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Tavinder New - Mobile Library Creative Response

My pieces are different creative responses on four different books that appealed to me. These are based on the interpretations of what I felt the book was about and my reaction to reading both fiction and nonfiction books. The books I picked are: Malala by Malala Yousafzai, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple, London is Calling By Sukhdev Sandhu and Breaking The Silence written by Asian Women. Malala She is Malala ‘free as a bird’, the girl who stood up for education! But was shot by the Taliban. All should be like Malala, a global symbol. Be Malala ‘free as a bird’, she inspires all of us, truly a story of courage and strength! One girl who changed the world. All should be like Malala, to fight, to stand up, to ensure all girls are educated! Be Malala change the world, make a difference stand up against injustice. Be ‘free as a bird’ to all of you women out there, don’t think you are less, or unequal. Therefore show the world what you are made of! Nine Lives, Nine different lives Come travel with me, Come meet the nine lives that I met, Through On my journey through India. Tales of a Buddhist, a Jain, Devadasi Rani, are some of whom I met and could not wait to tell each of their stories. Come learn about their history, Come hear their voices, their religious traditions, paths. Throughout my journey, I was taught about god and goddesses, which I never knew existed. Tales of their faiths and religions which are the heart of India. Come be transformed, Come and explore their lives, beliefs, faiths. Through them, I learned about views of life and death. A language universal to all. Come be enriched, Come meet these people, Through them, I was transformed to another world, another way of life, I learned that they were all torn between tradition and modern lifestyle. London Is Calling Dear London, You offered me prosperity, promises and prospects of a future, instead I was given pain. I was offered hardship, harassment and a harmful reality. You forced me into slavery, I had financial destitution and having no options but to resort to prostitution as a way of income. This was meant to be my home, but it painted me as ‘stupid’, ‘insolent’ and ‘wild’, something to fear and be alienated from the community. I am one of the minority groups, this was our ordeal- this our reality. It is only through my words I am able to express my truth, what I had to overcome and how we were all treated. I feel chained, drained and it's the harshness of immigration, where I left my country, my family which I hold dear. London you gave me nothing in return. But I did not despair, I made a way, became resilient and integrated into this city and survived to tell my tale, a forgotten voice -no longer, so hear my story. Yours sincerely, A local immigrant. Breaking The Silence These women have chosen to break the silence. They stand in defiance, hidden within society, but now allowed to have a voice. These women speak to me, they break the silence writing about different subjects such as marriage, racism, being a woman, and their views on cultural identity. These women break the silence. Through their honesty, emotional feelings, trapped within their different lives, expressing their words through their different languages. These women break the silence; Hindu, Muslim, Bengali, Gujarati, and Punjabi, where they reflect on tradition, beliefs, family, and the impact of being a woman in society. These women break the silence. Break their constraints, break the mould, who chose to write. These women speak out, tell their stories, tell their woes, express themselves and reveal their realities. Tavinder New has been writing short stories since she was a teenager. Her stories reflect issues in society, for example on technology or global warming and she has written in different genres. She has published in Pen to Print's showcase online with ‘Saying Goodbye', and has taken part in Pen to Print's 'Love Letters to the World' postcards project. Tavinder attends a monthly writing group, and has a blog of her creative writing.

