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The
CD
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The book
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The performance
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"BRITAIN'S
DREAMING" (BOOK)
& "BOUDICCA; BRITAIN'S DREAMING" (CD)
'Boudicca; Britain's Dreaming' (56 minutes) was recorded with my punk
vocal band/ theatre troupe Never Mind The Testoerone; Here Comes Boudicca.
My least commercial album and easily my personal favourite, it records
and mixes three differently terrified performances, - an early studio
version, a peak outdoor live-and-wildly-kicking performance just after
we'd stormed out of the Glastonbury Festival in a justified but now wryly
regretted show of principle and the farewell performance at the UEA Studio,
Norwich. A whole summer of noise in the mix. If you don't want to follow
the crowd, if you're only going to buy one of my efforts, and if you like
history, great women and punk rock, buy this.
"mesmerising rhythms" (Eastern Daily Press)
Purchase Information
To purchase 'Britain's Dreaming' or 'Boudicca; Britain's Dreaming' visit
the purchase page.
Some
media comments
Press
Release
Britains Dreaming is published by Frontier Publishing
at £6.95. It features selections from three of Gareth Calways
new collections.
The
first is the nine poem story of Boudicca and the Iceni revolt against
Roman law, with modern punk-rock parallels. These poems are extracted
from the lyrical, gutsy and raw performance Boudicca; Britains
Dreaming with which the poet and his acting troupe tour the country.
Secondly, Mountain Ashes, a 13-poem sequence, tinged with
regret and humour, about his teenage years in South Wales, as well as
poems about teaching and his arrival
in East Anglia .Finally,
The Way of Love is altogether less specific, a group of ghazals
and sonnets which speak of love for the Indian mystic Meher Baba. A ghazal
is a Persian/Urdu love lyric of couplets with prescribed metre and rhyme
pattern. The Way Of Love includes Angel which
was televised in Hindi Picture/Channel 4s National Ghazal Finals
and later recorded by Gabriella Tal.
The
development, tour and publication of Britains Dreaming
all received the support of Eastern Arts. Asked about his new book, Mr
Calway said, Living through Britain in the 80s was like living through
an age without dreams. The Dreaming of the title refers to
all the things we sacrificed during that mean little decade on the altar
of the market: ideas, imagination, creativity. All the things the British
are rather good at.
Frontier Publishing Press Release, Oct 1998.
HQ Poetry Magazine
Gareth is the kind of performance poet you dont argue with.
His masked poetry show Boudicca; Britains Dreaming has been doing
the provincial rounds to much acclaim and is available
on tape and CD and now makes up about a third of his new book Britains
Dreaming. In the more personal poems which make up the rest of the book
is to be found some very fine poetry indeed; poetry that resonates and
sticks in the mind. I particularly liked Norfolk Seen from The Welsh Mountains
and the poem Marked For Life where Mr
Calway describes his old English teacher: Your lipstick and powder
applied as explosively/ As your blistering pen. At £6.95,
the book is very good value and so durably bound that it would survive
the detonation of a small thermonuclear device. Tongues of fire
could purge/ the iron in the soul/ at Pontypool inferno but not
out of this book.
Kevin Bailey, HQ
Poetry Magazine.
Eastern
Daily Press
Gareths
latest book 'Britains Dreaming' (Frontier Publishing) and CD 'Boudicca;
Britains Dreaming: The Anarchy Tour' grew out of a successful touring
production of his gutsy verse drama about Boudiccas revolt against
the Romans. Sliding in and out of different time frames, the poems pack
a powerful punch - percussive diction, mesmeric chants and rhythms, words
repeated over and over like a pulse or someone hammering a stone.
the
Iceni queen is brought noisily to life: I love her fecundity/ The
fact that she wouldnt hide the power/ Of earth words in a Latin
fudge like fecundity.
Gareths ear for rhythm is particularly striking. In one poem, the
repetition Boudicca, boudicca, boudicca was composed in the
pumping rhythms of his daily cycle ride along a Roman road to work.
Simon Proctor, EDP
Whats On June 99
A play with poetry and punch, a rare celebration of one of Norfolks
great women and one of Britains unsung heroines.
Trevor Heaton, EDP
Main Feature August 1998
The thoughts of a Celtic lover of Boudicca in the rhythms of the late
Ian Dury, Johnny Rotten and the Clash.
New Times, May 2000
Gareth follows the Boudicca section with a selection dealing with his
adolescence in Wales and the fate of heavy industry. The final section,
The Way of Love is a Tightrope, strikes a different tone,
with love poems which hover somewhere between the romantic and the mystical.
Simon Proctor
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