spoken word – Page 52 – Robert Garnham

A Brief History of Comtemporary Performance Poetry

Here’s the lecture that I delivered yesterday to the Torquay Museum Lecture Society.

I was at the Edinburgh Fringe this past summer. I was out in the Royal Mile handing out leaflets in a light drizzle for my one hour show and a chap asked me what my show was about. I told him that it was a spoken word piece, feeling a touch of pride as I did so. Because it wasn’t theatre and it wasn’t comedy, it wasn’t music and it wasn’t a dance troupe, it wasn’t mime, it was my own show, a spoken word piece. He frowned and said, well, doesn’t that describe any kind of show? Aren’t they all spoken word? Maybe, I said, apart from mime.

But he had a point.

For the last couple of years I’ve called myself a spoken word artist, albeit mainly because it sounds different and I was fed up with saying to people, ‘Oh yes, I’m a comedy poet, you know, like Pam Ayres’. Comedy poetry, in some people’s eyes, is the ultimate oxymoron. There’s nothing wrong with Pam Ayres, she’s seriously funny and warm, but it kind of made people think that I’d be seriously funny and warm. Spoken word artist sounds much better. It sounds cool. But this chap on the street in Edinburgh had cut right to the heart of what I do. It didn’t mean anything.

Some people prefer the term ‘performance poetry’. And for the purposes of this essay, I shall be looking at the art of what I do by using this term. The other reason that I use this term is because that’s what it says on the publicity material for this lecture. Performance poetry and spoken word generally mean similar things these days. It all goes back to the oral tradition.

What is the oral tradition? How far back do you want me to go? Cave dwellers had the capacity for communication but they didn’t have the internet, so it’s possible that they sat around and chatted, or grunted. And if so, did any of them use the tools of rhetoric, rhythm, rhyming and alliteration to describe the important caveman themes of the day, you know, the perils of upsetting a sabre tooth tiger, a really interesting rock, or once meeting an old man who, some believe, managed to live until he was nearly thirty years old. No major writings exist from this period so we can only speculate. Perhaps the cavemen were too busy inventing fire or going to Cher concerts to worry about performance poetry.

I already feel like I’m straying from the brief, the brief itself being ‘A History of Contemporary Performance Poetry’. Which as I’ve already pointed out, also means a history of contemporary spoken word. How you can have a history of something contemporary is a riddle in itself, and if I were more philosophically minded then perhaps I’d investigate this from an existentialist viewpoint. But as you can see in the caveman paragraph above, I’d like to get to the root of the subject. From the moment that life emerged on planet earth, two cells dividing to create this bizarre and mysterious journey upon which we all embarked the moment we sprang into existence, the moment that fish crawled out of the water and walked on land, the moment a mouth developed and vocal chords, and you know what, I’m straying from the subject again.

Performance poetry is shorthand for poetry. And what is poetry? Poetry is words, interestingly arranged. Poetry is the communication of sentiment and feeling, the infinite, the sublime. Poetry is communicating human experience, intangible emotions, urges and sensations, situations, parables. Some see the shipping forecast as poetry. The Argos catalogue has its moments. The South Devon bus timetable is poetry. It’s also fiction. Yet only the most avant gard would want to stand on stage and recite one of those special offer leaflets that you get in Lidls.

Jeffrey Wainwright, an expert on literature, defines poetry as ‘words which catch our attention not only through a grasp of their dictionary definition, but through their sensuous impression’. Stephen Fry, an expert on everything, describes poetry as a ‘primal impulse’, before wittering on about temp, iambic pentameter and clerihews. And the Oxford English Dictionary defines poetry as ‘vessels made of fired clay, the work of a potter, or a potter’s workshop’. Poetry means different things to different people, depending on circumstance and personal preferences. Some say that poetry is only poetry if it rhymes. In fact, Donald Trump tweeted something similar to this not long ago. My own view is that poetry is concentrated literature, a brief glimpse, simultaneously, into a personalized viewpoint, and the human condition itself. It doesn’t matter to me what form it takes. So up yours Donald Trump.

(I really hope I’m the first person in the history of Torquay Museum’s lectures to utter the words Up Yours Donald Trump from this lectern!)

Assuming that all poetry was written originally as spoken word, we can therefore see it as a means of communication. Certain words are given meaning, rhythm and a pattern established, rhetoric employed, rhetoric being deliberate speech with something to be said. Our pre-printing press forebears would communicate knowledge, advice, religious theology and maxims to ensure the continuance of a generation’s wisdom. Thirty days hath september. A rolling stone gathers no moss. Red sky at night. Metaphor and similie allow poetry to infuse even these sayings, unless of course Shakespeare came up with them first. He always seems to get his hand in.

Oral tradition, therefore, transmits knowledge, art, ideas, cultural material, family history, hymns, folklore, mythology, recipes, scriptures and advice to the next generation without using the written word. Most people couldn’t write, less could read. (Or maybe that should be the other way around). Mnemonic devices such as alliteration, repetition, assonance, repetition and proverbial sayings ensured the continues of such knowledge, for example, Buddhist teachings in India and Asia, Hindu wisdom, the dream lines of Aboriginal Australians, myths and stories of the western coast Haida tribes.

Even to this day, twenty five years later, I remember how the vegetable warehouse at Staines Sainsbury’s had its floor cleaned on a Thursday morning because of the rhyme I created to remind myself. ‘If floor be wet on Thursday, then that’s the day when the mops do play’. Which goes to prove that even twenty five years ago, I was a little odd.