18.05.2021

Two stops short of Barking by Gboyega Odubanjo

We are really excited to announce the publication of Two stops short of Barking, a new pamphlet of poems and interviews on East London by Gboyega Odubanjo. You can buy the pamphlet online here for £5 (plus £1 p&p). Or it is available at the following book shops: Newham Books, London Review Bookshop and Pages of Hackney in London, and Good Press in Glasgow. Gboyega has been writer in residence at Rabbits Road Institute Library and during this time he has written a series of playful and incisive poems, published alongside interviews with three creative individuals who live and work in East London - playwright and actor Tife Kusoro, artist filmmaker John Smith and rapper John Akinde/OSOM. Since 2020, Rabbits Road Institute Library has been on a virtual tour to the London borough of Barking and Dagenham, and through an open call to local writers, artists and creatives, Gboyega was selected to be the first ever writer in residence. As the Library is currently unhoused, Gboyega selected books from the collection and we sent them directly to his house where he spent a few months reading, writing and being inspired. Gboyega’s writing rubs together the many different parts of his world: London, Nigerian culture, religion, music, parties, histories of migration. The poems and interviews in Two stops short of Barking define a relationship to his home town of Dagenham, in East London. Contrasting his own experiences - from being chased home after school, to buying grilled suya from a van around the corner from the local Wetherspoons - with other local histories and stories, Odubanjo places them in a wider context of migration and regeneration. Wednesday 5th May 7-8pm: Celebrate the launch of Two stops short of Barking with an evening of conversation, poetry, film and music. The online event will include poetry readings and conversation between Odubanjo and poet Kayo Chingonyi, screening of The Man Phoning Mum by artist film maker John Smith and music by John Akinde / OSOM, both Smith and Akinde feature in the pamphlet. The event is free - please book you place via eventbrite. Write On! In the current issue of Pen to Print’s brilliant magazine Write On! (Issue 8, 2021) Two stops short of Barking features on a series of 4 pull out postcards, including poem 'Looking at You' and an extract from one of the interviews. You can pick up a free copy of Write On! Magazine from local Barking and Dagenham Libraries. Two stops short of Barking is published by The Alternative School of Economics, London 2021, and designed by Design Print Bind. This booklet has been supported by The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham Library Service - Pen to Print Creative Writing Programme. Pen to Print is funded by Arts Council England as a National Portfolio Organisation. pentoprint@lbbd.gov.uk www.pentoprint.org Rabbits Road Institute Library 2020-2021 activity is funded by Arts Council England. Biographies: Gboyega Odubanjo is a British-Nigerian poet born and raised in East London. His first poetry pamphlet, While I Yet Live, was published by Bad Betty Press in 2019 and was named as one of the Poetry School’s Books of the Year. He is a recipient of the Poetry Business’ 2020 New Poets’ Prize, Resident Artist at the Roundhouse, an editor at bath magg, and a board member and former guest editor of Magma Poetry. His pamphlet Two stops short of Barking was produced whilst writer in residence at Rabbits Road Institute Library. Gboyega is a doctoral candidate at the University of Hertfordshire. Kayo Chingonyi's second collection A Blood Condition was published in April 2021 by Chatto and Windus. His first full-length collection, Kumukanda, was published in June 2017 by Chatto & Windus and won the Dylan Thomas Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award. He is a fellow of the Complete Works programme for diversity and quality in British Poetry and the author of two pamphlets, Some Bright Elegance (Salt, 2012) and The Colour of James Brown’s Scream (Akashic, 2016). Kayo has been invited to read from his work at venues and events across the UK and internationally. He was awarded the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and has completed residencies with Kingston University, Cove Park, First Story, The Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and Royal Holloway University of London in partnership with Counterpoints Arts. He was Associate Poet at the Institute of Contemporary Arts from Autumn 2015 to Spring 2016, Anthony Burgess Fellow at Manchester University in 2018, and co-edited issue 62 of Magma Poetry and the Autumn 2016 edition of The Poetry Review. He is poetry editor for The White Review. Kayo is also an emcee, producer, and DJ and regularly collaborates with musicians and composers both as a poet and a lyricist. Born and raised in East London, carrying with him a West African (Nigeria) heritage, John Akinde (also known as OSOM) creates work that seeks to entertain, challenge and provoke thought. Having developed his craft at a community youth club, learning how to engineer sound and produce creative projects and ideas, he has since undertaken commissions from Huffpost, Metro, the BBC, Sky Arts and more. As an entreprenuer, writer and musician, OSOM’s mission is to tell stories and make provocations through creative expression. He released the track Mandem in 2020. John Smith was born in Walthamstow, London in 1952 and studied film at the Royal College of Art in the mid 1970s. Inspired in his formative years by conceptual art and structural film, but also fascinated by the immersive power of narrative and the spoken word, he has developed an extensive body of work that subverts the perceived boundaries between documentary and fiction, representation and abstraction. He has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. His work is held in numerous public collections including Tate Gallery; Arts Council England; Museum Sztuki, Lodz; FRAC Île de France, Paris; Kunstmuseum Magdeburg; Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, Miami; Wolverhampton Art Gallery; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull; and Lux, London Boluwatife ( Tife ) Kusoro is a Nigerian-British writer and performer. She was born in Lagos and lives in London. Her creative practice is focused in writing plays for stage, screen and audio, while she also writes prose fiction, personal essays and poems. In 2019, she graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in English Literature and is now training as an actor. Her first full length works for theatre We Have Sinned (b. 2017) and Fly Home Butterfly (b. 2018) were shortlisted for awards including the Alfred Fagon Award (2017 + 2018) , the Verity Bargate Award (2020), and the Women's Prize for Playwriting (2020). Tife has also undertaken attachments with Talawa Theatre Company, the Bush Theatre and the Royal Court, and is currently one of the BBC's 2021 London Voices. She is currently working on her first play commission with the Bush Theatre. As an actor and performer, she has worked for and with Leeds Playhouse, Talawa Theatre Company, the Bush Theatre, the National Youth Theatre and the BBC Radio Drama Company.

