Rules to Live By: Joni Mitchell and Poetry
For many, a musician for the generations. But for some, the lyrical ‘poetry’ of Joni Mitchell has provided a deeply personal life companionship…
‘The bed’s too big, the frying pan’s too wide’ Mitchell sang on her seminal work Blue, now 50 years old. At this evening of poetic intimacy and candour, poet and essayist Amy Key explores her own life-long relationship with lyrics from the album – navigating everything from motherhood, intimacy and death – and how it has provided an unexpected yet joyful steer to self-friendship in lieu of conventional romantic love.
Sorana Santos shares her own fascinating experience with Hejira, Mitchell’s eighth studio album, and how it motivated her lone recreation of the road trip that – through intense solitude – drew unparalleled experiences with Mitchell’s thematic world.
Writer and performer Vanessa Kisuule will explore the complex and contradictory nature of the human spirit; how we are able to embrace what is to come, and mourn what is lost…
So join Poet in the City for a musical celebration of lived human experience, through the words and worlds of one of the most influential female artists of our time. You’ll hear Mitchell’s own songs, poems and songs that inspired her, together with those that she has inspired. And, through the lens of these artists, we ask how can I fit in (or not fit in)?…as traveller, artist, homemaker…?
Image: Capanelle, Joni Mitchell, 1983 (adapted by Studio Breve) Creative Commons License
Book your tickets on the Wilton’s website HERE
Amy Key
Amy Key is the author of two collections of poetry, Luxe (Salt, 2013) and Isn’t Forever (Bloodaxe, 2018), which was a Poetry Book Society Wild Card Choice and a book of the year in the Guardian, New Statesman, Times and Irish Times. Her first work of non-fiction, Arrangements in Blue, will be published by Jonathan Cape (UK) in Spring 2023, alongside publication in the US and Italy.
Sorana Santos
Recipient of a BASCA British Composer Award nomination for her interdisciplinary work across music and literature, London-based musician and writer Sorana Santos’ creativity has been recognised for its ‘fresh originality and power’. Her diverse portfolio exploring the shared syntax of music and language includes commissions and performances with leading UK musicians and ensembles, publishing with Lazy Gramophone Press (2006-2015), and US-based ethnographic research into Joni Mitchell’s ‘Hejira’. Sorana holds a PhD from
Royal Holloway, and lectures on composition and song in the UK and Europe.
Vanessa Kisuule
Vanessa Kisuule is a writer and performer based in Bristol. She has won over ten slam titles including The Roundhouse Slam 2014, Hammer and Tongue National Slam 2014 and the Nuoryican Poetry Slam. She has been featured on BBC iPlayer, Radio 1, and Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, Blue Peter, Don’t Flop and TEDx in Vienna. She has appeared at an array of festivals and was Glastonbury Festival’s Resident Poet in 2019. She has been invited to perform all over the world, from Belgium to Brazil to Bangladesh. Her poem on the historic toppling of Edward Colston’s statue ‘Hollow’ gained over 600,000 views on Twitter in three days. She has two poetry collections published by Burning Eye Books and her work was Highly Commended in the Forward Poetry Prize Anthology 2019. She has written for publications including The Guardian, NME and Lonely Planet and is the co tutor for the Southbank New Poets Collective for 2021/2022. She was the Bristol City Poet for 2018 – 2020. She is currently writing a book of essays and her first novel.