The earliest forms of writing in ancient Greece, including the invention of the alphabet, without which choosing a CD in HMV would be virtually impossible, drew their meaning and character from spoken word. The poet Simonidies ‘ implied with scorn that his poetry would last for longer then mere inscription’, such was the opinion of that incredibly well known poet Simonidies.

Spoken word in ancient Greece was used as a method of developing myths and as a means of communicating their culture. Greek lyric was included as a part of the original Olympic games, though records are somewhat sketchy as to whether this was conducted, like the athletes, in the nude. There are some things you’d rather not see. Greek lyric poetry was composed to be accompanied by the lyre and were performed at symposiums, which were little more than elaborate drinking parties. Subjects included politics, war, drinking, money, youth, old age, all themes which are regularly explored today at most performance poetry events. Though unlike contemporary times, you don’t get endless poems about other people’s Facebook statuses.

The Homeric epics, The Illiad and the Odyssey, were both conceived by their authors as performance pieces. You’ll note that I used the plural there, as there remains some doubt as to whether Homer himself existed or was merely a character himself said to have composed these two works. At some point the epics were recorded on paper, papyrus, wax pad, homogenised into two canonical works which now stand as the definitive text.

The same can be said of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon epic, and all medieval literature. Poetry and lyric were always written, or rather composed, with an audience in mind, for public recitation and entertainment. Icelandic sagas, Norse myths, Arabian fantasies, African tribal traditions, Pam Ayres, Germanic fairy tales, Chaucer, Shakespeare and everything which existed up till the invention of the printing press and, shortly afterwards, the internet.

It was all performance. It was all spoken word, gesture and nuance, tone of voice, hand movements, acting, intonation, use of props, use of stage and scenery, and not written with the idea of one person in their drawing room reading it from a book next to a grandfather clock with the snow falling outside and the fire crackling and the farmers rotating their crops and the Roundheads and Cavaliers bashing hell out of each other and Queen Victoria dancing the tango with Emperor Nero. And even with the invention of the printing presses, there was no guarantee that anyone could actually read. In Victorian times, particularly the 1860s onwards, penny readings were a popular form of public entertainment in theatres and music halls, where a diverse bill of literary passages and poems were read or performed for an audience who paid a penny for the privilege.

The modern term ‘performance poetry’ was supposedly invented in the 1970s by Hedwig Gorski. I say ‘supposedly’ because it’s Wikipedia that told me this, and also Hedwig Gorski’s website herself. She also claims to have invented the phrase ‘pet sitting’, and if this is the case then good on her. I’m sure someone in the entire history of human evolution must have mentioned either of these expressions before 1970, but there you go. Hedwig apparently invented the phrase to describe the sort of avant gard spoken word musically accompanied work that she was doing as a means to dissociate it from the performance art and spoken word of Laurie Anderson who is, I tell you now, one of my heroes. Since the early 1970s, Laurie Anderson has been mixing spoken word with performance art, music and film to create a genre all of her own, while Hedwig Gorski wanted to be seen as a different kind of artist, equally exciting and inventive and personally inspirational, working on the effects of voice, word and music in a performative context. Quite where pet sitting comes in to this is anyone’s guess.

For the purposes of this essay I shall, retrospectively, apply the term ‘performance poetry’ to any kind of spoken word public poetry performance of the twentieth century before Hedwig Gorski. In fact I believe it all ties in with the performance poetry scene of the present moment. The only question is, where does one start? If all poetry is written for performance, then the choice is seemingly endless.

I’d like to start by mentioning Dorothy Parker. I mention her not because she was a performance poet, or is even seen as a performance poet, though she was clearly a poet and indeed she was clearly a performer, but because I just want to mention Dorothy Parker. Who knows how many poems, skits, witticisms and verses were delivered in a rowdy haze at the Algonquin Round Table all those years ago. I’m sure she would have had a lot to say about this lecture. So this is me, then, mentioning one of my heroes, Dorothy Parker.

To my mind there were four poets for whom the spoken word and public performance informed the public perception of their work. However, I regard only one of them as a genuine performance poet. The first is TS Eliot, active as a poet 1905-1965, the second is Robert Frost, active 1914-1963, the third is Dylan Thomas, active 1933-1953. Not only were these incredibly well regarded and experimental poets popular on the page, but their public performances were also noteworthy for being engaging and even entertaining. Dylan Thomas’ voice was instantly recogniseable in the new radio age, and easily imitated, yet it gave full flavour to the gravity and seriousness and also the occasional playfulness of his work. Indeed, so compelling and so entertaining were his performances that he toured the United States three times in the last four years of his life. Much as with Frost and Eliot, the style of reading and the seriouness afforded living poets, and the spread of radio and records into people’s homes, helped maintain and even increase the popularity of spoken word.

But was it performance? Thomas affected a measured, metred voice almost weighted in its rhythm and intonation. This was not a normal way of speaking, this was theatrical, at all times conscious of the audience balanced with the absolute belief in the solemnity or emotion of his words. Of which there were a lot. This, I believe, was definitely performance.

There was a criticism from those in academic circles that Thomas was too verbal in his language, obssessed more with the sounds of his words than their meaning, which, if it were the case, would fit in with the idea of Thomas as a poet with one eye – or ear – on future performance.

To my mind, there was one genuine performance poet from this period, and she’s another one of my heroes, along with Laurie Anderson and Dorothy Parker.

