A Salford coffee van owner is keeping performance art alive by reading his poems to customers on the go.
Matt Concannon spoke of the importance of his mobile coffee shop: “I wanted to create a space that was safe and allow people to have that communication and to bring back a bit of normal.”
The poem was featured on BBC Radio Manchester and the Facebook page ‘I Love Manchester’ which has an audience of 190K.
The inspiration for the Salford resident’s latest poem, ‘The Day Will Come’ came from a class Matt taught at ALRA in Wigan.
Matt, 29, said: “I was so inspired by what they were doing and what they were creating that mine came from that. It’s such a positive thing, and I was trying to find that positive energy to put into my work.”
Manchester Stories approached Matt to make a short film after seeing his poem online and has received plenty of praise.
One Facebook user, Paul Barrett, wrote: “This is really very good, nice work.”
This poet uses his work to discuss mental health to avoid sounding ‘preachy’.
Matt, said: “People can relate to it more because it’s like lyrics from rap music.
“It’s really important to find different ways to talk about stuff instead of dwelling on it and poetry is a really nice way to do that.”
The thirsty poet has released a number of lockdown themed poems. Particularly criticising how the creative industry has been treated by the government.
This comes as Rishi Sunak confirms the extension of the self-employment income support scheme as the fourth grant will cover February to April.
Matt is hoping to run spoken word evenings in and around Manchester when life goes back to normal.
He said: “It would be nice to get other people talking and other people speaking their hearts out.”
See the best bits of our interview with The Thirsty Poet below.
You can find The Thirsty Poet’s van in Boothstown, Manchester and the link to MCR Stories here:
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