Char March

Biography

Award-winning poet, playwright and fiction writer, Char March really packs a punch in performance. She takes her audiences on a fun and exhilarating roller-coaster of the emotions in all her performances. Recent quotes from audience members: “I don’t know how you managed to tread that thin emotional line so sure-footedly” “There’s a real love of life in the way you find humour and interest in anything and everything - I left with an uplifting sense of well-being” “Thank you for an incredibly powerful and moving evening” Char works for LitFests, universities, the NHS, museums, vol org's, medical researchers, art galleries, international business schools, care homes, writing groups, and out in the landscape using creative writing as a way of lighting up the experience - whether this is running workshops, being a creative coach, or programming a year's work as a Writer-in-Residence. She's had five poetry collections and a short story collection published. Six of her plays have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and she's had seven stage plays produced, with one touring nationally. She been a Hawthornden Fellow twice and recently won the prestigious McLellan Poetry Prize. "Char March delights in the hidden strengths of words, her poems have a healthy toughness at their heart – the ability to surprise the reader with a candour that forces us not just to feel but also to think." Philip Gross (2009 TS Eliot Prize Winner)

Samples

This was my commission for a recent BBC Country Tracks programme: This place has texture – no-one rubs its corners off - by Char March This is the moor where skylarks mock Vaughan Williams and curlews’ throats bubble with peaty watermusic and, when I stop pedalling and listen hard, I can hear Cathy’s keenings drifting through the Spring air light as dandelion clocks – and as piercing as hail. My wheels blur on cobbles into the brass bands and flags as the railway children come to life again – emerging like wraiths through whuffs of steam. Then up and over the ridge of millstone grit and windfarms, and I’m blown into the valley of hippies and clogs, where artists and hill-farmers, ex-millworkers, Reiki healers, playwrights and the largest lesbian community in Britain make the best multi-grain organic mix ever! A true rainbow nation of passion for our town. Up to the brooding perch of Heptonstall where Sylvia lies in the fierce flames of her talent above Hebden Water’s wooded gouge that she and Hughes made sing with their poetry. And we are buffeted – by the power of words – back here to these Bronte moors …to listen for Heathcliff. This one always goes down a storm in performance (I grew up in the harsh Central Belt of Scotland so the accents are nae bother!) 97 ways to be Scots be chieftain o’ the puddin’ race be Soor Plooms; be tablet be peat-smoked wild salmon; be deep-fried Mars bar be tartan; be leather-mini-kilt; be bunnet made o’ the pie-crust be clarsach; be bagpipe; be crack pipe be Kelvinsidey; be I’m-proud-to-be-a-Scot bumper sticker be Castlemilk; be East Windy West Endy; be Dunblane; be Lockerbie; be Bannockburn; be Culloden be clearanced; be Wallaced and Bruced; be Margo MacDonald; be canni-agree-oan-the-colour-ae-shite be Gay Gordons; be Glasgae kiss; be Mod; be acid house be Bay City Rollers; be Annie Lennox; be Shooglenifty be heedrum-hodrum; be Kenneth McKellar be Gael; be Sassenach; be Doric; be reiver; be teuchter; be Lallans be Local Hero; be Braveheart; be Trainspotting be Black Watch; be Cameron Highlanders be Islay single malt; be meths and a gas canister be Old Firm; be shinty be a high heid yin; be a heidcase be a stoater; be a hoor be a jannie; be a jessie be a Wee Free; be a Piskie be a Fenian bastard; be a Proddy bastard be a lad o’ pairts; be a lang-luggit be a pan-loafie; be a numpty be auld claes and parritch; be in the Cabinet be anti-English; be European be abroad; be The Caledonian Society of Eastern Samoa be Daily Record; be Scotsman be Oban Times; be People’s Friend be Monarch of the Glen; be Rab C Nesbitt be Jamessh Bond; be Gordon Brown; be The Broons be laird; be gillie; be Oor Wullie be having a wee dram; be puggled; be well on; be pished be fou; be guttered; be miraculous; be wellied; be steamin; be fleein be stoatin; be honkin; be stotious; be blootered; be steamboats; be plootered be paralytic be plans ganged agley by Char March

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.