There is a danger that Edith Sitwell is remembered more for her eccentricity, clothing and muddled personal life than for her poetry. She was certainly a unique dresser, wearing robes and turbans, chunky jewellery and odd-shaped hats, and in spite of her aristocratic upbringing and bearings, she lived in bohemian circles in London and Paris. However, she was genuinely performance-driven and avant gard. Her poetry was often accompanied by music, said rather than sung, in varying speed and in perfect time with the music. In some respects she was like a 1920s rapper, and from all accounts she certainly did get jiggy with it. She experimented with the new craze of jazz, finding rhythm and meaning in discordance and imagery while, in her personal life rebelling against the usual accepted modes of behaviour. Indeed, her literary career was very long, stretching from the 1920s and the jazz age right up to the 1960s when she appeared on This Is Your Life. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, famously having a long running feud with Noel Cowerd, and disliking the Beat Poets of the 1950s because, according to her, they ‘smelled bad’.

Her most famous piece was ‘Façade’, performed for the first time in the 1920s and often at breakneck speed in time with the music, with Edith herself on stage yet hidden from view behind a curtain. This new performance style of poetry is said to have angered some, Sitwell herself saying that after one performance, ‘An old lady was waiting to beat me with an umbrella’. Yet her poetry recalled religious imagery, London in the Blitz, and the full expanse of human emotion. In spite of her bohemian milieu, Sitwell never found true love, pining for young gay men who were, quite obviously, not interested in her. I know how that feels.

It’s interesting to note that a lot of the trends and accomplishments in contemporary performance poetry can be traced back to Edith Sitwell : the emotion, the eccentricity, the wearing of interesting hats, perhaps even the poet and the medium being more noteworthy than the message itself. As Edith said, ‘Poetry is the deification of reality, and one of its purposes is to show that the dimensions of man are, as Sir Arthur Eddington said, halfway between those of an atom and a star’. It’s always difficult quoting someone when the person you’re quoting then quotes someone.

So who were these stinking Beat Poets, that Edith Sitwell found so pungent? The Beat Generation began as early as 1949 when Jack Kerouac coined the phrase ‘the beat generation’. It described a feeling, a sensation of failure, fatigue, of being fed up with the world and expected modes of behaviour. Kind of like most teenagers, really, except teenagers hadn’t been invented yet. One of the most iconic of Beat Generation moments was when Allen Ginsberg performed his poem ‘Howl’ for the first time in public at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, 1955. According to Ginsberg the poets involved in the reading ‘got drunk, the audience got drunk, all that was missing was the orgy’. As you probably know the long poem ‘Howl’ as published by the City Lights book store in San Francisco was eventually tried in court for obscenity, which probably did more to pubicise the book, the beat generation and the counter-cultural aspirations of the Beats than anything else. Beat Poetry performances were wild affairs. A contemporary newspaper reporter wrote, ‘The audience participates, shouting and stamping, interrupting and applauding’. This was not the sort of behaviour that would ordinarily occur at a poetry recital.

In truth the Beat Generation was a collection of individuals, mostly associated with California in the 1950s and 1960s. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, William Burroughs, who would collaborate years later with Laurie Anderson. The freewheeling style of delivery and almost unconscious manner of writing would later inspire a whole generation such as the singer Bob Dylan, while their subject matter and performance style would still have an effect now on the contemporary scene. The strong language, the simple use of metaphor, the breathless delivery, words and sentences piled one on top of the other like a bottomless lasagne, along with a rejection of orthodox poetic conventions. Most of Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ was written in one mad afternoon, while Kerouac’s novel ‘On the Road’ was typed out on as long seemingly neverending scroll of paper. In such a way the images and language feel spontanous, new and vivid, borrowing from the improvisational techniques of jazz. Not everyone was enamoured with this style of delivery and composition, the author Truman Capote saying of Jack Kerouac’s prose style, ‘That’s not writing, that’s typing’.

There’s a certain nostalgia among performance poets for this era. San Francisco is still seen as a hotbed of performance poetry, as can be seen in one of the few films in recent years with a performance poet as the main character, ‘So I Married An Axe Murderer’. The Beat Poets left their mark on the delivery of poetry, the counter-cultural status of poetry, the youthful engagement of poetry, poetry as cool. It’s the idea of the beret-wearing goateed Beat Poet with a double bass thrumming along to lines thick with imagery that people conjur when they think of performance poetry. I don’t usually correct people when they think that this is what I do.

Yet from this period comes another poet, who wasn’t a Beat Poet, but has influenced a lot poets on the contemporary scene. New York-based poet Frank O’Hara is the poet I most admire, and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t even be here now. I don’t mean that he gave me lift over here this morning. What I mean is that the discovery of Frank O’Hara completely changed the way I look at poetry, the subject matter, the freedom he brought to his work, the seemingly carefree attitude he took to his craft. O’Hara studied poetry and worked as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, where he was influenced by the abstract expressionism of artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning. He wanted to replicate what they were doing on canvas in his poetry. His work embraced the traditions of the past, and then drove a truck straight through them, making a conscious decision not to discriminate between high and low culture, classical and throwaway. A typical O’Hara poem might be about a Mahler concerto, a ballet, human emotions, fine art, but also hamburgers, Coca-Cola and contemporary film stars. His work was primarily about the city of New York and would include descriptions of people, places, events, conversations and gossip from the film industry, or else about the way that he had spent his day, in one of his famous ‘I Do This I Do That’ poems. And this was evident in his readings and performances, his matter-or-fact conversational tone, purposefully camp and throwaway yet ultimately celebratory of life, urban life, city life, one of his most famous lines being, ‘I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store, or some other sign that people do not totally regret life’. He could be deeply funny, and I really don’t think any other poet enjoyed living so much as he did. The fact that he died young at forty would ordinarily have been a sad footnote, the fact that he was run over by a beach buggy while walking blind drunk on a beach on the way back from a party says all you need to know about him.

