Land of stomps

Poetry has always been a popular thing in Wales. Something to do with the bardic tradition, the Eisteddfod awards for the best poems in the language, the crowning and the chairing, the prominence of contests where poets bash at each other with the close-metered brilliance of their often instantly-created verse. In English, Dylan Thomas took reading by the throat and made his name across the globe. A poet with a garrulous silver tongue Dannie Abse followed him, standing on platforms reading with jazz bands. Today Gillian Clarke and Menna Elfyn enthral vast crowds of school children with their magnetic work. Wales has more poets per head of population than anywhere else in the UK. Philip Larkin’s idea that poetry was an embarrassment that you hid under the cushions when your parents entered the room does not apply here. In Wales we put poetry on t-shirts, engrave it on the quays of harbours, and build it into the enormous fronts of our world-beating buildings. Check Cardigan sea wall to read Ceri Wyn Jones in 402 point and the Wales Millennium Centre for Gwyneth Lewis’ 40-foot high bilingual ode.

In the last ten years, with the newly energised literature promotion agency Academi at the forefront, the public performance of poetry has rocketed in popularity. The traditional method of standing poets on platforms and getting them to read their stuff and maybe talk a little as well, has always been always popular, and has been joined by a whole range of newer forms of delivery. Get the words off the page, make them dance in the air. Performance poetry has by now become a norm rather than an exception. Poets who use histrionics, arm-waving, penetrating delivery, stand-up comic introductions, recitation by rote, props, and dynamically entertaining verse are in action the length of the country. Poetry as a branch of the entertainment industry. Enjoyed by broad audiences. Getting where it needs to go.

Slams, verse contests in English where the best performers are voted on by judges as if the stuff were ice skating, have been joined by Welsh-medium stomps which ask the audience to pick who wins. In Caernarfon Castle in 2005, a 600-strong audience selected their favourites by waving coloured cards. The stomp has proved to be an enduring Welsh-medium favourite. Participants receive token payment. The winner gets a B&Q stool, a sort of downmarket version of the Eisteddfod’s specially manufactured and artistically created chair. Elsewhere Academi has promoted the idea that poetry is something that anyone can take part in. There are Nights for the Unpublished. Showcases for the new. In Welsh, Nosweithau Beirdd vs Rapwyr, which are nights where traditional poets face off against Welsh-medium rappers, bringing new sparks to an ancient and fiery tradition.

Academi has also established the post of National Poet For Wales, a viable alternative to the UK Poet Laureate, where poetry gets an entrée into the national psyche. The poet holds office for two years and is chosen rather in the style of the Pope. The great and the good gather in a closed room and do not emerge until a candidate is selected. First up was the bilingual poet Gwyneth Lewis followed by the north Wales verse meister Gwyn Thomas. In spring this year Gillian Clarke was the unanimous choice for the third incumbent. Gillian’s poetry is published by Carcanet. She hits a national nerve, is engaging, accessible, and still as elevating and life-inspiring as a poet has to be. Read her and be enthralled. Hear her read live and be stunned.