MIDDLESBROUGH’S Central Library will be hosting an evening of contemporary poetry on Thursday, October 22 from 7pm-9.30pm.
Reforging The Sampo with Andy Willoughby and Bob Beagrie is a multi-voiced, musical mash-up of mythological and contemporary social commentary across a landscape of love, loss and endless questing for the shamanic holy grail of Finnish legend.
Developed over ten years this spoken word performance with improvised music and sound effects is unique in contemporary poetry.
Fusing crafted verse with beat- style performance and storytelling, Bob Beagrie and Andy Willoughby take their cue from the National Finnish Epic Kalevala to weave travelogue with love lyrics, folk song and a witty graveyard humour typical of their Teesside roots.
Their raggle-taggle band of folk and jazz musicians help them recreate and conjure up the archetypes of wizardry, animalistic shamanism, ice queens, vagabonds, warriors and lovers lost to the flow in a world of decaying industry, karaoke kings and conveyor belt game show prizes.
Reflecting Beagrie and Willoughby’s long engagement with the poets and culture of The Baltic, the sequence of poems included in this performance have been published in English by Red Squirrel Press and translated and published in both Finnish and Estonian.
Tickets are £3, places are limited and must be booked on 01642 729002.