Pooka's Pageant 2013

It's Pooka's Pageant tomorrow at Oddfellows Hall in Ipswich, our annual celebration of polytheism through the performing arts. I shall be doing two storytelling slots, one of pre-Islamic Arabic stories with a rather gruesome twist, and the other a selection of Taoist myths.
We also have a good selection of singers, poets and storytellers to entertain people with Indian, German, Welsh, Egyptian and other roots. Should be a great day, I'm hoping the weather will hold, as there are some outdoor events scheduled.

After the Pageant... the day went very well, with some considerable talent on display and a wide selection of tales, poems and song. The poetry of Matthew Plumb was, for me, particularly impressive with its intensely evocative grasp of the natural world. I don't doubt that one day soon he will become quite a name in the poetry world. It pretty much rained all day long, but this actually served to enhance listening to poems about the force of nature. I also enjoyed Libby's take on Black Shuck, and would have liked to have spent more time discussing the nature of the grimmer deities and spirits.
For my own part I somewhat under-estimated the time it would take to tell stories, and ended up doing fewer stories than intended ~ a tale of a caliph and his encounter with a deceitful djinni, the story of Nasrilla the ghula, then later on the tale of Tu Er Shen, and a tale of Lu Ban, Chinese god of carpenters.
The lack of parking at the Hall (and the extortionate costs of parking in Ipswich) remain quite a problem. Anyone would think the local council didn't want visitors coming to the town!

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