Towards the end of the twentieth century the history of performance poetry becomes somewhat fragmentary. Over the next couple of decades there was a real flowering of different styles of spoken word poetry. I’ve already mentioned Hedwig Gorski and Laurie Anderson, both of whom were experimental in outlook and yet whose work touched on universal themes and concerns about social injustice and the environment. Indeed this was the start of an increased politicisation of performance poetry and the fact that it was a platform able and eager to give voice to those who believed they had none. The Beat Poets mentioned political aims in their work, particularly in terms of peace and the Cold War, gay rights, women’s rights, as a precursor to the flowering of Hippy culture in the 1970s. Performance poetry was able to embrace diverse voices and styles and incorporate elements from other cultures, including the artistic experimental Fluxus movement of the early 1970s, and also reggae, rap and African-Carribbean traditions. Linton Kwesi Johnson performed poems dealing with the experiences of being an African-Carribean living in the UK. His method of delivery was dub poetry, in which spoken word is delivered over reggae rhythms rather than sung, written rather than improvised. Benjamin Zephaniah also made his name in such a way, spreading Carribean culture into the mainstream and introducing new voices into the poetry community.

At the same time spoken word was represented at comedy venues by acts such as Pam Ayres and John Hegley, both blurring the lines between stand-up comedy and spoken word. Pam Ayres made her name on ITV’s Opportunity Knocks and is still the highest paid poet in the country today. John Hegley was equally at home on the comedy stage, fronting bands and singing as well as performing humorous poetry on prime time TV. However the award for the most ingenious mix of poetry and another genre has to go to John Cooper Clarke, who spent most of the 1970s performing his fast-paced comic poetry with a social conscience during punk rock concerts, usually to the derision, amazement and finally acceptance of the audience.

The Liverpool poets, Roger McGough, Adrien Henri and Brian Patten, brought a clarity, humour and mass appeal to poetry in the 1960s, once again blurring the lines between page poet and performance. The inventive techniques all three poets employed helped bring poetry to a much wider audience with exposure on TV and radio, records and publications, and subject matter and a delivery style which many found easy to consume. Indeed, the Liverpool poets spawned quite a movement, including pop music groups, folk groups, breakaway groups and a vivid emergence of pop poetry which went on to inspire a lot of the artists who followed.

This brings us, more or less, up to the present day.

I feel quite honoured to be a part of the contemporary spoken word scene. There’s an incredible variety and creativity around at the moment, even though the scene is frequently and, occasionally, youth-orientated. Contemporary performance poets such as Kate Tempest and Hollie McNish inspire youngsters to get involved in writing and engage with the world in their own language and style. There is a significant crossover with rap music, which itself is a development of spoken word and the fast-paced delivery of the Beat Poets and Bob Dylan. In London there’s a vibrant spoken word rap culture in which urban youngsters wearing fashionable clothing explore themes of alienation, racism, social injustice, and the same old timeless themes of love, family and relationships. Bristol also has a thriving scene and a distinctive voice of its own, again fast-paced and with a great use of internal rhyme.

One of the biggest developments in performance poetry came in the 1980s and the invention of the poetry slam by a Chicago-based poet called Marc Smith. Poetry slam is a performance competition in which the audience is asked to judge individual performers based on writing, audience response and performance. The first slams were held in Chicago, but they now happen all over the world in every major city and Wolverhampton. Indeed I have been fortunate enough to win a few slams in my time, which shows that I’ve still got it, and for a whole year I was officially the second best poet in Swindon. In the UK the Hammer and Tongue organisation holds regional slams leading to a national final at the Albert Hall every January. Since the 1990s there has been several developments on the slam poetry theme, with poetry rap battles – strangely popular in Bristol, in which poets and rappers spend three minutes insulting each other in rhyme – and the anti-slam, in which poets purposefully write and perform the worst poem they can possibly imagine.

I’m worried that one day I might win one of these by accident.

The history of performance poetry over the last thirty years reflects the social and political concerns of a culture as it speaks to itself. The Apples and Snakes organisation, a charity based around the promoting of speech, freedom and poetry, was set up in 1982 and has recently begun a project archiving the rich variety of British spoken word, curating publicity material from many early performers, such as Phil Jupitus and Craig Charles, who have since gone on to become household names. As society develops and changes, so do the social concerns of performance poets, and each year the wealth of experience and the diversity of the voices adds to the attractiveness of performance poetry as a genuine artistic movement. With the invention of YouTube, performance poetry has become an almost perfect medium to get a message across in three minutes or less, posted on websites and social media platforms. Every now and then a YouTube poetry video will go viral making poets such as Mark Grist and Vanessa Kisuule into internet celebrities. Some of my own videos have been watched by almost thirty people.

So the current scene is vibrant, diverse and almost unclassifiable. The typical performance poetry night will consist of

Political poets, poets concerned with social mobility poets, ranting poets, drunk poets, blank verse poets, what could be worse poets, rhyming poets, people who write poems about cats poets, stand-up poets, rap poets, page poets, philosophical poets, surreal poets who wear weird hats poets, murmuring poets, shouting poets, theatrical poets, musical poets, whimsical poets, short sharp energetic poets, ballad poets, domestic poets, global poets, slam poets, rambling poets, stories of personal oppression poets, beat poets, street poets, poems written in retreats poets, I’ve got a trumpet and I’m gonna blow it poets, street poets, radio poets, TV poets, once made an advert for Nationwide poets, Shakesperian poets, Bristol poets, poets influenced by the Liverpool poets poets, and the occasional writers of sonnets poets.
To be honest, I see myself as a spoken word artist.

