Administer the Laughing Gas
Book Launch October 6th @ Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, part of Birmingham Literature Festival.
Dear Family,
"Inventive, vivid, dreamlike yet unflinching and full to burst with startling images and achingly beautiful language. This is a book that invites new ways of seeing grief, loss, trauma, motherhood and the body with candour, vulnerability, personality and hope. An important and compelling work on the complex journey of survival."
Cecilia Knapp
"This is how grief becomes a stained glass window: beautiful, reflective, imagistic and somehow holy. Gorgeous and terrifying. Read it."
Joelle Taylor
To honour the publication of my forthcoming poetry collection Administer the Laughing Gas (VERVE Poetry Press), I’m launching the book with a live reading accompanied by ceremonial sound musicians on SUNDAY, 6th, OCTOBER as part of Birmingham Literature Festival at the Eastside Jazz Club at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
An evening of Poetry and Sound as Hayley Frances launches her debut collection, Administer the Laughing Gas (VERVE Poetry Press).
In this experimental live performance, French Multi-Instrumentalist Yoav Yo, Sound Therapist Chris Richardson, and chorus of female poets weave a ceremonial soundscape to accompany the hallucinogenic and meditative poems from Hayley's collection.
Administer the Laughing Gas is an example of grief in translation; a memoir of birth and (m)otherhood; a documentation of how poetry contains and translates emotion.
This performance is brought to you by the Birmingham Literature Festival, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and VERVE Poetry Press.
Hayley Frances poet
Yoav multi-instrumentalist
Chris Richardson sound journeying
Helen Calcutt, Memory Bhunu, & Ayan Aden poet chorus
The Artists
Hayley Frances is a poet whose work explores the psychology of creative writing and its use as a therapeutic medium. She's a poet in Residence for Birmingham Children's and Women's Hospital, the co-founder of THE COLLECTIVE, a writer's development programme for rising poets and an assistant producer for the VERVE Poetry Festival.
Yoav works with a wide range of instruments from around the world, skillfully threading a tapestry of harmonious vibrations, ceremonial sound, and medicinal music.
Chris Richardson has delivered music and sound healing workshops across Europe. For the past 16 years, Chris has studied, developed, and honed varied practices and techniques in composition and holistic aural healing as a way of channelling mindfulness and inner peace through inclusive, accessible, community-led work.
Administer the Laughing Gas aims to support, validate, and raise awareness of child loss and its effects on society. It also intends to acknowledge poetry as a therapeutic medium.
Running time approx. one hour and 30 minutes
Congratulations Hayley on this collection, and what sounds like a wonderful launch event. I am away that date otherwise would have tried to get to Birmingham. Please do share on social media so I can share on. Your work, creative and in the community, is vital and important and deserves a wide audience. Perhaps you and Verve might consider an online launch later in the year. Love to you.