Written for Concrete student newspaper, available here : http://www.concrete-online.co.uk/germaine-greer/ Germaine Greer was born in Australia in February 1939. As an academic and cultural critic, she has been at the forefront of feminist politics since she rose to prominence in the 1970’s, with the publication of The Female Eunuch (1970). Since then she has caused controversy after controversy, her charismatic advocacy for women’s liberation (not gender equality) winning her both admiration and disapproval. Greer’s career began in academia, studying and lecturing at universities across the world, including Cambridge. She then branched out into the media, presenting on Granada TV in the early 70s, writing columns for Private Eye, and later cultural columns for publications including The Times and the Guardian. A polemical work spanning feminist literary and cultural criticism, The Female Eunuch ignited debates that are still going on today, and encouraged women to seek sexual, monetary and political autonomy. Its basic argument, which propelled Greer to a position at the forefront of feminist debates, is that women are “castrated” by the social conditioning they are subjected to. The book’s caustic yet witty style made it and its writer household names. However, Greer hasn’t always been the darling of the...

Nathan Penlington’s ‘Choose Your Own Documentary’ was something fresh, new, and compelling. Stepping into the dim, ecclesiastical space of the Norwich Arts Centre's auditorium, I was handed an electronic voting pad. A member of Penglinton's team made some joke about pyrotechnics; horrific visions of a burning former-church-turned-performance-venue made me stumble down the ramp to my seat. Hushed and hubbubbing, the audience gazed at the two screens onstage, pressing their voting pad buttons inquisitively. Pyrotechnics, interactive. Muttered rumours did the rounds. When he arrived onstage, Nathan Penlington was unassuming: alone, clutching a book... Was this the man who heralded the foreboding ‘pyrotechnics, interactive’? So much - indeed, the very fate of our Wednesday evening - rested on his shoulders. He began with a nostalgic tour of the Choose Your Own Adventure children's books of the 1980's, which placed YOU, the reader, in the heart of the action. Mixing anecdote, stand-up, and slideshow, Penlington’s storytelling became immersive, compelling. Soon we were off on our own Choose Your Own adventure – we, the audience, became the protagonists, choosing the show’s course of action. First we were plunged into the world of the books, where we first got to try out our voting...

“I am the artist,” asserted Rokia Traore, a Malian guitarist and singer-songwriter, as she thanked her audience at Open, Norwich, on Tuesday night. Her assertion was absolutely true and utterly justified. Traore has long been one of the biggest names in Malian music, famous for her defying of the 'world music' category and blurring of blues and jazz with the music of her homeland. Recently she toured with Africa Express, and has released her latest album, Beautiful Africa, in which she expresses her love for and pride in Africa. Her appearance at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival 2013 has been greatly anticipated. Open at first seemed an unlikely space for a predominantly standing – and, for Norwich at least, rather exotic - gig, its high ceiling and arches evoking a polite, classical ambience. However, the space came alive once Traore and her band took to the stage. Everything about the gig, right down to the sound quality and choice of lighting, was considered, powerful. The muted, moulded plaster was soon shaking with a mix of rock’n'roll guitars, African rhythms, and deeply-felt dance. The show began with Traore ascending the stage gravely, picking up her guitar, and striking up the...

(Article for 'Venue' in Concrete student newspaper), 22.01.2013. My favourite sci-fi/fantasy novel? It might sound unlikely, but it has to be Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Woolf described this book as 'a writer's holiday', and it is similarly fun to read. Taking the form of a tongue-in-cheek biography of a young Elizabethan noble, from the reign of Elizabeth I right up until the time Woolf was writing, the novel is a journey through time, space, gender, and the difficulties of writing epic poetry. Orlando ice-skates on the River Thames, is unlucky in love, experiences an impromptu change of gender overnight, travels to exotic lands, stays with gypsies, marries a sea captain, meets poets and paupers... it might all take place on planet Earth, but the hero/ine's extraordinarily long life and experience of different historical periods - coupled with Woolf's ironic humour and incandescent prose - make this just as captivating and fun a romp as more modern works, such as Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Add to these terrestrial capers a healthy dose of gender-deconstruction and feminism (testament to Woolf's surprisingly avant-garde politics), and you have yourself a book that will redefine your expectations of both Woolf and...

Article in White Paint Magazine issue 6, pp.16-17. http://www.whitepaintmagazine.com/magazine-news/issue-6-now-online It seems an unlikely marriage: poetry and multimedia, the dusty old books that nobody ever reads vs. the harbingers of the 21st century; the archaic and anachronistic vs. the non-stop march of progress; the dry and dreary printed word vs. 3D cinema. Surely poetry doesn’t stand a chance. It’s gone. Done and dusted. Kaput. Goodbyeeeee. Good riddance. And yet the technology of today has led to an explosion in contemporary poetry. Search ‘poetry’ on Twitter and you’ll find thousands of poets, small presses and literary magazines sending out thousands of ye olde wordes into the void. Today’s poetry relies on the small, but despite being a smaller market than fiction and non-fiction all these many, many small operations add up into a huge cultural chunk. The continuation of humanity’s ancient poetry traditions is only made possible through technology, and it is continuing. Poetry has its origins in the dark depths of human prehistory. Before we could programme computers, build skyscrapers, or even write, we were composing poetry. Poetry was the original entertainment, providing instruction, telling stories, and communicating ideas. Oral literature was everything, and poetry, with its rhymes and rhythms...

