Luke Wright’s Stand-Up Poetry Club

Posted on 9th June 2018

Another six months have rolled by since the last time we had a night of performance poetry at the Corn Hall, but it proved to be worth the wait, with a selection of new poems from Luke Wright followed by a mesmerising performance from his guest, Mike Garry.

Wright took a typically eclectic selection of new poems for a test drive, with surprisingly tender thoughts on love, words of wisdom for the heir apparent, and a joyously hilarious homily to pretension. Although his usual verbal gymnastics were evident in some univowel frippery and a meta-poem about poems he was in an unusually reflective mood, and perhaps more (self) conscious of a change of direction than his audience was.

While Wright often uses his club to encourage new talent, it’s a treat to occasionally see an old hand at the game. Mike Garry proved just how good performance poetry can be with his captivating, charismatic delivery of incisive, challenging (and occasionally uncomfortable) reflections on life, relationships, families, inspirational teachers and death. Frequently bleak, certainly uncompromising, yet curiously uplifting, his was, bluntly put, the finest single performance I’ve seen in the five years I’ve been coming to these evenings.

David Vass