Book! Me! Book - Who?

So. I am having a book out. I think I can say that? It will be out later this year. I'll let you know the publisher if they say I can! I'm only just putting a draft together now. I was sort of waiting to get a 'first thing' out there because I've been doing this for 6 years now, and knew almost from the beginning that I wasn't the poet I wanted to be yet. I wanted to wait until my poetry voice matched my internal voice a bit more - or, one of them - the one that I feel is more from my heart than any other place. I started out Doing Funny, but nearly everything I wrote back then to amuse, now I am re-reading, is also very Dark and Angry. I do sometimes make a joke onstage about 'poetry as therapy' - for plenty of us, it is! - but this is reeeeally apparent in these pieces. I mean, I *was* having actual therapy and doing a lot of work on myself at the time... The poems also seem a lot darker/angrier because they are on a page, all black and white and stark as anything, rather than me performing them with my soft voice and jokes inbetween. What to do? 

I don't think I can wait for my first book to be ready in any other voice/style I use, 'Mab' is too well-known now, she has written hundreds of poems, and performed nearly 700 times, and could have sold hundreds of books too, instead of flimsy self-made chapbooks or anthologies where people often didn't buy because they didn't know the other writers... I need a product. I need somewhere for these poems to 'go'. I think - I also need to make a distinction between what Mab writes and what my other (real?) self writes. I feel like 'Mab Jones' came about at a very particular point in my life, and as a character really helped me overcome lots of personal challenges. I still want to continue with her. I won't kill her off and become all serious! It's too much fun, and Mab just loves making people laugh toooo damn much.....!

However, after a fair bit of mucking about, persona-wise, in the past couple of years, it seems I have found the self I wish to use when it comes to writing these 'other poems'. I will continue to write comic verse through Mab, but I will use my real name, Michelle Anastasia Oliver, for these. What difference does this make in practical terms? Actually, none at all. Not at this point, anyway. It just seems like, some of my newer poems are so different to these older ones, that they need to be marketed under a different name. This will be it. I already have a secret blog which this persona writes in any case... *don't bother looking, you will not find it!!*

That's all for now, anyway. Thanks for reading. And, back to the book!!

M xxx

Mab v Scrunchies

Look. I've got nothing against Scrunchies, okay. For those of you who have seen my Facebook posts... All I am saying is that a cheapo bit of string with some tatty material wrapped round it should NOT be more popular than me. I have performed over 650 times in the past 6 years! I bring smiles and delight (and slight drunken flirtiness) wherever I go! I do charity events, I do workshops in the local community, I've worked in various schools and prisons. My whole life is dedicated to sharing and inspiring a love of the spoken and written word. What the hell did Scrunchies ever do???

As far as I can see, all they do do is wrap their smug, crap-patterned selves around people's already-dead hair strands. BIG DEAL!!! I could do that, y'know. you don't need an MA (what like I've got) for that!! Scrunchies seem a bit smug about it all, to be honest. Are their hearts really in the right place? Do they care about their local communities? Or are they just about showing off, with all their tartan and furry bits and sequins and that? All their 'look what I can do' attichood, like fat little crowns on the top of young girls' (and sometimes old ladies') heads???

I mean, even if Scrunchies ARE 'the real deal', and feel they are doing some good in the world, why should they be more popular than my good self, and have more FB likes on their fan page than moi? Is it really anything to do with their usefulness? Or is it more to do with THIS:

Yeah, that's right. A young, half-naked girl showing off her 'bits and bobs' while wearing Scrunchies. Like a sexed-up version of the Victorian Little Match Girl, innit? What is she REALLY selling here? Eh? EH????

(Wish I had legs like that, mind.... *Sigh*!)

Anyway, I think this slightly disturbing, overly-young-girl imagery just proves what Scrunchies are really all about. So - liking their page MAKES YOU A DISGUSTING PERVERT!! Please unlike it now. Liking MY page - HERE - makes you a GOOD AND HONEST (and therefore sexually attractive) PERSON! Please like it now.

Down with Scrunchies! Up with moral integrity!!!

YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO !!!!!!!

https://www.facebook.com/mabjones
https://twitter.com/mabjones

Soul Exchange!

This week, I'm very busy rehearsing to be in National Theatre Wales's SOUL EXCHANGE, in which I play a 1930s nan from Butetown/Tiger Bay. It's a really interesting exsperience, meeting people from all walks (and runs, and sprints, and -in my case, stumbles - of life)! Specifically, I am working with an actress called Pauline who, a while back, co-wrote this pretty great film about the landing of The Windrush, the ship that brought the first immigrants from the West Indies to Britain. You can watch this here:

ME REACH (White Lantern Films)

The Soul Exchange itself is the culmination of 2 years' work, researching into the history of the once-Tiger Bay, interviewing residents, collecting stories, and so forth. I have written a spoken word piece based on true incidents: basically, about a white woman (as I am!) who doesn't want her mixed-race grandson to be given a Muslim name... Can you guess what she does to achieve this??? Well, you'll have to come along if you want to find out...!!



Hope to see you there!!!

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