If you are looking for the feelgood company of well-balanced people then an evening of performance poetry probably isn't for you.

If you enjoy egomaniacs with drink problems, bitches and back-biters, the seriously deluded and the hugely, deeply depressed, then you might get something out of the poetry scene.

As the host of not one but two venues, what does that make you Steve?
I must say there is a lot of truth in what you are saying - it makes us an interesting bunch though. I think you should add into that mix the terminally bored, the lonely, the mis-fits, the middle aged with nowhere to go singletons, the failed musicians. I could go on...
I do enjoy the poetry scene though -where else would you get such an eclectic group of people?

Wow I am really looking forward to the Hole in the Wall on Wednesday!
Seriously though, for well-balanced read boring, sedated by the Media,Philistines who wouldn't know art if it jumped up and bit them. Puzzle Poets on Monday 6th Dec in Sowerby Bridge is the place to be for the company of mature, thoughful people who speak their mind, having consulted their mind in advance and made a note of what's in it. See you there folk.

I'm afraid my days of looking for 'the feel-good company of well balanced individuals' are long gone. Give me stark raving 'mad as sponges' any day...

Yeah, give me a well-balanced sponge every time; so, well, absorbent somehow.

People are full of surprises and hidden depths. No two evenings are alike. Would you really rather stay in?

See you at the Bards, Steve

I thought of going a poetry competition tonight, but I is depressed enough, so instead I went to Talullah's Bar in dear old New Brighton and "performed" "Total Eclipse of the Heart" at the karaoke.

Much more real. Not one pretentious wanker in sight.

And from "Eclipse" to Kountry Music is just a small step. Now I got a feeling that is my next big thang. Kountry Music is the new ... Kountry Music.

I could pass for Appalachian, coz I really am the Son of a (albeit Wigan) Coal Miner's Daughter.

Hmmmm. New Brighton RAWKS! Poetry bitchiness and pretension SUCKS!

PS These discussion strands have been awful BORING of late.

LOL - have to agree with you in part. That poetry beat generator has become as boring as bat shit but the more I moan about it, the more people embrace it - it will probably still be going this time next year!
I think you are over sensitive about pretension Steve - or perhaps I go round with my eyes closed - you are the only one who seems to moan about it anyway. I guess we all have to have a bee in our bonnet about something.

A - yes.

Oh for the feel good company of well balanced people. Sounds like heaven and absolutely divine :-)

Sanity is an over-rated commodity.
On that you can quote me.

Maybe you have to be a little depressive just to see the world in which we live with anything that could even vaguely be describable as perspective?

I thought everyone knew there ain't no sanity clause.

Actually John I always felt that I was the only one who didn't receive their copy of the contract!

As with any of these questions, it is difficult to distinguish between the 'anecdotal' and the 'statistically significant'.

Is there anyone on here who has never experienced 'depression', 'anxiety', 'a feeling of not being understood', 'a wish to express themselves and be heard'?

If there is...then they should tell us how it feels....in a poem.

:-)

Jxxx

Me? I really stabbed myself. Wimp!

:-)

Jx

Well I think you've both had it easy. Try finishing your poem and looking up to see a blood bath, dead bodies drooped hither and thither and an eerie kind of silence...

Hello? hello...

Trope

I remember the heavy rock band, The Trope Massacres, and their support band from Ireland, the Tyrone Shoelaces...

I remember the Kerry Airbags fondly.

There's lots of air bagging (well, gas bagging) goes on in the Wirral poetry scene, where about 30 per cent of the poets are not only as MAD AS CHEESE, but also incurable megabitches (and that's just the men!).

I recall the Wallasey Simpsons.

URGHHH! Don't remind me of that harlot! Such VULGAR jewellery! Wallasey is rather 'Family Guy' these days.