Chris White is a poet and performer, who produces Exeter’s regular spoken word night Spork. He has recently been selected as a Siren Poet for the Cape Farewell Project, an international arts organisation creating a cultural response to the climate challenge. Local writer Ysella Sims has been talking to him about the impact of lockdown, the writing process and his dream dinner party.
As a performer Chris White combines the careful with the reckless, the serious with the silly and shy self-effacement with abandoned coquetry. As an audience you’re never quite sure where he’s going to take you but quickly learn that, wherever it is, you’re going to want to go.
He is the creator of several one-man shows including Sunked (Theatre Royal Plymouth, Camden People’s Theatre, The Bike Shed,) and Moist Moist Moist. I caught up with him, back in lockdown proper, to see how he was faring.
Hi Chris, how are you finding lockdown? Is it affecting your creativity?
Yes!! Lockdown sucks. For about 3 weeks I didn’t work or do anything at all. I moved back into my mum’s. I wandered around in the woods. I wrote a load of stuff I’d never normally write. I saw some deer for the first time ever. I recorded birds singing. I started noticing different types of butterflies. But I’ve also been feeling overwhelmed, angry and depressed, just like everybody else. I shaved all my hair off, I’m still not sleeping properly and I miss my friends.
How would you describe what you do?
I’m a spoken-word artist who creates stories that are often silly, surreal and ironic. I try to make stuff that’s engaging and accessible. In shows and sets I like to blur the line between theatre, comedy and poetry. I write a lot about queerness, class, relationships, identity,anxiety and ducks.
How did you come to writing?
I went to uni in Norwich to study script writing and started writing poetry in my second year. I didn’t have any real interest in poetry before then. I joined the creative writing society for the exact same reason I joined the Christian Union – free food and a boy I fancied. We started going on these organised trips to the Birdcage to see poetry open-mics.
It was such a weird novelty. I had no idea that people actually sat round in pubs and recited poems to each other. I thought it was weird then and I still do. But I gave it a go, found I could make people laugh a bit and carried on doing it. Poems are just a lot easier to write than plays. You don’t have to keep remembering a load of names, or worry about stage directions.
At the end of 3rd year we all got given these jokey awards. Mine was the “John Cooper Clarke Award for F*cking Brilliant F*cking Poetry,” and I still hadn’t seen that much spoken-word, I had no idea who John Cooper Clarke even was. After that I moved to Bristol and realised that spoken-word is absolutely everywhere and absolutely everyone is a poet. It’s great. I lost my degree ages ago, but I’ve still got that award.
Are there themes that you return to in your work? Do you have a favourite word or words?
I don’t know. There’s a lot of words I use way too often; suddenly and and are some of the chief offenders. And rhyming words like kissed / wrist are a cliché waiting to happen – but they’re so nice to use. I try to learn new words all the time.
I’ve just started working in a call centre and in my profound boredom I’ve discovered I really like the word pre-populate. It’s fun to say because it’s so plosive and it’s got that nice onomatopoeic POP in the middle. It really livens up the drudgery of an electronic form.
Splodge. Spork. Spurt. Squirt.
Bungling! That’s a pretty fun word. Even though it does make me think of Boris Johnson. It seems to be used exclusively for when jewellery shops or banks get robbed. No-one ever bungles up a piano recital.
As for themes - Boys. Sex. The sea, for some reason; that’s about it. I like writing about bodies and stuff that’s maybe a bit graphic or gross. ‘Visceral,’ I imagine Lynne Gardener would call it if she ever came to see one of my shows …“Visceral, bodily bungling. Five stars.”
Do you think there's a difference between poetry and spoken word? Does it matter?
I think there is a bit of a difference. I know it's not as simple as saying you read one aloud and one to yourself (one stage and the other page.) I think it probably doesn’t matter too much.
This is a fairly abstract question, but what do you think ‘Poetry’ is?
I should answer this really poetically; ‘Poetry is the epitaph of the living.’
Do you think there are elements that can help to make a ‘good’ poem?
One that expresses almost perfectly a thought you never knew you had. Or I’m just happy if I can make something silly with a knob gag and a pun title.
Have you had to overcome any barriers in order to write?
Mostly my own laziness. Sometimes a bit of impostor syndrome. I mostly work full-time and spend my downtime thinking about being creative, rather than actually writing. I’m never sure if poetry and performing is just a hobby of mine or something more serious. I know that like with any craft you need patience,practice and a bit of hard work. But I just tend to write when I feel the urge(which is not very often at all)
Is there a piece of advice that somebody has given you that has been particularly helpful? Do you have your own that you pass on?
I did a workshop with Buddy Wakefield once and he told us that instead of saying we felt anxious, we should say something like “I feel like 10 cats in a mailbox.” I think that's really good advice.
Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
I really wish you’d given me a limit on the number of guests! This is so hard when you actually start thinking about it. I've just whittled it down to 6:Bukowski (I don’t think we’d actually get on but I'd love to chat to him, it would probably be horrible).
Sarah Pascoe (every time I see her I think about how I’d actually love to be her mate. She’s so flipping clever and funny and lovely).
Leonard Cohen (for obvious reasons).
My current, all-time biggest ever crush, Lucas Hedges (I’m not expecting anything to happen there, but I think he’s great and I also think we’d really get on, and I really want to borrow some of his clothes).
Lucas Hedges’ girlfriend, Taylor Russell (she seems nice… I feel like she’d have to be there, and if I saw how happy and cute they were together maybe I’d be able to finally be at peace).
And Jesus (just to ask him a few questions and finally put that whole debate to bed).
Tell us a secret
Kim Jong-un is alive and well and living in Droitwich.
Cat, dog or reptile?
I would really like a dog. I’d definitely suit a cat more. And for reasons I can’t be bothered to get into I’m currently living with 2 tortoises (Bob and Tom) 2 terrapins(Fluffy and Agnes Brown) and a turtle (I can’t remember its name).
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