer; she was excellent last night!]

Dee Chanelle - This is My Life

And so to the break, the inevitable shitty service at the Queen Elizabeth Hall bar, a little varda at the gorgeous views of the Thames from the terrace, and back to the auditorium, hardly having had a chance to speak to anyone [the consensus from most people was that they missed the milling around and mingling that is possible in our usual function room at the Royal Festival Hall].



Regardless, our opener for the second half, the charming Mr Dean Atta is always welcome - with his "in-yer-face" punk-poetry challenging racism, homophobia and hypocrisy in modern society. He got the biggest cheer for his most famous poem I Am Nobody’s Nigger:



But the anger soon turned to laughter as our adorable special guest star Miss Helen Lederer took to the stage!



Miss L is an absolutely on-the-ball comedienne, playing up to the "ditzy" persona that made us adore her so much in classic series such as Ab Fab and Naked Video, yet always with perfect timing for the punchline. She regaled us with recollections of appearing semi-naked with Tom Daley (lucky cow) in his universally panned reality show Splash, of school-days, auditions and the unexpected complexities of trying to get "crowd-funding" to put together a stage show. Speaking of which, her WTF spoof panel show is on at the St James Theatre on 28th November:

Helen Lederer - WTF

[We would have had some lovely photos of us with Helen, with whom we were chatting after the event - quite impassioned and seriously - for a while, but Jim fucked up and managed to take two of the blurriest images known to man, short of actually smearing the lens with lard. This is the best I could do to actually be able to make out that we were all in it. I know it looks like a crappy old Polaroid, but then again thanks to the oh-so-trendy-bollocks that is Instagram, this is quite the look nowadays. Apparently.]



Miss Lederer having suitably perked us all up, it was time for our headline reader to come to the lectern...



Ms Charlotte Mendelson is an author of some magnitude – she's won the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and has been short-listed for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and her latest novel Almost English was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2013. And it was from this that she read us a truly absorbing piece, a short extract of which is below:

The air stinks of tuberose, caraway and garlic: the universal scent of central European hospitality. But Marina is not hospitable. After only an hour her skin is tender with cheek pinchings; she has been match-made, prodded and instructed beyond endurance, and the night is young.

Soon they will come to find her, to admire the shape of her fingernails, the thickness of her lashes, their eyes peeling back her clothes, weighing her like fruit. This is not new. She has been brought up to accept the questions and kisses as if nothing could please her more, however much lava is boiling inside.

The problem is that Marina has changed. She can bear their scrutiny no longer because her life is a disaster, and it is her fault. She betrayed them and escaped them, and now she wants to come back.

Sumptuous.



So, finally, we came to the crux of the evening, as Paul B and Val Lee announced the winner of the Polari First Book Prize 2013 - Ms Mari Hannah, for The Murder Wall.



She appeared absolutely overjoyed as Vincent Francois from sponsors Societé Generale presented her with a cheque for £1000. And so another deserving winner was crowned!



Lots of mingling and chatting later (including and especially with the lovely Miss Lederer), and that was another marvellous evening over and done with...

I think many of us will be relieved that the Polari Xmas bash returns to its cosy environs of the 5th Floor Function Room on 9th December - with a line-up that includes our lovely friend Marcus Reeves as well as Philip Hoare, Barbara Brownskirt, Neil Spring and Ann Mann.

I can't wait!

Polari

Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry

"Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry." - Baudelaire

John-John, Paul(ine) and I had another interesting and entertaining evening thanks to the lovely Paul Burston and his fantabulosa Polari gay literary salon! Even if this specially-themed "Polari goes Poetry" night did expose the fact that maybe, just sometimes, poets should let other people read their poetry...

Case in point was our opening reader Peter Daniels. His poetry is incisive, but short. And he rather befogged the audience by not indicating when each of these little thoughtful pieces was finished, so it was rather embarrassing not knowing when (or if) to clap at the appropriate moments. Some of his poems are brilliant, however! I particularly loved this lascivious little fantasy:

Breakfast, Palermo
One golden glazed bun, sliced open.
One scoop of custardy ice cream, speckled
with chips of fruit and chocolate. Sandwich them lavishly.

To be eaten in uniform by a young soldier,
with one careless hand, espresso in the other.
At the chrome bar, more coffee is hissing.
Sunshine slants in early, yellow.
Not a speck on his trousers.

[James McKay, Peter Daniels, Dean Atta, Sophia Blackwell, Keith Jarrett, Mark Wallis, Paul Burston]

Mr Daniels was followed (in complete contrast) by a rather more savvy performer - the musician and poet James McKay. Anyone who can open a set with the line "in the beginning was the word and the word was probably obscene but no-one was quite awake enough to properly hear it so I guess that makes it all right!" has my vote, anyhow. And, Geordie hunk that he is, he caused a bit of a frisson with John-John and Paul...

