Mab Jones has been performing for 3 years as a poet, in that time she has won the John Tripp Spoken Poetry Audience Award.
She was finalist in the UK Farrago Slam Championships, represented Wales at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC (along with National Poet Gillian Clarke), appeared on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio 4 and a tiny bit on telly, has had a short play performed at the Wales Millenium Centre, was resident poet at Phoenix Comedy club in Cardiff, was resident writer on the Welsh National Opera ‘Songbus’ project, has performed all over the UK with poets, writers and comedians like John Hegley, Joolz Denby, and Lucy Porter, and much more besides. Visit her website, www.mabjones.com, or her blog at www.mabjones.blogspot.com.
WI: What is you’re favourite place in Wales?
MJ: My favourite place is Cardiff, Kerdif, the Diff. I likes it yur, I do. I was raised in Ely, bruised there too, bored and bent there, whored and spent there, marooned, buffooned and harpooned there, until I was old enough to escape… But after I did, following a period of dilly-dally and doo-dah in England and Japan, a strange magnetic pull brought me back to here. I find Cardiff a lucky city. I meet people at the right times, I am encouraged here (mostly by Peter Finch, who I admire greatly), my humble, fumbly fambly is here, I find money on the street most days and spend it on random Freddo bars… I have fun here!
WI: Favourite Welsh band or musician?
MJ: During my teenage years, when I was poor and fat and rather troubled (I suffered from selective mutism for some years) the Manics were the band for me, and so they still are. They are the Welsh Beatles, every album has been good, they were everything I wanted to articulate when I was too mixed-up to do so… They inspired my first attempts at (very bad!) poetry, I ran 2 x literary mags when I was 16 (one of poetry, one of fiction) that were heavily influenced by them and their f-the-world attitude (and which I sold in Peter Finch’s shop, Oriel). I love them, really.
WI: Favourite Welsh food or drink?
MJ: My favourite Welsh food is sushi. They sell it in Wales, don’t they? I tried lava bread once, it gave me gyp. Sushi is the Japanese equivalent of chips, they eat it every day. I like chips, too, mind – drowned in vinegar with a laaarge Clark’s pie to dip ’em in. S’lush!
WI: What does Wales mean to you?
MJ: Wales is a place I exist in, until I don’t exist in it. I don’t feel particularly patriotic – I like it, but I like a lot of other places, too. I like how Cardiff is expanding and growing. I don’t like how so many poets suffer from ‘the Dylan Thomas complex’. There’s a lot of snootiness in poetry, maybe more so in Wales. I get more gigs outside of here. I’m very excited by the blossoming spoken word and theatre scenes, though – people ask me to do more unusual things here e.g. performing on the back of milk floats, a play-writing project I did last year at the Wales Millenium Centre, a pecha kucha event in Chapter recently, a collaboration with actors for the National Theatre Wales ‘Assembly’ project that’s upcoming, performing as part of a ‘shop’front’ project in Castle arcade soon… Wales = excitement, for me.
WI: What do you most miss about Wales when you are away?
MJ: When I lived in Japan, I missed Wales’s blandness – it’s total lack of volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, snakes, mosquitoes, 100% humidity, etc… This is a temperate zone. I like that. When I am away, I pine for its comfiness as the hobbits did the Shire in Lord of the Rings… Unless it gets terribly hot here, I think I will always stick around.
Mab is currently working with National Theatre Wales on their ‘Assembly’ Project, organising performance poetry events with her company Jam Bones (www.jambones.webs.com) and with Poetry on Tap (www.poetryontap.wordpress.com), running creative writing workshops in prisons and schools, performing *lots* and writing a fair bit. She will be performing at Poetica in Bangor, at the Trip Festival in Anglesey, and at the Wynchcliffe Festival in Cheltenham in the next few weeks, make sure to catch her if you can!
“A real creative force” – Evening Post
“Delightful comic verse, articulate and imaginative” – Three Weeks
“She is fantastic!” – Frank Hennessey, BBC Radio Wales
“Absolutely brilliant” – The Guardian