A review written for Young Poets Network about the Poetry Society's Annual Lecture for 2012, given by Paul Muldoon at the Southbank Centre. http://www.youngpoetsnetwork.org.uk/2012/10/05/flo-reynolds-reviews-paul-muldoon-the-word-on-the-street-parnassus-and-tin-pan-alley/ Paul Muldoon, as he stepped onto the stage at the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room, was a man of contradictions: his smart pinstriped suit was belied by his flyaway grey curls, his obvious depth of knowledge in contrast to the jokes that peppered his lecture. It was contrast – oxymoron, dichotomy – that Muldoon addressed in the Poetry Society’s Annual Lecture this year, namely those between poetry and song, high and pop culture, Parnassus and Tin Pan Alley. But are we right to differentiate between these things, Muldoon began by asking. Not all cultures differentiate between poetry and song: not Muldoon’s family life growing up in Ireland, not the Ancient Greeks, and not the cultures of many of the poets who came together for Poetry Parnassus, of which the Annual Lecture was part. Are we right to separate poetry and songwriting as we do, or is there something to be said for making less of a distinction between the two? What is there to be learned from the other cultures that we have experienced through Poetry...

Journalistic article written for HerUni.com with a target audience of students. http://www.heruni.com/volunteering-at-londons-other-olympics/ You might have heard about this thing that was happening this summer – what was it called? – oh yeah, the Olympics. But surely even more of you have been taking part in the Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World. No? Haven’t heard of it? Well, it’s ok. There’s still time to get involved with one of the most exciting cultural events in recent years. The Festival of the World at the Southbank Centre in London is a kind of cultural Olympiad. Over the course of the summer, until September 9th, artists, writers, performers, and all manner of creative people from all over the world are descending on London. Records may be being broken by the athletes, but new ground is being absolutely smashed along the South Bank. I’ve been lucky enough to have volunteered at the Festival of the World since June, and now that my time there is finished, it’s been fun reflecting on the experience. Travelling down to my interview in May, I had no idea what to expect. Then in late June, I was thrown into the very middle of the cream of...

Journalistic article written for HerUni.com, with a target audience of students in Norwich. http://www.heruni.com/cocktails-cake-norwichs-cafe-culture/ Whether you’re coming to UEA this September from suburban sprawl, overseas, or even some tiny little back-of-beyond that no one’s ever heard of (like me), for the first or hundredth time, you’re going to love Norwich. It’s got everything: the jam-packed programme of events and jumble of personalities of the big city, and the tree-lined streets of the English rural idyll. Whether you’re into dancing the night away or snuggling up with a DVD at home, trawling the high street or bartering in the market, running triathlons or eating cake, this little city has something for you. But personally, I go for the cake. Every time. Nomnomnom. And cake is, surprisingly, a fantastic way to get to know Norwich. First impressions of Norwich? How about: little cobbled streets, lots of vintage shops, and plenty of places to get a decent coffee, be it Marmalade’s in the beautiful Victorian Royal Arcade, the cheap and cheerful cafe in ye olde Guildhall, or the somewhat mysterious Biddy’s Tea Room with its stuffed animals in the window and hit-and-miss opening hours. But wait till evening, look closer and explore...

Why is ‘The Birth’ by Paul Muldoon a great poem? For me, it is for two reasons: the extraordinary and unexpected technical make-up of the poem, and the way that Muldoon crafts something so celebratory out of an unusual and daring linguistic assortment. The first of these, Muldoon’s skill and originality, is apparent in the use of rhyme. Who else would dare to rhyme ‘task’ and ‘lemniscs’, ‘widgeon’ and ‘zuizin’? And what about the wonderful internal rhyming of ‘Kickapoos’ and ‘peekaboo’? Further links between unlikely pairs of words are made with Muldoon’s use of alliteration, as in ‘gralloch-grub’, and the fantastic onomatopoeia that punctuate the poem, from the surprising but classic ‘hubbub’ to the utterly uncommon ‘tallow-unctuous’. The poem is a network of echoes and assonance, its structure flexible yet tightly woven. ‘The Birth’ demonstrates Muldoon’s absolute mastery of the musical qualities of words, of their phonetic variances and connections; it is a poem that demands to be read aloud, to be tasted on the tongue. The celebratory theme goes hand in hand with the unusual but precise technique. This is a joyful poem, one that revels in the birth of the poet’s daughter, in the quirks of the...

Poetry Slam - the spoken word scene is beginning to pack some punch Spoken word is becoming a hard-hitter on the live performance scene. With artists such as Scroobius Pip and Luke Wright having recently graced Norwich with their presence, this art form (combining poetry, music, rap and storytelling) is gaining ground. In Norwich we are blessed with a literary scene that isn’t just vibrant, but thrumming and throbbing with creative energy, thanks to organisations such as UEA and Writers’ Centre Norwich, and our proximity to Latitude Festival, whose Poetry Tent is renowned as a hub of spoken word scintillation. But for those of us who are new to this growing genre, what exactly is spoken word, what is the scene like, where can you get a piece of the action, and why bother with it anyway? Spoken word, also known as performance poetry, consists of a poet giving a poetry reading. But far removed from the torturously dry assemblies at school, where once in a blue moon a ‘real live poet’ would be dragged in and made to recite like a talking parrot, today’s spoken word is grungier, cooler. Several times when I’ve been watching performance poetry, I’ve...