Arts: The mad cow collective

A Manchester suburban semi, free beer and lots of aphrodisichocs. It could only be the Carnage Poetry Festival. By Judith Palmer

"A toilet on every floor" boasts a large handwritten sign Sellotaped to the porch of Number 66. Two elderly ladies alight from their bicycles with matronly curiosity and venture inside the suburban semi for a quick shufty.

They emerge swiftly, shaking their heads. "We've got our summer fayre this afternoon at the community centre," one dirndled old dame confides worriedly, as she Blu-tacs an emergency notice on to the gatepost. "I do hope people don't get mixed up and come here by mistake."

Alternate streams of boy scouts and dreadlocked Manchester students file past each other down the laburnum-lined suburban splendour of Norman Road, Rusholme, seemingly unconfused by the rival attractions on offer. Tombola- fanciers and bouncy-castle-enthusiasts one way, acid jazzophiles and lovers of avant-garde poetry following the sounds of the pumping PA to the thistle- strewn front garden of Number 66.

Midday, and Norman Road's marathon arty garden party, "Carnage", should be underway by now, but the 22-year-old hosts all got up a bit later than they'd planned, and are still lollopping around getting ready. Sam with the curly sidies is on wiring, giggling Joseph is hanging drapes indoors, skanking Arnie is carrying all their furniture across the road to a generous- spirited neighbour. They may be expecting upwards of 1,000 visitors, but hey, it's an all-day event, who needs to hurry?

"We have warned the neighbours and they're all cool about it," assures the main organiser of the Carnage jamboree, poet-musician Jont Whittington (recently head-boy of Eton and professional slow left arm for Middlesex). "We thought it might be a bit much for Charlie next door, though. He's 88. Everyone in the house has thrown in pounds 8 each to send him to the Belmont Residential Home in Cheadle for the weekend. He's been really looking forward to it."

The sub-text to the Norman Road end-of-lease blow-out is the publication of Jont's annual anthology of unfashionably experimental poetry, Mad Cow. "There was supposed to be a live cow tethered in the garden all day," Jont apologises, "but we had to sack it. I didn't know it would be so difficult, but apparently there are lots of new regulations about transporting cows. We have got a Russian poet, though."

Volodva Kostyakov peers out suspiciously at the glimmering sunglasses lying amid the dandelions, before launching into a lively poetic declamation in Russian. A blowsy blonde Pauline Calf figure in a red floral frock teeters up to the stage in silent admiration, one hand gripping a can of Tennent's, the other lunging out to frisk Volodva. "I do this poem without support," ventures the Russian bravely, but the ample Pauline already has him pinioned like a boa-constrictor.

Do his poems normally have this effect? "My poems are very dirty," he sniggers drunkenly, spraying a bottle of lukewarm Cava over my new snakeskin sandals. "But in Russia," he hisses, "when artists do something, everyone must keep quiet. Here is drinking, smoking, conversation. Pah. Is no good."

Tanking up on free beer, guarana buzz fudge and aphrodisichocs, the steadily growing audience may not be giving the acts their most rapt attention, but an appreciative hum hovers like a flymo over the garden, as each successive band or poet takes the mike.

"I'm going to read from my recent pamphlet, Forty Fungi," offers Harry, an earnestly bearded poet from Cambridge; "... palid with slightly raised veins... fertile subterraneous vapour ... alive with skully lumps ... and now a complicated sequence based on bell-ringing..."

Botticellian poet Miles Champion is racing: "... 19 meringues made a toc-toc sound...". "Don't worry," reassures Penny, from Champion's publishers, Carcanet, "they don't make any more sense slower."

Just as Jamie the cellist is getting into his Benjamin Britten, a violent cry pierces the lugubrious air. Shearer has scored. At last, I can stop sneaking off to listen to the radio in the ice-cream van: there is a television in this house after all. Charging up to the attic, I winkle out the soccer studio and the patriotically body-painted figures of Robyn and Steve.

The Derby artschool boys' attention is fixed less on Venables's lads, however, than on the model aircraft they are fastidiously assembling. One dodgy penalty decision later, Steve's Heinkel HE 111 H-6 has been crushed by a rubber mallet and Robyn's Sepecat GR MKl Jaguar has bought it under the weight of a miniature cricket bat. Ah-ha... "Performance art?" I enquire tentatively. "Well, it's supposed to be called Carnage," the duo explain, "not that there's been any. It's not exactly an art attack, just a big hippy party. Blatant excess is what we want. Mind you, it's better than the football."

Back outside, a ruddy-faced senior citizen is getting active with a Rolleiflex. Is he taking pictures to send in complaint to the council? "That's my baby," he points proudly at the gangly bassist plugging himself into the Fresh Vibes amp. "We wouldn't be here if there wasn't family involved," explains mum, Binnie, who has driven up from Exeter. "I've never been to one of these before."

"Let us say there is a lacuna in our experience," says dad, Walter, genially. "This is a whole different culture. You have to suspend judgement - with some reluctance - but I like the friendly way they greet each other, like the charismatics of the Catholic church."

"I don't know why they all have to share cigarettes, though," he adds, with a long-suffering twinkle.

"We need to be getting off now," prompts Binnie. "Our sister-in-law, Brenda, is singing tonight with the Huddersfield Over-Sixties Ladies' Choir. They're doing My Fair Lady."

Jont's dad is heading back too. He's gladly given up his usual Saturday on the golf course, but pressing matters await him at home. "We've got 400 people coming to look at the garden tomorrow. National Gardens Scheme." Perhaps the Whittingtons senior also have a toilet on every floor. Unlike the boys of Norman Road, however, they probably got the Vim out, bought some loo paper, and took the orange tie-dye out of the sink.

"Wouldn't it be great if Jimi Hendrix were here," sighes a loved-up jazz singer to the nodding spectators, in a why-were-we-all-born-too-late-for- Woodstock-kind-of-a-way. "God, it makes me glad I'm not a student any more," tuts Toolio, who has driven up from London specially for the poetry. "It's the smugness on their faces."

"Any smarties?" enquires an ashen Liam Gallagher look-alike blearily, who's suddenly lurched into twitching half-life. "I just need a few pills to bring me round."

In need of fortification myself, I head towards Mr Wint, the grizzled West Indian selling home-made beverages on the street corner. "Dem boys love it down Mosside," he whispers encouragingly, pouring out a large dose of ginger beer, "It wash out de belly beautiful - you'll be back for more." As headline band Red Red Groovy wind up, a dozen nine-year- olds zip with water-pistols towards the pink cliques of bodies dozing contentedly amid the beer cans in the nippy Mancunian twilight. As night falls, a dozen DJs slip their decks into the house, and the daytime numbers of around 200 swell hurriedly to a pulsating night-long 1,000.

"Manchester's a club city," shrugs John Wojowski of Kino cinema, packing up the projector that's been showing kooky shorts of naked kung fu and animated dismemberment throughout the day. "It's difficult to bring anything different, or get art seen as anything more than wallpaper. Today has tried."

And what about Charlie, tucked up in retirement haven in Cheadle? "There was a disco blaring out opposite all night and planes flying 30ft overhead," he mutters in the morning. "Didn't sleep a wink."

Mad Cow', pounds 7 from 33 Kingsley Place, Highgate, London N6 5EA. Cheques to J Whittington