By Ashley Dunn and B.T. Wine.
It is coming up to the one-year anniversary of Infringed Poetry at the Bristol Fringe in Clifton Village, a monthly poetry open mic that has grown into a beautiful, energetic and supportive community of wordsmiths in such a short space of time. Performers share a somewhat frightening array of emotion, experience and personality in their work, and we are fortunate to have a truly engaged and exuberant audience every month too (who are starting to queue outside the door…).
But I need to confess something now: I was working on the bar at the Fringe when the loose idea came to me to ask Sylvie, the manager, about potentially putting on a poetry night, and so I mentioned it to her in passing. A week later? By chance, a man came to the bar to ask if we had a poetry night.
‘Yes,’ Sylvie replied to him, ‘and he is going to be organising it.’ She was pointing at me. ‘It starts next month.’
I was now the organiser and host of a poetry night, apparently.
That is sort of how Sylvie works: if it sounds like a good idea – even in passing – she wants to do it. And I am so glad we did, as at the end of each night of Infringed Poetry I am left dazed, even speechless, by the work that is shared, the deep range of human expression that is
offered, and by the festival-like atmosphere that is created by all that attend. In all honesty, I still haven’t quite caught up with what goes on during those Tuesday nights, and it makes me emotional – even slightly confused – to write now about what has been created. I just
thought it was a decent backroom to put a poetry event in!
The talent that comes through our doors and lands on our stage isn’t confusing though, especially when it forces itself to stay with us long after we are fortunate enough to watch it give birth to itself on the mic, too. And one particular soon-to-be new-born at the May event? It was a young man I’d seen before, only, ‘I’ve got a new alias,’ he said to me as he signed up.
‘I don’t want to know,’ I replied. ‘Just be it and don’t tell anyone you’re an “alias” again.’
I said this to him as I wanted him to entirely become the character for us and himself. I wanted him to embody and feel every inch of who he was about to perform as on stage an hour later, the magnitude of what he was doing – delivering a new self, creatively and otherwise – perhaps being unknown to him.
And didn’t he give us something special, an explosive unveiling of B.T. Wine for the fortunate 40-or so of us in that “decent backroom” that night, a performance we will all remember for some time.
(And I think I also saw glimpses of the man beneath the alias saving himself through his reinvention on stage, too.)
Below we have the words of B.T. Wine on the debuting of B.T. Wine at the Bristol Fringe, 13th May 2023. It may sound cliché to say, but remember the name, again: B.T. Wine. He’s even got me worrying I’m Captain Sensible…
Debut – B.T. Wine
Another cuppa, I venture to my sink and swill the Gromit mug, third one today. Maybe I’ll have another before I leave? No milk – it went off days ago. In lieu of this I shakily pour the silver spoon into the brown, murky sludge. Usually sugared char is a cardinal sin, but needs must.
Clock strikes 5:30. I don’t have a clock. What I mean is, I looked at my phone and it told me it was 5:30. And clocks don’t strike on half hours anyway. I decide to leave for Clifton: sign up is a bunfight, get there early. Drugs are boring now and too expensive since I’m buying my own food. I actually steal most of it too. I walk past a Tesco express. Monster energy drink. Pocket. Outside. Neck. Shaking properly now.
I walk in through rain. Dingy and damp pub that always seems humid – always seems to be raining. Name down; ‘B.T. WINE’ scribbled for the first time. Compliments received on my audacious sunglasses and purple beret combo. I know who Captain Sensible is. Captain Sensible doesn’t have a clue about B.T Wine. Lawsuit incoming, probably.
I walk to the gorge for one last practice. I clamber down to an arse-twitcher ledge and shout soul into the void. I don’t trust my knackered boots paired with the shakes. One slip, all over. They’ll think it’s a suicide. Captain Sensible will never know who I am. Highly important I stay alive. I am more than a twenty-year-old nineteen-year-old with an ego problem. At least die after the set so you can be jotted down in the history books. Ian Curtis was 23 when he died. What the fuck have you done?
Back to the pub and I take my usual seat, back corner, adequate brooding space. I am B.T. Wine: poet extraordinaire, masterful lover, the Clifton Village Antichrist. Truly the Ludwig Van of the male-pattern balding world. Deaf and all.
My name is called, I can’t see a thing in these sunglasses, I trip over a sea of poet ankles and hand stitched tote-bags and make it seem part of the act.
B.T. Wine greets his public and spaffs anger into the eyes of the unashamed unamused.
B.T. Wine returns to his seat.
Infringed Poetry is every second Tuesday of the month at The Bristol Fringe – see www.instagram.com/infringedpoetry
B.T. Wine can also be found on Instagram at www.instagram.com/beeteewine
Love this! Particularly the sea of poet ankles and hand stitched tote-bags