27.04.2021

Writing Together - Collective Manifesto for a Post-Pandemic World

The text below is from a collaborative writing workshop, led by The Alternative School of Economics, and inspired by books in Rabbits Road Institute Library and other texts. Titled Writing Together, the workshops explored different co-writing techniques in poetry, fiction and non-fiction. They were hosted online by Pen to Print, part of Barking & Dagenham Library Service, with participants joining from across the world including London, Wales, USA and Germany. This text was collectively written as park of the Writing Together - Non-fiction workshop on 30th March 2021. I remember….a collective memory from before and during the pandemic after Joe Brainard, 1975 I remember queuing outside shops. I remember hearing bird song for the first time during lockdown. I remember going for a blood test. I remember the sound of school children outside my house on my street. I remember feeling too afraid to leave my flat and wondering if anyone I knew was going to die. I remember walking for five hours or more because it was the sunniest summer we’d ever had. I remember that “invisible energy” sharing of people, known- unknown via smile, gaze, touch and speech. I remember very sharply, the happy atmosphere around the offices, restaurants and homes. I remember being on the bus with my baby in July when it was 30 degrees. I remember working in a different part of London each day. I remember being in a club, so close, bodies pushed together. I remember being terrified to spend time alone with myself. I remember when I realized I love spending time alone with myself. I remember when Zoom was not a word in my vocabulary. I remember making excuses for not doing things like phoning a family member. I remember watching my daughter in the swimming pool, diving in I remember feeling helpless. I remember being more embarrassed to fart than cough. I remember someone saying, 'I have not seen you in a long time'. I remember rushing from place to place and not appreciating each individual trip enough. I remember getting on a bus without having a destination in mind. I remember appreciating how hard it is to teach a toddler to spell. I remember football without faked cheers. I remember Jason and I would meet at Leo Bistro in the Art Institute for the pleasure of each other’s company, some afternoons, sit and talk, reminisce about our lives and our ideas. I remember our conversations became narrow. We would attend Jason’s Curiosity Café via Zoom, talking mostly politics with the group. When he and I talk on the phone, he falls into the ‘newsworthy’ topics of Curiosity Café. Impersonal. Collective Manifesto for a Post-Pandemic World Yes to outdoor seating. Yes to hobbies. Yes to creativity. Yes to being okay with not seeing eye to eye with others and still maintaining respect for one-another. Yes to looking out for one another. Yes to doing things for the greater good. Yes to self-care. Yes to connection on our own terms. Yes to enjoying time alone. Yes to open schedules. Yes to enjoying Christmas alone. No to putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations out of fear of judgement. Yes to heroes like Captain Tom Moore. Let’s meet more people and make new friends. Let’s realise that though we are all grains of sand, what we do matters and impacts those around us. No to Big Brother. No to reducing doughnuts from 5 to 4 in a pack and charging the same price. I want food to feed the hungry and not line the bellies of the rich. No to creating false demands. What do people really need and like. Yes to the Helen kellers of this world - breaking through the nicety of privilege. Yes to conservation. Value the natural world have conservation as a subject in schools. Yes to a life that understands its interdependence with others. I want a true understanding of and commitment to fairness. Is there a place on this earth where there are: no damages to trees, no damages to rivers and ocean, no damages to animals, no damages to society done by our behavior? I want bats to have an exclusive island - One far from you and me. Yes to being okay with saying I am not fine. No to zombies in trains to fill office blocks. Global experience shows us that we are a global community. As one community we must have: Access for all to medical services, both critical and routine. Access for all to the internet, to high speed internet. Access for all citizens to the polls and voting opportunities. Access to citizenship, somewhere, for every person. Parity for women everywhere, in pay, opportunities, recognition. Yes to appreciating health care workers, teachers, bin collectors, supermarket staff, pharmacists, police and delivery people. No to the slow erosion of our rights. Yes to freedom of speech. Yes to protecting the vulnerable. Yes to giving voice to marginalised people. Yes to the autistic child who reaches beyond the world we know - and breaks the sound barrier. Yes to change. Yes to workers rights.