Hilariously, he got us all up out of our seats for a moment's contemplation, as he called us to a "prayer" - then proceeded to solemnly recite the opening lines from Bagpuss! Marvellous stuff. Read more about James at his "Make Poetry History" page.

Polari favourite the very lovely Dean Atta is always a joy - we love his enthusiasm for language, and his staunch attitude towards being gay in a hostile urban world. He read a new very poignant poem about an abusive relationship, which silenced the audience somewhat, but bounced back to the eternal crowd-pleaser - shagging!

Mr Atta's poem Morning Sex is one of my favourites from the past year or so of readings, and it went down just as well last night with the assembled Polari-ites:



You can download Dean's latest compilation album of poetry free at http://www.deanatta.co.uk/ - you know you want to...

Keith Jarrett opened the proceedings after the break (during which we took in the beautiful view from the rooftop St Paul's Pavilion), with a few of his youthful and energetic writings, which were fun and uplifting. But my dears - our next turn was one major mind-fuck!

Mark Wallis - who usually goes by the nom-de-plume of "I Am Cereal Killer" - with his bizarre face-paint is a "performance artist" and published poet. Although I don't think he was too well for last night's "performance", as he stumbled and slurred his way through some of his pithy autobiographical poetry about emotions, homosexuality, AIDS and his native Cornwall.

We were left feeling a little uncomfortable after that, so it was just as well we had the lovely and gorgeous lady lesbian poetess and glam diva of the poetry world Sophia Blackwell to finish off proceedings with a bang! Part burlesque, part drama queen and wholly brilliant! You can listen to some of Sophia's work on her MySpace profile page.

Another fabulous night - can it really be Polari's third birthday next month? How time flies... An unmissable event, and one I always really look forward to! We have our tickets booked already.

Polari

"Out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry"

Well, what an evening I had at Polari "at the Pavilon" last night! We've not only relocated to a swanky new penthouse venue on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall, but also had four readers to boot...

The evening started somewhat bizarrely, as I waited in line at the only kiosk open in the whole complex for a ticket (for a free event, mind you) that wasn't even there (disorganisation is the name of the game on the South Bank, in my experience).

I was entertained by the spectacle of three wonderful fur-clad queens seeking out the venue for Polari, as one of their number was due to be on as the first reader... Hilariously, I kept seeing them pop up like characters in a French & Saunders sketch on every floor of the complex as I made my way up in the glass lift to check with our host Paul Burston whether or not I could gain entry to the event after all. As it happens I was OK, the dishevelled drama queens arrived in a flurry of fake fur, and the show began.

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered, the leader of the erstwhile lost queens Zack Holland led us through a selection of his observational poems - from youthful experiences to Cornish fishing fleets - which were excellent. Considering he is merely a "new starter" at this game (apparently Paul came across his poems on the site that shall never be mentioned, i.e. Facebook), this lad deserves a publisher!

Next up was the the lovely Sophia Blackwell ("performance poet, cabaret vamp, burlesque wannabe, feminist lesbian warrior princess and Italian pasta-momma"), whose poetry is more of the emotional and subtle (at times) bent - her poem Wilderness Years, in which she explains to her Granny about why she is enjoying her life of unconventionality was particularly brilliant. I was so impressed that I did indeed purchase a copy of her new anthology Into Temptation, which she kindly signed.

After the "comfort break" it was time for a change of tempo, with the upbeat style of Mr Dean ("Spirit of London") Atta - whose work was recently featured as part of the Gay Icons season at the the National Portrait Gallery. With his semi-autobiographical, semi-rap tone, he explored family relationships and Morning Sex with consummate ease - brilliant! For a sample of the man's work, visit http://www.mediafire.com/deanatta



Now! How can I possibly put into words the experience that completed the circle of readings on this poetic night? There are very few adjectives I can conjure up that could adequately summarise the singular performance that was Jeremy Reed and The Ginger Light...



Like something from your worst nightmare, the presence that is Mr Reed began by flinging sequins around while he wailed his bizarrely inconsequential verse to a backdrop of thrumming electro-ambient music and what was meant to be a visual montage (which promptly fizzed out and got stuck, so was rather more manqué).

Missing the point of the evening completely, in that he didn't even notice let alone acknowledge that he had an audience (most of whom left not long after his third interminable monotone rendition), he ploughed on and on and on with more and more depressing and self-indulgent monologues about people he had known who had died, or fleeting potential loves lost on the Tube network. Half an hour of my life flitted away.

I was sat at a table with two very lovely, erudite and enthusiastic (straight) people who had never been to Polari before. I tried to assure them that this was not what the evenings were usually like, but I fear we may never see them (nor 90% of the people who were there tonight) again, thanks to this extreme avant-garde performance. Perhaps if the audience had been imbibing as many chemicals as the performer (sorry - he "had the flu"); perhaps if he had been appearing at Duckie or some godawful "alternative experience" it might have been different. Hey ho.

Anyhow, I had a (mostly) interesting, educational and enlightening evening as always, and I look forward to the next "peerless literary salon" on 10th February!

Polari