Reviews and comment from the Demon Crew - creative writers at De Montfort University, Leicester.

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Inspired by dark times

There were some dark times this morning as I went to the Demon Crew reading. I sat and listened to beautiful and captivating monologues, short stories and poetry created by staff and students alike. Rape, drinking, self-harm and mental health were just a few of the topics.

This was my first visit to a reading of creative work, so I wasn’t sure what to do – should I take notes or just listen? At first I looked around to see what everyone else was doing – some had their eyes closed, appreciating each spoken word like in blissful ecstasy.

The first reader, Paige, had a few poems to read. My personal favourite was “Feeble Ties”. Some lines still stick in my head, such as “faces Hades and his sea of souls”. Afterwards, I had a chance to tell Paige how much I like that poem of hers – it was great.

Kathleen Bell read ”Skulls and Roses,” a short story with a Gothic twist on the fairy tale “Sleeping Beauty”, whilst Niki Valentine read “Babysitting”, a story from her book The Night Lingers while Simon closed the event with a reading from his book, Archilochus on the Moon, which is about Greek’s first lyrical poet.

Needless to say, with the amount of talent in that room, I walked out of there feeling inspired to write something, anything, on the spot - and that's exactly what I did!

Lauren Raybould

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