Last weekend I experienced two ends of the spectrum of ‘We Are Lewisham’ London Borough of Culture 2022; a journey that began over three years ago and has now fully found its rhythm.
On Friday, I went to an evening of collaborative performances at Blackheath Halls, curated by Mercury prize nominee Dave Okumu and featuring Jessie Ware along with ESKA, Yazmin Lacey, Tiberia B and Rosie Lowe. The evening celebrated musical connectivity across genres, the range of artists coming together like a bouquet of flowers tied together by their Lewisham roots.
On Saturday, on my way to another ‘We Are Lewisham’ event, the Poetry Takeaway Van, I had a discussion with my daughter about how much she hated Algebra even the mere mention of the letters ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘x’, ‘y’ and ‘z’ as they remind her of dreaded equations.
Having dropped her off, I went to find the Poetry Takeaway Van in Beckenham Place Park. There it was: a repurposed burger van with four poets looking to capture people’s stories and turn them into poems. When I challenged one of the poets Tyrone to write about Algebra his jaw dropped and laughing nervously, he said he hadn’t done Algebra since his GCSEs. Daunted but undefeated, we talked about Algebra being stories with ‘a’, ‘b’, ‘c’, ‘x’, ‘y’ and ‘z’ being the main characters.
I could see he wasn’t pleased to meet the Algebra geek but thirty minutes later he produced this poem:
X wakes up wants to know who he is meant to be.
Doesn't know what he is doing
Just knows his ABC
X finds Y
Time and time again
they keep adding to each others lives
Y is a good friend
Y turned 5 yesterday
solved who she wanted to be
is determined to tell X no more than ABCs
they tried to divide and conquer
to figure it out alone
that this is solution one couldn't figure out on your own
they knew that when Z was there they made a sweet sixteen
that's when the answer came to X like some kind of dream
take five away from sixteen and that leaves you with eight
so taking Y away from Z means it's three you will create
X figured themselves out they were number 3 they finally knew more than just their ABCs
From enjoying some of the best musicians in the world, to a beautifully formed poem, this weekend was what the London Borough of Culture is all about. The best of Lewisham; the best of London: connecting to your home, challenging your perceptions, the joy of maths and cultural experiences.
From the soft tones of Tyrone the poet to the amplified harmonies of Jessie Ware; nothing comes between artists and their art during Borough of Culture, not even algebra.
Shipra Ogra, Senior Policy Officer, London Borough of Culture at Greater London Authority