The Day This Summer I Almost Gave Up On Spoken Word

It’s been a strange year for a lot of reasons. Professionally for me, it’s been a very good year with lots of opportunities and reasons to get excited about the future, some of which I can’t reveal right now. But just a few months ago it looked very different.

I was reminded of this by the retirement of Nico Rosberg, the current formula one world champion. For those uninitiated with motor racing, he won the world championship after a thrilling duel with Lewis Hamilton, reckoned by many to be the best driver in the world today, then promptly announced his retirement. It was a brave and honest move.
This summer I performed at the Edinburgh Fringe. I was only there for a week, but the usual Fringe madness was endemic, the seemingly endless cycle of promoting and leafleting, flyering, talking, then putting on a show in front of three people at the most. I was getting audiences at least, but I was not having the best of times, in a noisy venue which was very supportive and friendly and yet wholly unsuited to my show, which demanded long periods of quiet. Consequently I did not enjoy the experience. However, I did appear at a few other shows, as a guest at Stand Up and Slam, which my poetry helped the Poet team to a resounding success, and at the Boomerang Club, where I headlined on the very last day of the fringe.
By this time I was feeling a little frazzled by the whole experience. I’d also had one or two problems, such as losing my passport, so while I should’ve been flyering and leafleting, I was making phone calls and stressing about the passport, because I had a trip to New York and it was looking like I wouldn’t have a passport in time to get there. I’d also had to move accommodation for the last day of my stay due to another procedural problem. So it was all quite stressful.
On the penultimate night I thought, hmmm, why don’t I give it all up? The possibility of a promotion had come up at work, and this would mean less spoken word, perhaps I ought to go for the promotion and not do any spoken word at all, become a professional and competent retail manager instead. And as the penultimate day wore on I thought more and more that this was the right decision.
So I planned the set for the Boomerang Club in the knowledge that this might be my last ever performance anywhere. And where better to do a last performance, but headlining in Edinburgh? It would be a great story. Something to remember for the rest of my life while ploughing ahead into the beauty of a career in retail.
On the way to the gig from my new lodgings, I walked along listening to music, walked past the Courtyard, and someone recognised me from the Stand Up and Slam event, they acted as if they’d just seen a celebrity. It made me feel good.
The show went well and I finished on my poem ‘Plop’, which I normally start routines with. I did this because it was a little symbol to myself, a little nod. The show went very quickly, and I sat down and thought, well, that’s done then. And now I’m a retail manager.
Getting home to Devon took about twelve hours and when I finally arrived my mind was blank. But then something weird happened the next morning. It was like my brain had been wiped, that the whole future of spoken word seemed a blank canvas on which I could completely start again.
And instead of retiring, I found myself acting as if I was a complete newcomer. I set in motion a system of rehearsing and concentrating on performance skills. I decided to try and learn all of my new material. And I decided to have fun. Why should I stop doing the only thing I’m halfway decent at?
And I decided not to go for the promotion.
It’s a gamble that has paid off. I’ve got a few opportunities and projects which are quite advantageous, financially, and I’m even considering reducing the number of hours I do in my day job to accommodate these. This whole half year has been a complete reinvention. And of course, I had a fantastic gig in New York, once I’d sorted my passport out, winning over a cabaret crowd in Greenwich Village right next door to the Stonewall Inn.
It’s been a weird year, and I’m so glad that I didn’t Do A Nico!

On getting nervous at poetry gigs.

Last night I caught the train to Torquay and walked from the station to the Blue Walnut. It was seven years almost to the day since I started performing which means I’ve done the walk from the station regularly all that time. The road is steep and at one point it does a switch back, like a mountain road, and there are steps cutting through so that the pedestrian doesn’t have to follow the road and has a short cut. When I first started performing, I used to be so nervous walking this route that I would follow the road rather than take the short cut, because it prolonged the moment that I would arrive. In fact I used to be so nervous that before a gig, I would spend an hour in my flat lying on the floor staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about it.I chatted to Tim King last night and we both said how nervous we were before the gig. Perhaps it’s a good sign, being nervous. But even after all these years I feel something deep within, some fear of the unknown, of mucking it up, of being humiliated in front of a room full of strangers, of being exposed as an incompetent who’s only blagging his way through spoken word events.

The biggest fear is probably of completely losing touch with everything. With the audience, with the words on the page, with the whole situation. The line between being in the audience, being a normal member of society, and being a poet, particularly a humorous poet whose job it is to make people laugh, is very thin. Anyone can do it. I did. I made that leap after coming along to a poetry night.

But there’s a suspension of disbelief inherent in being in the audience, and this is the thing that keeps me going. They’re not judging you, they’re there to have a good time and they want you to do well, particularly if they have paid to get in. The moment you step in front of the microphone you are on show, and everything you do comes through the filter of being there. Actions become acts and words become performance. The promoter has chosen you to be there, an instance of curatorial design, you have been hand picked and therefore judged as worthy to be on show. The audience knows this.

But that doesn’t stop me from being nervous. Even last night, cutting through and using the short cut on the way to the Blue Walnut, I felt that the walk was quicker than usual and I felt a bit cheated because of this. But it wasn’t as bad as it was in the old days.

