BARELY CONTROLLED CHAOS

If life isn’t a rehearsal then it’s definitely not worth spending too much time rehearsing for poetry events, that’s our approach anyway. And so far it’s worked a treat.

Alice reading from Medusa Dozen, Tessa Ransford, Ramsay Head Press, 1994

Last night at a packed Typewronger Books in Edinburgh we held a celebration of the newly revived Ramsay Head Press. Alice read from her very-soon-to-be-published The Warm Universe, Mark did some new poems as well as a few favourites from A Change of Direction. We talked about the legacy of the Press founded in 1970 by Norman Wilson, read poems by the Tessa Ransford founder of the Scottish Poetry Library and who had several volumes published by the Press, and talked about our plans for The New Ramsay Head Press. And Mark went off on a tangent about Grand Master Flash.

Grandmaster Flash was - still is - a rapper & DJ from South Bronx, coming to prominence in the late 1970s. But, like Shakespeare, he was a pioneer: he was the first person to turn the record deck into a musical instrument. The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel is 7 minutes of pure delight in which Grandmaster Flash mixes Chic, Blondie, Queen, Spoonie Gee, the Sugarhill Gang and god knows who else into a continuous stream. And he did it old school, spinning 12” slabs of vinyl over two turntables in one continuous live take. It’s mindblowing, infectious, joyful, barely controlled chaos.

Mark reading from Light of the Mind, Tessa Ransford, Ramsay Head Press, 1980

And that’s us: barely controlled chaos. Mark started a Trello board a few weeks ago but he’s given up already and is back to writing on scraps of paper. Alice just tries to "remember things". As for rehearsals, well, life’s too short. Everywhere there are too many colours to count.

Join us for more barely controlled chaos at the Traverse Theatre Bar on 17th October for the launch of Alice’s debut book of poems + drawings The Warm Universe. Tickets are free and available here. 🌀