Adrian Johnson

Adrian Johnson is Birmingham poet laureate for 2009/10. Working in Birmingham, he is also a storyteller and director of kindandgenrous productions. He promotes spoken word and writer events across the Midlands, recently establishing the nation’s first storytelling laureate early in 2010. His first novel Love and Taxes appears this summer.

What do you do in your cultural life in Birmingham?
My cultural life in Birmingham includes regular visits to the Central Library for books and tickets for gigs across the city. I also love going up and down in the lift at the Ikon Gallery because it has an angelic, heavenly, choir singing all the way, a great piece by Martin Creed and the singers of Ex-Cathedra! The Waterhall Gallery is another space I love to visit for its bright, light, white space and unique exhibitions. After that, some cinema at the Electric or Fiveways is always welcome. Also, of course, I love to write and scribble down ideas and sometimes phrases overheard on the number 120 bus into the city. Sometimes these goes into a new poem, other times not! A visit to the Old Joint Stock pub is also a must for a pint and a show in their unexpected upstairs theatre space. The kitchen garden café and the traditional song club have recently caught my imagination, and the wonderful storytelling events that they host with Graham Langley. It all stokes my poetry, song and fiction writing fires!

Where do you do this?
Most of my writing gets done at home and the rest on the number nine bus, or on a train pulling in or out of Birmingham New Street Station, or in venues like the Ikon gallery, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, The Hippodrome and Fiveways cinema.

What would you like to see happen as part of Birmingham's City of Culture programme in 2013? I would love to see Spaghetti Junction closed for a week or weekend of promenading, poetry, song, sledging, parkour, fireworks, dance, street circus and skateboarding. I always like it when Digbeth is closed for St Patrick’s Day or Pride. I think we absolutely can re-invent Spaghetti Junction, with sons and daughters of the city playing in its slow and fast lane.

I would love to hear all the school choirs of the West Midlands converged in the Town Hall or Symphony Hall.

Also, as I wear an ACME Thunderer whistle, I’d love to see a chorus and celebration of the world famous whistles that are made here in the city.

I’d love to see a poetry party for the city with all 15 Birmingham poet laureates and the young laureates in the Banqueting Hall with Benjamin Zephaniah as MC, and the nation’s children’s and poet laureates in attendance for a poetry jam.

I’d love to hear CBSO play some traditional Birmingham songs and music in public, outside the silver bottle top façade of Selfridges.

I’d love to see a new public art work mounted in honour of the historian Carl Chinn while he’s alive, and one to recall the very much missed poet, Roi Kwabena.

I’d love to see a set of park swings somewhere in the city centre to allow adults to play at lunch time, especially during our City of Culture year. The idea for a high wire act in Edgbaston Reservoir, plus some street circus, sounds like a good thing too.

I’d love Jo Grundy from the Archers to get cracking on his bid to become the next Birmingham poet laureate in 2013. He can do it and entertain the nation from the BBC Birmingham studios, of course.

Is there a space in the city where you think a cultural event should take place?
The space I most like, when it’s full, is the space where Birmingham Jazz present their Friday rush hour gigs. It’s a lovely space, and is public and private at the same time. A park like Cannon Hill or Sutton Park is also a great place for a wild and wonderful carnival and celebration of the city in the summer of 2013. There’s a new library ahead too, with lots of new space to enjoy for free as a cultural citizen of Birmingham.