A brief overview of the Devon poetry scene

Over a year ago I was asked by a magazine to write an article about the Devon performance poetry scene. They didn’t use it. So here it is in all it’s magaziney glory.
Jackie Juno is at the microphone reciting a poem. In gothic, black clothing, ankle boots and a pink feather boa, she doesn’t exactly look like the average poet. The audience is totally at her command and the room buzzes with hilarity. The poem is about Newton Abbot, and when she delivers the final line, there is laughter and thunderous applause. This is just an ordinary night at Torquay’s ‘Poetry Island’.
For the last six years I have travelled the country as a performance poet, delivering sets of whimsical and funny verse to audiences from Edinburgh to London, Wolverhampton to Swindon. Audiences everywhere tend to be enthusiastic for this niche blend of comedy, spoken word and poetry, and most cities have a certain style on the local scene which seems distinct to that area. A lot of London performers are influenced by rap, while Bristol’s thriving scene borrows the three-rhymes-per-line inflexions of hip hop. Yet I am constantly both delighted and perplexed by the diversity, flavour and creativity of the Devon performance poetry circuit.
It’s hard to pin down what it is which makes it so distinctive. Each poet is as diverse and as individual as the next without following any trend or local characteristic. As a result, the local circuit has become truly unique.
Some of these poets are starting to become recognized further afield. Ashburton’s Lucy Lepchani has recently been published by Burning Eye, the top publisher of performance poetry in the UK, and she performs regularly at festivals such as Glastonbury and Womad. Her poetry is about motherhood and nature and takes on feminist and political themes.
Tim King’s poetry is political, social and thoughtful, tackling issues such as drug addiction and child abuse, often performed with a ukulele or a loop pedal for added effect. Plymouth’s Richard Thomas has just had his second collection published by Cultured Llama Books, and his wry poetry about fatherhood and nature has seen him win praise from some of the top names in poetry. And my own oeuvre has taken me to the Edinburgh Fringe and some of the biggest poetry nights in London. We all have different styles, motivations and influences in our chosen field, yet we all come from a relatively small population spread.
What is it about the Devon scene which makes it so vibrant and diverse? For a start, there are an abnormally high number of monthly spoken word events in Devon. Because of this there are plenty of opportunities for local poets to try out new material in a supportive atmosphere. It also gives a chance for big names from further afield to visit, see the local talent, and invite them to gigs in London and Bristol.
Also, there is a culture on the local circuit of developing new talent and encouraging first time performers. Chris Brooks, the inaugural host of Poetry Island, would run workshops and courses to develop and hone the art of performance poetry, while most venues welcome new performers. The co-host of Exeter’s ‘Taking the Mic’, Tim King, is eager to give a platform to new voices.
‘Our job is to make sure they have a good experience as possible and keep coming back, learning and improving. It’s a very rare newcomer who fails to entertain at all’.
Tim reckons that the diversity and creativity of the local scene is due to the ‘tradition of openness and experimentation exhibited and encouraged by those who run local poetry events’.
Gina Sherman, the south-west coordinator for spoken word organisation Apples and Snakes says that, ‘Maybe it’s the sea air, the creative spirit and the down to earth people that make the Devon performance poetry scene so welcoming, intelligent, inclusive and witty’.
Whatever the reason, it’s clear that the local performance poetry circuit is going from strength to strength and developing an identity all of its own which has to be seen to be believed. Come along to a poetry venue yourself and you will not be disappointed!

Professionalism and free gigs

Lately I’ve been pondering on professionalism, or more precisely, my own professionalism as a performance poet. The reason I’ve been pondering on professionalism is that I’d like to get to a stage where I can say definitely that I am a professional. And I suppose the ultimate definition of professionalism is that I get paid to be a performance poet, and that it is sustainable and economically viable.
So the thing is that I’m quite lucky at the moment on two counts. The first is that I have a job, a nine to five job in retail management. So whether I’m professional as a poet or not, I’m still going to get paid. The second lucky thing is that I get paid to perform, in the most part. I also have books to sell and workshops, and I organise poetry events, and every now and then I get commissions which also pay. So in that sense I’m professional in that it’s slightly more than just a hobby.
However, I still do things which I’m sure a ‘professional’ wouldn’t. I find myself doing lots of free gigs, and these gigs will never be economically viable. It’s all very well doing a free gig if it’s for charity, giving up ones time for a good cause. But a lot of the major gigs I’ve done over the last year have been unpaid.
I live in a very silly part of the world. Paignton is nowhere near any major urban hub. There’s no culture here, so therefore there are no major poetry gigs. The last spoken word gig in Paignton was probably when the Epicentre Cafe held one of its wonderful Word Command nights, and that’s about four years ago. And then there was my book launch on the local book shop, but that’s about it. So if I’m going get paid for a gig, it would be Bristol or London at the nearest, and that means two or three hours on a train.
So every gig that I get paid for entails expense of travel and time, and actually getting there in the first place. I’m very fortunate to have had paid gigs all over the Uk and have made a bit of money doing so. But a lot of the gigs I’ve done have been unpaid.
So why do I do them? I was pondering this last night. What are the benefits? I suppose the major one is that I meet new people and get a chance to sell them books. I see other performers and o get inspired, and it’s always great to network and meet new and exciting people. And I can use my old material and see that it still works, or try out new pieces.
If I was making a living from poetry, then this would not be a viable means of making a living. Yet we need the free gigs so that people can see us. It’s advertising, and the best kind of advertising. That’s what I always tell myself.
So I’m happy to do the free gigs if they’re doable, but I have to choose them wisely. If every performer demanded payment then the gigs wouldn’t happen. If I were to leave my job and concentrate on my art full time, (something I’m considering at the moment), then I’d have to think very hard about such events.

An Interview with Hannah Teasdale

Hannah M. Teasdale’s collection ‘Laid Bare’ is a beautiful selection of autobiographical poems built around themes of love, loss, longing, physicality, the body, motherhood and relationships. The book tells the story of the poet’s relationships with her family, with a lover, and with herself. And as such it is a powerful work, deeply honest and frequently mesmerising in its use of language.
I’ve known Hannah for a couple of years and her performances are equally assured and honest. She connects with the audience with a measured insistence that feels easy, allowing us to glimpse the human within.

