Spectral by Fay Roberts

“Finally, a collection of poems from one of the legends of the spoken word scene! On the page, Fay's words retain both the musicality and muscularity of zir live performances, with poems moving like a gentle fire guiding you on a journey - through the complexity, beauty, and sheer emotionality of life. Dip your toe in and stay for a while in Fay's welcoming verse.” - DAN SIMPSON

Moving through moods and atmospheres, Spectral is a book intended to
be read in a number of different ways:
1. From beginning to end, moving through the blended spectrum of
moods laid out in order;
2. As a mood-picker – either finding something to match your feelings
from one of the seven main sections, or using something to change your
mood to where you would like it to be; or
3. As a pic’n’mix menu of topics, emotions, and poetry forms.
The pieces come from a number of places across the years – some of
them from NaPoWriMo prompts, some from commissions, some from
workshops, others inspired by random book pages, musical sequences,
or just turning up without warning. A couple come, inevitably, from this
past age of isolation and confinement, and still others are inspired by the
wisdom and grace of chosen family.

“Each piece is a waystation on a voyage of discovery to a ‘sky that beckons / ever larger’ and finding ‘brightness, even in the darkest times’” - ROSIE GARLAND

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Born in 1975, Fay is a classically trained singer from Cardiff who has been getting on stages since the early eighties. Ze was bitten by the performance poetry bug in 2006 in Milton Keynes, after a favour to a friend turned into a place in the
final of a poetry slam.
Ze helped to run Poetry Kapow! in Milton Keynes from 2007 to 2011 and has been involved with the Cambridge chapter of Hammer & Tongue since 2010. Ze set up
Cambridge arts label Allographic in 2011, a live events platform and small press. Ze has been the Artistic Director for Spoken Word at The Free Fringe in Edinburgh since 2013 (mostly collaboratively), and host of critically acclaimed Fringe show Other Voices Spoken Word Cabaret since 2012. In 2014, ze ‘won’ the Edinburgh Fringe Anti-Slam as Melody Starchild.
In 2017, zir first solo show, The Selkie, was shortlisted as best spoken word show of 2016–17 for the Saboteur Awards. Ze was Glastonbury Festival Poetry&Words Stage’s official blogger in 2019. Ze has been delivering poetry workshops and courses since 2014, and in 2017 ze accidentally became a voice actor, which sometimes feels like a dream come true.
Ze still sings – persistently. Zir work has been described as ‘lyrical’, ‘engaging’, ‘scarily good’, and as ‘musical’, ‘mellifluous’, and ‘mesmerising’.
Fay has performed in pubs, clubs, theatres, tents, malls,ships, museums, galleries, stone circles, squats, haunted houses, stately gardens, and under duvets; in open mic, slams, features, support, English, Welsh, French, BSL, collaboration, competition, and costume across the UK (and worldwide, virtually).

linktr.ee/fayroberts