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FURIOUS PENGUINS
For the latest news and the lowdown on FP events, head to our blog page. It's not far away, really.
EARLY HEADS UP - Next event will likely be end-of-yeary outdoor reading at start of Dec.

Why?

The current and chronic problem of poetry is, simply put, itself. Modern society has voted with its ears. Ask any of your friends to take this test or better still try it yourself:

  • name 5 living bands or singers;
  • name 5 living poets.
Any person – or their friend – who takes less time to name poets wins the lottery, and the chances of that are a million screeches to one.

Most nobody reads any amount of modern poetry. It’s hard to find, looks like poor value for money when you track it down, is impenetrable, unappealing, clunky, comes across occasionally as momentarily pleasing but difficult to recall. No-one marks modern poems and thinks ‘I must memorise this to pass on to my children’. We are not moved nor impressed. We lose no sleep, dream no massive dreams.

We are losing the power of the spoken oral tradition to fire our imagination. Where are the genuine rhythms that delight the soul? Where are the figures of speech that call a smile or lead us to wonderment? Where is the continuation of the poetic narrative that has thrilled, educated and sustained human societies for thousands of years? Where is the fire, yes the fire that calls every art to touch its kindled inspiration and make it flame?

Well may we ask.

Humbly, we Furious Penguins set out to seek an answer. We commence with our own work as poets. We will explore our perceptions, challenge our boundaries, coax the word from too-cosy pages to a dynamic existence as spoken form. We will not be silent, unless silence is what the poetic demands. We yearn for expression in all its glory, not in its limitations.

You write, because a firecracker of emotion about something is going off inside you.

So come closer.

We will reach into you, and gather that firecracker and pull it out, and lob it into the surburban rookeries of frozen mundanity. My what a squawk and flap there will be. Oh yes.


What

Are

You

Waiting

For?

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