Your poetry is very autobiographical. How useful is writing poetry in order to explore your own feelings and emotions?
The emotion is already there. The writing of it comes as a natural process, as a consequence; it is simply a way of ‘setting the emotion free’ from my mind – and to some extent, my body. The only way I can manage my feelings is to pour them out onto a page.

That said, I enjoy writing commissioned pieces where I am given permission to use language without the blood-letting.

The entirety of Laid bare was written ‘in the moment’ – some of the pieces, when they came to editing, I had barely any memory of writing. I estimate I wrote around 500 pieces in a six month period. Clearly, only a small selection made the final cut.

Clive Birnie was very clear from the outset that he wanted the book to follow a narrative, a natural arc. Therefore, I chose poems that followed this brief and could take the reader on a ‘journey’. I hope that it has been successful in creating a story that readers can follow, in a similar way to a short novel but also that the poems can stand alone, in their own right. There are poems, that for their literary quality, I wanted to keep, but knew they would take the reader off-course from the story. By the same token, I have included pieces that helped to knit the narrative together. I never censor myself during the process of pen to page, however, there are pieces that will never see the light of day due to their potential impact on other people. When I was a child, I wrote a story about my best friend’s family and was completely baffled why she didn’t speak to me for a month after I read it to her. I haven’t completely learned from that experience as sometimes, I have overstepped the mark, but I do put out a clear caveat to anyone who might become intimately involved with me, that I do have a tendency to speak my truth…

Some of the pieces were written for performance, and editing them for the page, was difficult. I began as a writer for page, screen and theatre. It was only after my first pamphlet was published, that I began to read my own work out loud. It has been an almost excruciating process and even at my first book launch, I couldn’t read my own work – I had friends ‘perform’ my poetry.

I learnt the ‘art’ of performing by watching others and understanding the need for flow and rhythm in my writing. This has stood me in good stead with other genres of writing and I am now more competent at both writing and performing. When it comes to answering the question, ‘which poem has received the biggest response?’, I think it would be true to say that sometimes, a poems such as ‘How not to say you love me’ and ‘Simply enough’ , have always been enjoyed by an audience but maybe for their lyrical quality and the ease at which I can perform them. However, there are other pieces that I don’t generally perform, like ‘Torn’ and ‘The Phone Call’ that I receive positive feedback for when people have read the book.
Do you write specifically for performance?

I do keep in mind whether a piece of writing is intended for performance to a live audience, or to be read on the page by the reader. This debate over ‘performance’ and ‘page’ poetry is a palpable hot potato currently and one that causes so many unnecessary divides at a time, when as writers, we should be embracing the art as a whole and not seeking to label and divide. It was said to me by a Professor of Poetry that ‘poetry is not meant to be accessible’, that it requires intellect to analyse and unpick. Others have argued the very opposite and have found great solace in discovering a genre that is not reminiscent of their claustrophobic school-days texts. Some have said that ‘Laid Bare’ dares to attempt to bridge that gap, but I am sure there are many critics who would argue against that.

Who are your literary influences?

My literary influences are broad in genre and writing style. I am naturally drawn to writers who speak a truth about human existence in a way that hits you in the stomach. Deborah Kay Davis consistently surprises me with her succinct use of lyrical but slicing language. She hits ‘that spot’ so effortlessly. Ted Hughes will always provide me with a come-back-to point of reference. If I am ever ‘stuck’, I open Birthday Letters and perhaps find a couple of words to write from. I will always be awestruck by his ability to draw upon the natural world to express the human consciousness. And it goes almost without saying, Dorothy Parker is a complete stand-alone in her ability to pull strands of light through the darkest of black.

What projects are you currently working on?

Over the past year, I have been working on a third collection that consists of much shorter poems dissecting the psychological and physical impact of brief sexual encounters. I hope that it pushes even further through the uncomfortable boundaries of the sexually taboo – without being too explicit.

Recently, I have been involved in a number of creative art’s projects – working with young people and vulnerable adults as a creative writing facilitator but also with artists on collaborations.
What advice would you have for aspiring poets?

I don’t know if I feel qualified to be giving aspiring writers or performers ‘advice’ as it is such a personal journey; what may be right for one person, is not for another. There is a fine line between pushing yourself just far enough out of your comfort zone to grow as an artist but keeping yourself safe and sane enough to keep going, without destroying yourself in the process. A very fine line indeed…
A

Edinburgh Fringe Blog Part Seven

https://youtu.be/ZoRytcasNrc
So the good thing about the fringe is that you see all kinds of different acts and the potential for being inspired is heightened. I’ve seen so much while here that I’ve got a very clear idea of where I need to be and how the show can be massively improved with just a few small tweaks. Yesterday I was very privileged to have breakfast and a long chat with one of my favourite performers, (who wishes to remain anonymous because of the trade secrets that he divulged thereat). We met at a coffee shop in the new town area and he took me through every aspect of putting on a show, from the logistical detail of publicity and accommodation, to the more fundamental aspects of rehearsal, writing, learning the damn thing. It was the most enlightening couple of hours I’ve spent in a long time, as he imparted information which an artist might ordinarily have to cough up a lot of money for. I bought him toast and coffee to say thank you. In fact, I was so inspired that I went away and did a little bit of writing right then and there.

