DURHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL 2000

 

JOOLZ

Joolz, Britain’s premier woman performance poet, has brought excitement back to English poetry with her clear, unflinching, yet sympathetic view of the lives she sees around her. She has reached a huge audience not normally exposed to modern poetry through her many appearances on TV and radio, by working with musicians, and by performing at arts and music festivals around the world. Her many recordings include a number with New Model Army and Jah Wobble.

Joolz describes her work as ‘character-driven, dramatic, and often tragic’. In the poems and miniature narratives of Errors of the Spirit, her fourth collection, she illuminates how ordinary people cope with extraordinary situations, and deal with anger, loss, violence, death, friendship and love. Very different is the long poem ‘Grendel’, revealing her interest in old narrative forms as well as literary manifestations of the ‘monster’. Joolz’s commitment to narrative brought her the first New Crime Writer Award from the Crime Writers’ Association in 1998 for Stone Baby, to be published by HarperCollins in April 2000 using the name Joolz Denby.

 

 

Dusty darkness ribbed with beams arcing into space,

glittering motes dancing in light skewering with high, dirty windows

and the great roof like an upturned boat; like a mediaeval casket,

steepling to angels, their gold peeling, their hands clotted

with neglect.

from The Wool Exchange, Bradford