11.04.2021

Mobile Library

Continuing Rabbits Road Institute Library’s tour to Barking & Dagenham, we have begun Mobile Library - delivering shelves of 15 books to five people living and working in the borough. At a time when people cannot access the Library in person, we invited five local people to select books to keep in their homes for a period of two months. During that time each person will share creative responses to the books which will be announced here. The five writers and creative producers invited to take part in Mobile Library work across the fields of poetry, fiction, screen and theatre playwrighting. They are: Joelle Mae David, Gail Egbeson, Farzana Iqbal, Kelly Jones and Tavinder New. Watch this space!

09.03.2021

Writing Together - Online Creative Writing Workshops

As part of our tour to Barking & Dagenham, we are doing online creative writing workshops with Pen to Print. To book a place visit Pen to Print’s website Writing Together is a series of 3 workshops throughout March that explore experimental and creative ways to collaborate using writing, producing co-authored pieces of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. No previous experience required Tuesday 2nd March, 2:30-4:30pm Writing Together - Poetry This workshop focuses on using the Golden Shovel form to help us write poems by working with limitations. Borrowing from other poems, lyrics, phrases or even newspaper clippings, participants will write their own poems inspired by and using other peoples words. The Golden Shovel form is a poetic form created by award winning poet Terrance Hayes in homage to poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Tuesday 16th March, 2:30-4:30pm Writing Together - Fiction The second workshop focuses on creative games and writing techniques that will stitch together participants writing, bouncing off each other’s ideas, to form a complete co-authored short story by the end of the session. Tuesday 30th March, 2:30-4:30pm Writing Together - Non-Fiction Using artists’ manifestos as a creative structure to write collectively. Drawing on manifestos from a variety of artistic movements, we will look at ways in which writing can be used to make public declarations of ideas, principals & beliefs.Participants will work together to produce a workshop manifesto by the end of the session.

17.02.2021

Writer in Residence

Since August 2020, poet Gboyega Odubanjo has been Writer in Residence at Rabbits Road Institute Library. Gboyega is a British-Nigerian poet born and raised in East London. His pamphlet, While I Yet Live, was published by Bad Betty Press in 2019. He is a Roundhouse Resident Artist and editor of bath magg. Gboyega is currently working on a series of poems and interviews inspired by books in Rabbits Road Institute Library, and relating to Barking and Dagenham and the East End of London, to be published in spring 2021.

06.01.2021

On Tour to Barking & Dagenham

Rabbits Road Institute Library is on a virtual tour to Barking and Dagenham. We'll be announcing online public workshops and ways to get involved very soon. The library currently unhoused and cannot be visited in person due to Covid-19, but we are working on adding links on the catalogue to books and ebooks available through Barking & Dagenham libraries and the London Library Consortium.

01.01.2021

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