News & Poem of the moment
POEM OF THE MOMENT
Found in a notebook from one year ago
The Apiarist’s Love Song
Come live with me
and love my bee.
________________________________________
NEWS
3.10.11 – Black Country Dialectics, Dave’s new book featuring writing inspired by the area that he was born in, some in his native Black Country Dialect, will be available shortly from Offa’s Press.
11.05.11 – Grounds for Improvement, the digital exhibition from a reminiscence project in Walsall, collecting memories of the the town’s two former ‘mental institiutions’, St Margaret’s and St Matthew’s, will be ready for display shortly. This is a Radio Wildfire project and some initial sound files from the interviews can be found on the website at Radio Wildfire/Projects
16.04.11 – Dave will be touring Black Country Dialectics this autumn, a new show to tie in with the publication of a book based around Black Country themes and dialect. More to follow…
01.03.11 – Othello: the travelogue is now published by Warwickshire Libraries. This is a collection of interviews with lenders and poems written in response during a writing residency on a mobile library in North Warwickshire (example below). The mobile is named Othello.
A Wraith Amongst The Bookshelves
I could browse all day, me. I go off into a world of my own
when I get amongst the book shelves, lose track of time
can hear no one call, am only just aware of other people
around and about me, become kind of invisible.
One day, we joke, I’ll forget to get off the van and I’ll be whisked
away to the next stop, will still be reading when it pulls up again,
won’t notice, get off and not know where I am:
be stood on the roadside clutching a book
like a spectre at the crossroads – the tome under my arm a
catalogue of misdemeanors from which I’m waiting for release,
this fair paper, for all the world the bloody book of law,
what is, in reality, just my ticket to get lost
________________________________________
REMAINS NEWS
22.11.10 – 20 years since Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stepped down from office, Dave is releasing a pamphlet of material which he wrote 20 years ago and never published – until now. Tying in with the live transmission of The 20th Anniversary Mrs T-Party live on Radio Wildfire the pamphlet, Margaret Farewell is published by Pale Horse publishing, an English language press based in France.
21.11.10 – Tomorrow sees the transmission on The 20th Anniversary Mrs T-Party, and then performed in front of an audience at the Cafe Abri in Birmingham’s Cheapside, The show features Dave Reeves, Adrian Johnson and Jessi Eastfield. The Radio Wildfire show is produced by Vaughn Reeves.
1.8.10 – A reminiscence project in Walsall, collecting memories of the the town’s two former ‘mental institiutions’, St Margarets and St Matthews, is nearing completion. This is a Radio Wildfire project and some initial sound files from the interviews can be found on the website at Radio Wildfire/Projects
9.3.10 – Copies of Dave’s new publication The Unicorn Washes Its Hair, an A5 pamphlet of poems for children, are now available.
3.6.09 – Rare Shellac Dave’s tribute to the late poet Adrian Mitchell can be heard on the Radio Wildfire MySpace page
8.10.08 – After a break of more than 20 years, Dave is once again playing with a re-formed Jean Vincent & The NiteCapz. An anarchic post-punk musichall of thrash-country and rockin’ acoustic schlockabilly boogie, the band’s recorded output was described by Kerrang! as “The ‘Oklahoma’ cast after a night out in a mescal factory … Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.” See Calendar for details.
29.7.08 – After 13 years of publication, the final issue of Raw Edge Magazine has been now been published and distributed. To download a copy and keep abreast of developments and new projects please visit www.rawedgemagazine.co.uk
14.4.08 – Dave’s satirical poem inspired by the 2007 Heathrow Climate Camp, On Smuggling Smart Clothes (into Heathrow): a flight of fancy, can now be read by visiting the official climate camp website climatecamp.org.uk, and clicking on the word ‘articles’ in the left hand column or by going direct via this link
The latest published works by Dave Reeves are Firing Lines in True To Life: memoirs from Ruskin College, Oxford, published by Heaventree Press; and Bastard No More published in the February ’08 edition of NthPosition, the online magazine of literature, culture and politics. You have also recently been able to hear Herod’s Hoochie Coochie and the track Carnival written and performed by Dave with music from Tom Cook (it comes from the cd Ballads for Bomere Heath) playing in The Loop on Radio Wildfire
An interview with Dave about the Ballads for Bomere Heath was conducted by the French academic Eric Doumerc in January 2007. It can be read at Allinfoaboutpoetry.com
The Ballads for Bomere Heath are now live at www.bomereheathballads.co.uk
The cd/cd-rom can be purchased from The Moving Finger at the address below, or get in touch through the Contact page of this site.
Edited by Dave Reeves, the e-pamphlet Raw Eds: the download, a collection of work by writers who have been involved in the editing of Raw Edge Magazine over the last 10 years can now be downloaded from www.birminghamwords.co.uk/publications
The pamphlet Concrete Spaghetti with poems by Dave Reeves, Roz Goddard, David Hart, Julie Boden, Sibyl Ruth and Matt Nunn is now available free. This was originally a commission from BBC Radio3. Send an A5 s.a.e with first class postage to the address on this page. Mark envelope Concrete Spaghetti.
________________________________________
For further details or to discuss bookings please contact
Dave Reeves, POBox 4867, Birmingham, B3 3HD, England
Or use the contact page on this site.
Photograph of Dave (centre) with poet Todd Swift (right)
and Nick Dawes at the Purple Patch
small press conference.