So – ten whole years of Write Out Loud nights in Wigan? That’s got to be worth celebrating!  Ten whole years of rhythm and rhyme, of odes and epics, smiles and tears, of bellows and heckles, of a poetry community that is so tight-knit you could legitimately call it family, and of course, no family gathering is complete without the odd punch-up!

The WOL nights are now held in The Old Courts venue in Wigan, but when I started going in 2010, they were in the legendary Tudor House pub, and I have so many golden memories of my time there. 

I learned my craft on the Tudor House stage, and attended the open mic nights religiously for about two years.  I did my second ever open mic performance there, in December 2010, and every second of it is burned into my brain.  I took the two steps up to the stage, stepped on to it, and slowly turned around to see the audience far below me.  I froze in terror.  I was literally speechless too (yeh, I know how hard that is to believe now!). I stood there for what felt like an age, completely unable to speak, blinded by the stage lights, panicking, thinking “SAY SOMETHING, NOW!”.So I tapped the mic, blew into it, giggled like a dizzy child, took a massive breath, and started my poem. Whoosh! What a buzz! Big enough to keep me still at it six years later and loving every minute of it. Well, apart from the waiting to go on. I've never enjoyed that part of it!

It was only later that I found out that the Wigan night had a reputation as a “bear pit”. To me, it had always been incredibly welcoming and supportive. I found a whole new group of people with a love of words and language, of communicating, and each and every one of them had a weirdness, an oddity, a foible or four, that drew me to them, and made my own social awkwardness feel accepted. It’s not very often in my life that I’ve felt a sense of belonging, especially in a big group. I realised that most of us had spent our lives being the odd one out, the social misfit, and that it was exactly this aspect that had shaped us as poets.  When you have no one to talk to, you tend to spend your time observing the world around you. And reading!

I had already spent some time on the WOL website by this point, and so had communicated with quite a few of the poets. It was a comforting step up to meet them in person.  Connections had already been made, and they were cemented by the experience of coming together and feeling the fear of a public performance. Every single poet knows the extent of another’s fear, and the courage it takes to stand in front of a room full of people listening to your every word, studying every detail of your person, revealing vulnerabilities in your poems.  That’s what makes open mic nights so special – we all know what it takes to get on that stage, and that’s why there’s so much respect given for those who do. And always a round of applause.

And of course, at the end of the night, you end up with a room full of poets who are now amped up on adrenaline, and the atmosphere is pretty much euphoric. Or at least that’s how the Wigan nights were, anyway. On travelling further afield, I did find that other nights were less … raucous, shall we say!

Did I mention the punch-ups? We had a few, back in the day.  I think that may have stood out as not being usual occurrences in other open mic venues, and possibly where the “bear pit” tag came from.  I don’t believe there’s ever been such a fracas in The Old Courts, but I remember a couple of occasions, fuelled by drink and egotism, where poetic ire was raised enough to set fists (and pints) flying in the Tudor. Think a poetic wild west and you’re there!

Heckling was standard, but most of it was friendly and only ever made punters and performers laugh and feel comfortable in their surroundings. I vividly remember performing my ‘Ohrwurm’ poem about earworms, getting to the part where I mention the theme tune to Hawaii Five-0, and the entire room erupting into a spontaneous rendition of it. I couldn’t carry on with the poem so instead I joined in and pretended to be swimming on stage. Happy days! The memory has me laughing as I type this.  It was a beautifully chaotic night – as far removed from what most folk might think of a poetry night as it’s possible to get.

Props have to be given to the man who has run the Wigan night tirelessly – Mr John Togher. Not only a great poet, lyricist and singer in the mighty John the Baptist and the Second Coming, but a charming host and a good friend.

So here I am, six years after taking that first breath on that stage and pushing out my  poem, with tons of gigs under my belt, a long list of poems published in various anthologies, a vast and ever-increasing poetry family, a recently-published debut collection, and so many more places and people to discover. I don’t ever want to stop doing this. I found the most perfect way and place to express myself, and it’s all thanks to Write Out Loud, both online and off. Here’s to you Wigan WOL – long may you continue!

Laura Taylor