Salena Godden

Salena Godden is a British poet, performer and author living in London. Her short stories and poetry have appeared in Dazed & Confused, Salzburg Review, Le Gun, Penguin's IC3, Canongate's Fire People, Serpent's Tail's Croatian Nights and Hodder & Stoughton's Oral. Godden records and performs in the ska-punk-breakbeat duo SaltPeter, with Peter Coyte. SaltPeter's album, Hunger's The Best Sauce was listed in The Independent on Sunday as one of the outstanding albums of 2007.^[1]

Under The Pier poetry pamphlet was published by Nasty Little Press in 2011. Her work has appeared in Shortfire Press, The Dark Times, Illustrated Ape Magazine, Trespass Magazine, Paraphilia, Rising, Teller Magazine, The Mechanics' Institute Review published by Birkbeck University and Picador's Punk Fiction. Her poetry featured in the three latest anthologies from Tangerine Press entitled Dwang, hand-bound bespoke collections.

Godden hosts and produces The Book Club Boutique. She has featured regularly on BBC's The Verb and Bespoken Word and on Radio 4's Saturday Live. In summer 2011 her narrative play A Valentine at Waterloo was aired and podcast as part of the BBC's Verse Illustrated series, and in the autumn she participated in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty-Six, for which she wrote a piece based on a chapter of the King James Bible.^[2]

Godden has facilitated workshops for First Story, a charity created by author William Fiennes that aims to foster and nurture literacy and creative writing in secondary schools.

'Fishing in The Aftermath / Poems 1994 - 2014' a collection of over eighty poems was published in July 2014 with Burning Eye Books. 'Springfield Road' is her literary memoir and it was successfully crowd funded and published by Unbound on October 1, 2014. Springfield Road is set in Hastings.

She wrote and presented BBC radio documentary 'Try A Little Tenderness – The Lost Legacy of Little Miss Cornshucks' originally aired throughout May 2014 on BBC Radio 4 and then broadcast on the BBC World Service in September 2014.

Appearances

Television and radio

2014: BBC Radio 4, 'Loose Ends'

2014: BBC Radio 4. 'The N Word' documentary

2014: BBC Radio 3, 'The Verb'

2014: BBC Radio 4 'Try A Little Tenderness: The Lost Legacy Of Little Miss Cornshucks"

2013: BBC Radio 4, 'From Fact to Fiction'

2013: BBC World Service, 'The Click'

2012: BBC Radio 4, "Stir it up: 50 Years of writing Jamaica"

2011: BBC Radio 4, Verse Illustrated

2011: BBC Radio 3, The Verb

2010–present BBC Radio 4, Saturday Live

2010: Bespoken Word

2009 Resonance Radio, Black Is…

2006: BBC Radio 3, The Verb

2006: BBC Radio 4, Woman's Hour

2005: BBC Radio 3, The Verb

2005: BBC Radio 4, Bespoken Word/2nd series

2004: Channel 4, Seaside on the Rocks Documentary

2001–05: Resonance FM, The Saltpetre Radio Show

2003: BBC Radio 4/Sony nominated Bespoken Word

2003: BBC Radio 4/Poetry Please commission

2003: Channel 4, Heavy TV – 8-week chat-show

2002/03: BBC LDN, Word For Word Show

2001/02: BBC London Live, Solid Steel – regular Saltpetre

2000: SBN, Craig Pilling Show – regular Saltpetre

2000: Channel 4, SLAM/ Snooker poetry short film

1998/99: GLR, Andrea Oliver Show – 12-week series

Selected publishing: magazines and anthologies

2014: 'Springfield Road' / Unbound Books

2014: 'Fishing In The Aftermath Poems 1994-2014' / Burning Eye Books

2014: 'First Kiss' The Illustrated Ape / Ape Magazine

2013: selected poetry Bang Said The Gun / Burning Eye Books

2013: selected poetry / prose 'The Bierut Of a Hastings Saturday Night' Connecting Nothing With Something - Coastal Anthology / Influx Press

2012: 'I Want Love' & 'Viva Las Vegas' / Liminal Animal Tongue Fu Anthology / Tongue fu

2012: 'Milord' / Too Much Too Young Bookslam Anthology / Bookslam

2011: selected poems / Raconteur / America Issue Parthian Books

2011: "Juicy Fruit", Teller Magazine, ISSN 2047-1998

2011: Under The Pier (collected poems), Nasty Little Press, ISBN 978-0-9563767-4-9

2010: "Harpers Daydreams", MIR Review, Issue 7, Birkbeck University, ISBN 978-0-9547933-7-1

2009: "Ever Fallen In Love", Punk Fiction, Portico, ISBN 978-1-906032-66-1

2009–Present: "6AM & Hastings & Snow From Beneath" (excerpt: Laugh, Kookaburra Laugh), Dwang, Tangerine Press, ISBN 978-0-9553402-3-9

2008: "How We Met" (co-written with Oli Spleen), Gay Times, ISSN 0950-6101

2007: "Play It Again Sam", The Illustrated Ape, Ape Magazine, ISSN 1368 2954

2006: "The Last Big Drinky", The Decadent Handbook, Dedalus Books, ISBN 1-903517-30-3

2006: "Skying & York Hall, Bethnal Green", The Salzburg Review, ISSN: 1561-5871

2005: "A Piece Of The Moon", Croatian Nights, Serpent's Tail, ISBN 978-1-85242-860-0

2004: Katoushka, Tell Tales, ISBN 0-9547761-0-0

2003: "Fierce Pink Lamb Chop & York Hall Bethnal Green", Velocity Black Spring Press, ISBN 0-948238-28-3

2001: "Flies That Whore in Kitchens", Vox n Roll, Serpent's Tail, ISBN 1-85242-624-1

2000: "Clipped And Caged", IC3 – New Black Writing, Penguin, ISBN 0-241-14074-9

1999: "To The Man with the Hair & TV Ladies", Oral / Hodder & Sceptre, ISBN 0-340-75051-0

1999: "Stubble", Girlboy / Pulp Faction, ISBN 1-899571-07-8

1998: "Dutch Courage & Blue Cheese, Raw Fish, Olives", The Fire People, Canongate, ISBN 0-86241-739-2

1996–Present: various short fiction / poetry, Rising Magazine, ed. Tim Wells

Discography

2007: Salena Godden/ Promise Of Gold TwoFive, Apples & Snakes

2007: SaltPeter/ Hunger’s The Best Sauce album, FRED Records

2007: SaltPeter/ I’m Not Gay But… EP, FRED Records

2006 SaltPeter/ Everybody Back To Mine EP, FRED Records

2006: Coldcut/ DVD, Ninja Tune Records

2005: SaltPeter/ SaltPervert EP, Saltpetre Records

2005: Alabama 3 feat Salena Saliva/Boots, One Little Indian

2004: Going Down Swinging/ compilation/Australia, GDS

2003: SaltPervert/5AM/single re-mix, OXYD Records.

2003: Gargoyle Spoken Word CD/ compilation/USA, Gargoyle

2003: Perfecto Presents…Seb Fontaine/ compilation, Perfecto

2003: Flat Pack Antenna/ Resonance FM compilation, Resonance FM

2000: SS&PC/ Egg Yolk Planet Fried debut album, Saltpetre Records

1999: Saltpetre CD/Volume One, Saltpetre Records

1999: Coldcut/Let Us Replay/ Virginia Epitome, Ninja Tune Records (credited as Salena Saliva)

1998: Coldcut/Let Us Play/ Noah’s Toilet, Ninja Tune Records (credited as Salena Saliva)

References