…get yourself down to Runaway Girl for more spoken word shenanigans at the next Words Aloud, Wednesday 4 April.
If you want to read, just email us at wordsaloud@theworkshop.co.uk and we’ll pop your name on the blackboard. Or, let us know on the night and we’ll pencil you in then (if there’s space!).
As usual, we’ll kick [...]

As you may have noticed, we’ve had some minor hiccups with the Words Aloud podcast this month. It’s not through want of trying mind, it’s our blinkin’ tools what’s the problem! Anyway, that’ll all be sorted in the next week or two all being well, and in the meantime…..
…you can enjoy the first Words Aloud [...]

Okay, so it wasn’t Easter. But who cares when you’ve got a guitar Interpol solo, Mud, reading extracts from The Sheffield Star and a wheelie bin spectacular from the legendary Mr Matt Black. You don’t have to be mad to read here. Ah but every little helps.
We’ll do our best to get stuff up over [...]

Listen again:
[audio= http://media.odeo.com/3/1/9/Polly2.mp3]
My mother had red hands.
Her knuckles, though swelled in arthritic agony, continued to type.
Dutifully fatigued.
They had a coffeetobaccosoap smell.
Hands whose spidery skill animated lullabies, and tickle-teased with bottom-pinching glee.
Always cool, they banished childhood fevers.
Long fingers played Pathetique at Christmas, and pointed in scolding, and held her cigarettes.
So when no more tenderness lit her [...]

Some years ago a group of wise men set forth on a rowing boat along the river of life

March 42nd  2007
Samantha Lavalamp
Co-Assistant Manager of Re-Interpersonal Work Issues
Mark, Mark, Markesan & Mark, plc
123 Fake Street
Dear Mrs. Lavalamp,
I am writing to you regarding our recent meeting, in which I logged a formal complaint against our employers, the Industrial Accounts Merchant Faciletators of “Mark, Mark, Markason & Mark plc”. You suggested that I write this letter, [...]

Listen again:
[audio= http://media.odeo.com/4/6/6/Angelina.mp3]
Wild buffalo
pound the street
outside my door
as though in sight of water
at the height of drought.
The floorboards rumble,
undulate, with the rattle
of the herd.
It almost sounds
like a Supertram -
but not quite.
I pull the curtains open
to expose the tram tracks
and, across the road,
the hand and sweat
of the builder’s yard
with its own weather front
of rubble dust
like a [...]

Listen again:
[audio= http://media.odeo.com/2/3/7/Rob2.mp3]
In an age where everything was pierced except perception
two philosophers met at an art installation reception.
One held a grudge against the other
A man that he could once call brother.
“You sir, take one man’s personal vision of hell and turn it into a house
where the idiots dwell”.
“Know you’re wrong, there’s a choice in action, [...]

Well, doesn’t time fly! With February being inexplicably short and disappearing quicker than the quickest of quick things, it’s Words Aloud time again… Hooray!
It’s the Mad as a March Hare eggstravaganza – we’re bringing Easter forward, so whether you’re a bunny boiler or just up for a bit of a rabbiting on, pack up your [...]