Word for word

The terminology around performance poetry is a minefield. Arts Council England likes the umbrella term ‘live literature’ – perhaps to distinguish it from that irrelevant dead stuff. Some creative types favour ‘spoken word’, suggesting those tedious conversations overheard on the bus are works of art. One venue, keen to avoid elitist terms, offers its punters a selection of ‘word’ events. (Presumably the rest of its programme consists of music and mime.) Similarly the range of work presented as performance poetry defies ready categorisation. However, I suspect all its practitioners see themselves as poetry rebels, newcomers working beyond the margins of the literary establishment. Their work is pirate radio, rather than Radio Three. If traditional verse is a shy Cinderella, performance poetry is the pushy sibling determined to go out and party. Beyond a few specialist festivals, attendance at traditional readings tends to be white, middle-class and aging. Performance poets tempt venues with the prospect of not just new audiences but young and culturally diverse audiences.

Yet for all performance poetry’s glister, does it deliver gold? Firstly, its newness is debatable. After all the printing press is a modern development: reciting one’s own work goes back as least as far as Homer. And we should remember that some of the 21st century’s more mature writers – for example, UA Fanthorpe and Paul Durcan – enthral listeners even though they’d never call themselves performance poets.
And how alternative are poetry performers? This is a universe where men outnumber women and in which grungy blokes bombard us with political invective. Meanwhile for females, high heels, low necks and poignant breathy pieces about the trials of Lurve are de rigueur.

Quality

I’ve endured sets from scatological obsessives and anti-gay ranting from a Rastafarian rapper. I have sat through interminable performances about tormented twenty-somethings searching for their identity, involving digital projection and DJs. I’ve been alternately infatuated with, and infuriated by, the poetry slam format. (This consists of a sort of ‘Strictly Come Poet-ing’. As with the dance contest, competing poets are judged both by panel members and the wider audience – with similarly unpredictable consequences.) And I relished every minute of poet Lemn Sissay’s one-man show ‘Something Dark’. Here, charisma and verbal skill were complemented by excellent lighting, music, design and direction. Apples & Snakes, which describes itself as ‘England’s leading organisation for performance poetry’, developed and promoted Lemn’s show a few years back. More recently they’ve begun a two-year programme called ‘Incubate’ in partnership with several venues. This involves enabling spoken word artists “to develop new cross-artform projects with a variety of different practitioners and to embed spoken word into the venues’ programmes”.

I asked Geraldine Collinge, the organisation’s director, if performance poetry really can cover everything from open mic nights in pubs to one-person shows by paid professionals. She replied, “For me the amazing thing… is that it embraces all of those things and all of those artists… The different sorts of performance poetry events share the same kind of values and dynamic – an immediacy and directness in their relationship with the audience and an edge that comes from the fact that anyone can pick up the mic and do it. I don’t think that there’s a hierarchy in performance poetry.” Perhaps the diversity of the work of Apples & Snakes, which encompasses touring productions, regional events and projects aimed at young people, guarantees they’ll favour a broad definition. But I’d certainly agree with Geraldine that while there’s a perceptible pecking order among literary poets, their performance counterparts are more inclined towards mutual generosity.

Judgement day

However, a reluctance to pass judgement can also be a weakness. Published poetry is reviewed in specialist magazines and broadsheets using a centuries-old tradition of literary criticism. The Poetry Society, which publishes the highly respected ‘Poetry Review’, has existed since 1909. The Poetry Book Society, whose recommendations are highly prized, has been around for over 50 years. But – so far – no organisations providing similar support and challenge exist for performance poetry.

Then there’s the issue of money. No poetry-related employment makes a person rich. But some literary poets secure positions doing reasonably well-paid academic teaching, leaving them some time to focus on their own writing. This route isn’t available to performance poets who may end up doing lots of small projects at a community artist’s daily rate. Only a handful get onto schemes such as Incubate. For most, being able to focus on their artistic development – which requires greater resources than the simple PC needed by a page-based artist – is well-nigh impossible. Too often, promising young performers fall by the poetic wayside. At its best, the wit and topicality of performance poetry and its willingness to mix traditional rhyme with up-to-the minute musicality give it considerable appeal. Yet some traditionalists would argue that its accessibility, its crowd-pleasing qualities, mask a lack of substance. Others in the field play down suggestions of any divide. August bodies like the Poetry Society and the Poetry Book Society want a bit of performance poetry’s street cred. Meanwhile performance poets crave greater cultural respectability.

The writer Don Paterson would reject Geraldine Collinge’s inclusive vision of poetry as a game anyone can play. In a recent TS Eliot Memorial Lecture he stated, “Only plumbers can plumb, roofers roof and drummers drum; only poets can write poetry”. He goes on to argue that “restoring the science of verse-making” would give literature-lovers renewed “confidence to insist on the poem as possessing an intrinsic cultural value, of absolutely no use other than for its simple reading”. I’ll confess to being heartened by this reminder of the worth of pure poetry, of words that aren’t bellowed out to gratify some individual’s ego or spewed forth to gratify a funder’s social agenda. Surely Paterson is right to remind us of the importance of just sitting down with a book and reflecting on its contents?

Admittedly trying to digest Faber’s latest slim volume can be like forcing down bowl after bowl of organic muesli. But exposure to high doses of performance poetry resembles overdosing on Coco Krispies. After the initial buzz one’s left with a splitting headache and/or a curious feeling of emptiness. Performance poetry attempts a fusion between an old, essentially simple, form and more recent, complex kinds of expression. To date the results have – like the curate’s egg – only been good in parts. But a pessimistic conclusion would be premature. Let us hope the best is yet to come.