Slip of the Tongue: An artists' salon for the Déise

What better way to spend an evening than amongst poets? Wayne Power started Slip of the Tongue in 2022 in Bank Lane. Since then, there have been 11 editions, two of which took place at Electric Picnic. Wayne Power came to the poetry scene just before lockdown after suffering from agoraphobia for years. In the last five years, his poetry career has taken off, culminating in the release of his debut spoken word album 'Better Days' at the beginning of February.

Slip of the Tongue was an unusually male affair with no women performers on the night I attended. I am normally reluctant to attend majority-male events, and with the podcast industrial complex we have found ourselves in, I worried that the night would turn into a machismo contest. But actually, the male loneliness epidemic has clearly never heard of Wayne Power, who celebrated every man who performed so wholeheartedly and earnestly. Wayne created an atmosphere of laughter, teasing and sarcasm, but it all came from a place of tenderness and recognition of one and others' struggles, be they material or mental. 

How sad it is that spaces like Slip of the Tongue are few and far between. So much so that one performer, Sean Corrigan, travelled all the way from Kildare to attend. Sean spoke about the importance of spoken word events to interrogate social issues, such as domestic abuse. In fact, he is so passionate about this that it is the subject of his college dissertation. He performed 'Don't Call Me a Poet', a kind of manifesto outlining his belief in the healing power of writing and performing; "I'm just a lad who needed an outlet for self-expression", so one of the lines goes.

It was Ned Mahon's first time reading at Slip of the Tongue ("You never forget your first," joked Wayne), and he told the crowd: "I have two poems I could perform. One of them made my therapist cry, so I won't do that one. I'll do the one she hasn't read yet." 

His poem about his love for the television show 'Bluey' was a beautiful meditation on co-parenting and fatherhood. What really touched me, though, was after he performed, an older man went up to him and reassured him that it would work out.

Not all of the poems interrogated the meaning of life, though. Some asked even more important questions, such as, "Where have all the Choc Ices gone?" 

Stan Notte writes poems using only words from the titles of songs. Each poem is a different musician's song titles. On the night he performed the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Pink Floyd - the Pink Floyd poem was about smoking an illegal substance all day, which makes sense as the poem was psychedelic to say the least. 

There was also some great music from Conor Doyle, whose conceptual folk album was really beautiful. Derek Flynn also absolutely nailed a cover of Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill'. In the words of Wayne Power: "If I was being chased by Vetna, I'd want Derek Flynn singing in my ear."

Of course, it is not a poetry night just for men, and I look forward to the next edition where I might get to see some amazing female performers.