Tags
art, artist, Birmingham, Environment, performance, poetry, real world, Society
Casey Bailey’s Waiting at Bloomsbury Park starts with Marbles “Green over orange, over green,” and immediately I think of the Northern Ireland conflict and the Birmingham pub bombs. I was 9 years old when this happened and remember sadness at school the following day. The sadness kind of went away but after seeing the money spent on the Saville Inquiry and the attention the Derry Shootings case received it got me thinking how the Birmingham case had been ignored when compared to other injustices in the UK. When looking at Flipping Coins the words “following friends that we don’t trust” again makes me think of tensions that existed way back when, with friends whose parents were Irish and never knowing what people really felt and if their feelings were different to mine, of course, they were entirely justified. We just never spoke about it. To be completely honest we all got along very well at the time, it is thoughts that have come to me over the years. My views have mellowed right out and I Tweeted Martin McGuinness shortly before his death thanking him for the work he had done in the Peace Process. I know Twitter wasn’t around then, I’m just saying that feelings change.
“Marbles bang like gun shots, smashed glass, clash like gang members.” So what is Casey talking about here? I have heard of the gangs of Aston and West Bromwich but know nothing of this world. I skip back over to Flipping Coins and “I’m trying to work out why I signed up, while you just blame it on your youth.” strike me.
I was born in 1964 and Casey in 1988 so we are worlds apart in many ways. We are both from Birmingham, him Nechells and me Great Barr. Orange and green to him may be nothing more than that his mother was Irish and his father Jamaican.
Dear Birmingham could be an anthem or love letter. Sadness and loss of young life, postcodes as territories and Cadbury turning into Kraft are covered.
I asked Casey about his collection and this is what he had to say.
“This collection came about with the amazing support of Big White Shed, with Anne Holloway managing the project and supporting through the development process.
The decision to create a collection of poems based around my formative years in Nechells, was in some ways accidental. I had been writing quite a lot at the time, and whilst I was putting together a set list for a performance I noticed the theme that was running through a lot of the poetry that I was writing at the time. When I decided to put the poems together as a collection, I wrote a number of new poems with this in mind. Working with Amerah Saleh, the main editor of the book, on shaping the poems individually and as a collection, helped me to see even more clear threads that weave through the poems, pulling the collection together.
When I think about where I am at now and what I, and the people who have supported the project, have achieved; I can only say that my lowest feeling about the whole thing is that my mom never got to see this happen, my biggest joy is that hopefully my son Xander will one day pick this book up and read it.”
To be honest, I think you should have a look yourself and see what it means to you.
Waiting at Bloomsbury Park book launch 1st September 2017, 6.30 pm, Waterstones, Birmingham
http://www.baileysrapandpoetry.com
http://lastminutephotographers.co.uk/