Stu Freestone: Poet, performer and cheesemonger
YORK spoken-word poet, performer and cheesemonger Stu Freestone will launch his debut poetry collection, The Lights That Blur Between, at The Crescent on March 30.
A co-founder and associate artist of Say Owt, York’s “collective of gobby northern poets” since 2014, he writes in a playful style founded in everyday moments in works that walk the line between between grit and gentleness.
Or as Barmby Moor surrealist comedian Rob Auton puts it: “There’s so much momentum in Stu’s words. The images sprint into your head and your brain is a better place for it.”
Drawing from family stories, kitchen tables, pub corners and stages across the country, his poetry “celebrates ordinary lives with extraordinary care,” says Stu. “Blending conversational humour with emotional honesty, the writing explores love, loss, resilience, and the quiet lights that carry us through.”
The Lights That Blur Between has been written over more than a decade, shaped on stage and finally brought together “somewhere between a notebook, a pint and a deep breath”.
“The collection explores the nostalgia of adolescence, relationships and grief, and the ongoing work of processing life, as well as the occasional – and necessary – detours into the comedic themes of condiment addiction, festival trips gone wrong, cheesemonger battle raps and the perils of ‘after work’ drinking,” says Stu, summarising his “honest portrayal of life experiences”.
The cover artwork for Stu Freestone’s The Lights That Blur Between. The sea, its vastness and restorative powers, feature emotively in his writing
Freestone has performed across the UK, including multiple runs at the Edinburgh Fringe, and was shortlisted for Best Spoken Word Performer at the Saboteur Awards in 2015. He has shared stages with internationally renowned artists such as Shane Koyczan, Hollie McNish, Sage Francis, B. Dolan, Dizrael, and Harry Baker and has recorded live sessions for BBC Introducing and BBC Upload.
Now comes his debut book launch, promising an evening of powerful performance and heartfelt storytelling, including two sets from Stu, one accompanied by a band featuring guitarist (and shoemaker) Simone Focarelli, accordionist Ben Crosthwaite and drummer Joe Douglas, plus support slots from York performance poet and political satirist Sarah Armitage and emotive Grantham singer-songwriter Adam Leeson.
“It’s amazing really,” says Stu, reflecting on the book’s completion. “It’s been a journey since 2012-2013 to now, where I’ve always thought I should have done it before, but the writing wouldn’t be same.
“I’ve had a lot more experiences to collate into my writing, so there are more meaningful tendencies to what I want to write about: whether nostalgia or re-living that nostalgia, or resilience or getting over grief: things I had not experienced back then. So it’s ‘me on a page’ on 100 pages and it’s nice to have that proof in my hand, in the book, which is very different to having it on my laptop.”
Stu’s poetry differs in print from live performance too. “There’s a massive contrast because I was very aware of how to transpose it to the page, and where it would need an edit to a make it more book-friendly,” he says.
“There are pieces that have evolved for the page or been written expressly for the page. There is therapy here, from both the reader’s perspective and mine, where I feel I’m confiding in them amid the grief of everyday life, when there are things that don’t get spoken about in the spoken-word performance environment.
Stu Freestone’s self-portrait from The Lights That Blur Between as he looks at himself in the mirror
“The book is basically saying we’re all the same in how we grow through memories, reflecting on those nostalgic moments but then contrasting that with the everyday processes of normal life: the things that others don’t see.”
The book is divided into four sections: adolescent reflection, mental health, then comedic works that “try to find the light in life” and finally, our relationship with loss, encapsulated in Before The Lights Go Out and the closing poem, title work The Lights That Blur Between.
“We try to get through loss with courage and empathy, where we can grow from our memories, but inevitably we walk through these lines between ‘breaking’ and ‘becoming’,” says Stu.
“I lost a friend, Nick,to suicide two years ago and wrote Before The Lights Go Out as an ode to our home town of Grantham and then the desperate bleakness of him no longer being there. The only thing I can take peace from is he achieved what he need to achieve, which sounds very dark, when he felt help was not an option.
“I’m 40 now, and to have lost as many people as I have in my close circle is very unlucky, so it’s an interesting place for me to try to find the perspective on that. I’ve done that through processing and writing, and I’ve written poems that aren’t in the book that are angry, but the ones in there that mean most to me are testament to trying to find positivity, for men to know that it’s OK to talk. That’s why we’ll be fund-raising for CALM, the Campaign Against Living Miserably charity.”
Stu’s trademark playful positivity surges through two poems in particular, Bliss, his hymn to York, his home since York St John University days in 2005, and Heed The Cheese, a nod to his other life running The Cheese Trader in Grape Lane. “I wanted to write a ‘univocalic’ poem, where every word uses only one specific vowel, so it had to be ‘E’ for cheese!” he reasons.
It strikes the only cheesy note in the book.
York Literature Festival and Say Owt present Stu Freestone, The Lights That Blur Between: book launch, The Crescent, York, March 30, doors 7pm. Box office: yorkliteraturefestival.co.uk or https://thecrescentyork.com/events/say-owt-stu-freestone-book-launch/.