Friends of the New York performance poet Cheryl B will be
reading from her works to celebrate her birthday on 19 September
2011.
Cheryl was a bi femme dyke, whose uncompromising voice won her
many fans before her death from cancer in June this year. (Scroll
down to watch a video clip.)
In her
blog, writer and activist Charlotte Cooper describes how she
met Cheryl:
"I first came across Cheryl B when I bought a copy of Motor Oil
Queen, which she published as a chapbook, a sort of zine. I thought
Cheryl B sounded like an iconic name, she sounded tough and full of
experience. I wrote to her and said that I liked her work, and we
kept in touch sporadically.
"Cheryl was a spectacular writer and performer. Her work lacked
sentimentality of any kind, and she was funny and direct in the way
she told a story, I love that in a woman. I saw her perform a piece
about her family last June in San Francisco that validated my own
experience of being in a family that doesn't know how to give you
the love you need. There was no schmaltz, she just went for the
jugular. She channelled her anger so beautifully, and when you read
her work it helps if you snarl. Her cancer blog was pitch perfect.
She dared to look at terrible things and she did it coolly, she did
her work."
You can read Cheryl's WTF Cancer Diaries here.
The event is free, but there will be a collection for the
Cheryl B fund to support writers.
Readers include Roddy Lumsden, Charlotte Cooper, Tim Wells,
Salena Godden, Niall O'Sullivan, Ashna Sarkar, Nathan Penlington
and others to be confirmed.
Mon 19 Sept, 7-10pm
Betsey Trotwood (Downstairs Bar)
56 Farringdon Road, EC1R 3BL
London, United Kingdom
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