ON FRIDAY, Reading’s South Street Arts Centre welcomed guest poet Ellora Sutton for the regular poetry showcase and open mic event.
Poets’ Cafe sees esteemed poets from around the country and closer to home take part in readings alongside amateur poets on the second Friday of each month.
This time, Ellora Sutton, poet in residence at Jane Austen’s House Museum and poetry reviewer for Mslexia, read poems from her collections, including her latest release, Artisanal Slush.
She began with a poem extolling the teenage beauty of eating Chinese takeaway in the park before an ode to her home town.
Sutton marries classical concepts with modern sensibilities, especially in her next poem, A Formal Apology to the Teacher Who Tried to Explain Dadaism, which details a chance encounter on a trip to Aldi.
After clever word play about the Titanic in Roses, Sutton wove deft humour through more topical issues in Self Portrait as Facebooks Ads See Me and My Computer Thinks I’m Gay, which featured some lines created by an AI chat client.
Sutton then examined love more closely with her works Alternate Universes Only Work in Fiction and I Love You, Buy Me Some Sea-Monkeys.
She closed her set with Jurassic Park, Self-Portrait as Formerly Gifted and Talented, and Cottage Core Alternative Universe, which explored the trend and desire for cosy, country living among Millenials.
Speaking at the event, Sutton said: “Poetry is something I remember loving at primary school, after we had to put together a menu for a project.
“From that moment I loved it: I want instant results from things, and get a bit bored if I try to write something longer than a poem– I like the instant gratification of having a first draft done straight away.”
On her writing process, she said: “I have a dedicated section on my phone’s notes app, where I’ll tap out a whole poem, or just note down lines and words, but sometimes I prefer to write them out in a notebook.
“Often there’s a fragment I’ve saved, which then grows into something else.”
She explained: “I first started to really take it seriously when we read some Carol Anne Duffy at school, and I’d say that I write about whatever fascinates me.
“It could be historical; Greek myths or Jane Austen, and museums are my happy places– but I’m equally fascinated by Barbie, Twitter, My Chemical Romance, and Taylor Swift.
“People think of these things as not quite proper, but they’re our modern day myths– Keats’ then-modern references have become classical, and it will be the same when people look back at our poetry.”
“In poetry, anything is possible, there’s space for real leaps of association; it’s about your unique blend of expressions and experiences being put on the page.
“Everything you write is coloured by your own experience, and that’s something really magical about writing, and art more generally.”
The next Poets’ Cafe event takes place at South Street Arts Centre on Friday, October 13, from 8pm, with host Claire Dyer and guest poet Emma Purshouse.
