by Ian Diddams
images by Ian Diddams & Devizes Arts Festival
Harry Baker is a former world champion poetry slammer and German speaker with a mathematics degree. Whether the three are related is open to conjecture but all three feature in one way or another in his work. At the age of twenty he won the world poetry slammer competition in France with what he describes – fair enough – as the world’s best poem “Paper People”. From studying maths rather than medicine at university, to provide him with the time to keep on writing poetry, he is now a full time professional poet with a full diary of tours and performances and four books to his name.
His latest book, “Tender” chronicles the first hundred days of his son’s life and it was this that provided the material for the second half of his performance at the Corn Exchange, Devizes on Wednesday night. The poems ranged from the incredibly short inspired by exhaustion and exasperation, to good sized outpourings of love for his son and his wife, with many other lengths and subjects in between. We leaned how long it takes to look at a horse’s face when you are just weeks old, how Harry becomes accepted as milk provider – eventually, and of the inevitable ejections and projections babies manage from both ends. It is a set of beautiful, amusing and passionate poems the last of which – Day 1 – brought a tear to my eye and a lump in my throat as it echoed feelings of my own for over thirty years now.
Harry’s first half comprised pieces from his earlier books with titles encompassing his German speaking ability about a spoon with which to eat falafel (“falafellöffel”), finding your own way in the world (22 – which I realised immediately is the product of two prime numbers … that maths degree is never far away), a passion for swimming (“Wild”), enduring love (“Dust”) and a philosophical view of inevitable death (“Instructions for a funeral”).
The evening sped by, the audience of almost two hundred from far and near sitting spellbound throughout. Harry is a consummate performer, engaging, witty, self-deprecatory with a typically British sense of humour but with a gentle lilting delivery.His works can be bought at the ever excellent “Devizes Books” of course, and for a taste of what we all enjoyed YouTube has many clips of him in action.Huge thanks to DAF for bringing yet another wonderful act to our town, and the festival is not yet over 😊
devizine.com 