Now, obviously I should have been flyering. And I did a lot of flyering yesterday, both in the Royal Mile and Cowgate. I flyered like you wouldn’t believe. And while I was flyering I was thinking, I shouldn’t be doing this. But it’s a necessary evil. Spoken word show? Hello madam, I’ve got a show today at three. Spoken word show? Spoken word show?

It’s a lonely business, flyering, even though you’re surrounded by people. You’re surrounded by all the other flyerers. And they’ve all got various degrees of annoyance, like the pushy ones, or the cheeky ones, or the ones who are just plain rude, and even those who insult anyone who doesn’t take a flyer. What’s that all about?

So I did all this flyering, and what do you think happened? No audience. I could only be philosophical about it, of course. I’m at the fringe, yes, but really I’m not that well known in the slightest. My show is on directly after Harry Baker, and he’s a world slam champion. And I’m also a slam winner. Well, second at the Swindon slam, anyway. Later on in the day I watched Gecko’s excellent show and he did a song about the painting that shares the room with the Mona Lisa and I thought, hmm, I know exactly how it feels!
But it’s all a great experience and a valuable learning opportunity. I’ve seen so much that has inspired me that I know exactly the manner and tone that I shall be adopting in my writing. And yes, I’m probably the oldest performer on the spoken word scene up here by quite some margin, but I feel all new and eager to get on with it.

Edinburgh Fringe Blog Part Two

Heathrow
So here I am now at Heathrow Airport Terminal Five. I stayed last night in Woking, which is one of my favourite towns and a place where I’ve spent a lot of time. When I booked into the hotel I asked if it was okay to pay with a debit card. We accept anything, the receptionist said, apart from goats.
It seems kind of unreal at the moment that I shall be performing this afternoon in another country. Okay, that country is Scotland, but when you’re used to Torbay, anything north of Newton Abbot is dodgy ground. The coach driver from Woking to the airport was incredibly jolly and rather envious of my old suitcase, which forms part of the show. You don’t see many of those, he said.
I expect the baggage handling crew are saying that too, right at this moment.
Edinburgh
It was a weird day. I mean, they talk about the madness and the insecurity which hit some more than others. Has it already hit me?
The flight was fantastic. The stewardess who found me an empty overseat locker advised me to use it quickly as those who bring suitcases on board will nab it. She was one of the jolliest people I’ve met in a long while with an evident love of life and a loud booming laugh which echoed from the galley all round the plane.
The flight was 45 minutes. It took 30 to get my case at the baggage reclaim. I caught the bus to the city centre straight to my venue, arriving ten minutes before my show. The audience seemed to enjoy it, (both of them), but I treated it as a rehearsal and afterwards pondered on a raft of changes I might make for the rest of the run. I also need to be louder. Tomorrow will be an entirely different matter.
I walked the mile out to my student accommodation, then realised that I’d left my jacket at the venue!
It was great to see Dominic Berry and Chris White, and later on I bumped into Rose Condo, Dan Simpson and Rob Auton.
It’s going to be a mega week!

Edinburgh Fringe Blog Part One

Well here I am then, on a train heading to the Edinburgh Fringe. Well, almost. First of all I’m going to Woking to spend the night in a room over a pub, and then tomorrow morning I will be flying up. It was either that, or fifteen hours on a coach. In fact it’s cheaper this way than getting the train. How ludicrous is that?
So how am I feeling about all this right now? There are several emotions. I’m nervous, naturally, that everything is going to go tits up. Nobody will show up for any of the gigs, and when they do, I fall into that age old trap of being crap. I’m excited, because this is the Edinburgh fringe and a lot of my friends will be there. I’m also grateful that I am able to spend an entire week immersed in art and culture.
I’m also nervous that the logistical arrangements I’ve made will fall apart. The accommodation, the travel, the train, the plane.
So here so am, then, on the train, and I’ve managed to get a high profile seat in first class. It was a whole three quid extra to get in here, and I feel privileged, because they don’t just let anyone in. That three quid means a lot.
And I’m the only one in here as the train leaves Exeter, which makes me feel kind of poncey. But then a lusciously blonde muscular lad sneaks in and plugs his mobile phone into the charger. A minute or two back he’s later to look at his phone. Then he slides in, commandeers the seat for himself. Good move!
And oh mamma, what a good looking chap he is. Amazingly he offerere me a Fruit Pastel, and then we get talking. Where are you going? Woking? Me too! Where do you live? Paignton? Know it well! What do you do? Spoken word artist? I’m a property developer. And we chat for ages, about books he’s read, his love of To Kill a Mockingbird, his skills as a weekend surfer, and then it starts to get embarrassing. Whenever I try to relax he asks something else, and all the time I’m looking at those luscious legs.
At Honiton he gets off and meets a man on the platform who gives him a suit in a bag. He gets back in and looks at the suit, the tie, spreading them out on the table. Very smart! We chat some more, and then the man comes to check the tickets.
You’re in the wrong section, he says. Please move back to the standard class.
I’ve still got two hours of this train ride to go, but I’m already thinking, ah, yes. The adventure has begun!
And will I still be thinking of this blond lad in seven days time?

https://youtu.be/YjpL6VZtC78

Paignton station.

Exeter St David’s station.

The most significant full stop.

The aim is to make this the most famous full stop in the history of mankind.

It was originally typed at 0845 on a Wednesday morning, at a Costa coffee shop in Paignton, Devon, UK.
There will never be a full stop as momentous as this one.
Why, you ask. Why should it get all of the acclaim? To which we reply, why not?

The font is irrelevant.

This full stop could have gone anywhere but it gave up on all that potential because it sees the bigger picture.

Feel free to share this full stop. It needs you help.