{"id":209,"date":"2018-12-12T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2018-12-12T15:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsite.applesandsnakes.org\/?p=209"},"modified":"2018-12-12T15:54:17","modified_gmt":"2018-12-12T15:54:17","slug":"proper-poetry-class-and-spoken-word-by-kibriya-mehrban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/2018\/12\/12\/proper-poetry-class-and-spoken-word-by-kibriya-mehrban\/","title":{"rendered":"PROPER POETRY: CLASS AND SPOKEN WORD BY KIBRIYA MEHRBAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\u2026one of the reasons it all turned a bit weird was one of those guys saying<\/h2>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t ever want to read [on stage] It\u2019s such a vulgar thing to do.\u2019 \u2013 Joolz Denby<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Despite what some people would have you believe, the history of poetry is an oral one, with a tradition going back to the Middle Ages. Yet we still hear stories like this one from <\/b>Joolz Denby<\/span>(in her interview for the <\/b>Spoken Word Archive<\/b><\/a>), about a page poet insulted by the notion of reading his work on stage. So why was it that spoken word was still seen as secondary and opposed to the establishment of \u2018traditional\u2019 print poetry?<\/b><\/p>\n

The difference between the page poetry and spoken word scenes in the eighties is noted by poet, <\/b>Ian McMillan<\/span> in his interview for the SWA:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u2018What I remember most is the audiences were so accepting of different kinds of things [\u2026] before when you read poems at a poetry event, you\u2019d get fellow poets, you\u2019d get people who went to poetry workshops but this felt new.\u2019<\/i><\/b> \u2013 Ian McMillan<\/b><\/p>\n

At the time McMillan is talking about \u2013 and indeed, now \u2013 print poetry could feel like a closed system, with the majority of the audience (both in terms of buying publications and attending readings) themselves being poets who moved in those same circles. It functioned more like academia than creative production.<\/b><\/p>\n

Spoken word and performance poetry, on the other hand, came to people where they already were. <\/b>John Cooper Clarke<\/span> performing between songs at a Joy Division gig, Joolz Denby reading in your local pub and <\/b>Attila the Stockbroker<\/span> and <\/b>Seething Wells<\/span> ranting in punk clubs. Poetry felt like it was touching pop culture rather than holding itself above it.<\/b><\/p>\n

Perhaps that was the problem.<\/b><\/p>\n

This is the same criticism that comes to anything that appeals to wider audiences \u2013 it\u2019s <\/b>designed<\/i><\/b> to appeal to them, it doesn\u2019t challenge anyone. Yet it\u2019s hard to see how Joolz getting glass thrown at her during gigs indicates that the audience were becoming docile. Ranting poets seemed to do nothing <\/b>but<\/i><\/b> challenge: the Thatcher government, the right wing press and, actually, popular culture itself. They were voicing their concerns in their own language, their own rhythms, and audiences were (sometimes) listening.<\/b><\/p>\n

Joolz, who has performed, published and recorded her work on a multitude of platforms told the SWA \u2018there wasn\u2019t anywhere I wouldn\u2019t do it [\u2026] my aim was always to bring poetry to people who wouldn\u2019t think that they\u2019d like it until they heard it.\u2019 She goes on to say her poetry is about people\u2019s stories, especially those who \u2018suffered, or who were pariahs in society\u2019, the ones who live among us but are rarely talked about.<\/b><\/p>\n

Spoken word artists weren\u2019t just challenging ideas of who could write poetry but who it could be for and what it could be about. They were talking about their lives and the lives of people around them and saying, as Joolz says: \u2018this is really happening, this is real\u2019.<\/b><\/p>\n

These were working class poets riding the wave of punk counterculture thriving on kicking back against a Conservative government, even as the mainstream did its best to demonise and silence them. When a page poet says, then, that reading poetry aloud is \u2018a vulgar thing to do\u2019, we can understand what he means.<\/b><\/p>\n

There <\/b>is<\/i><\/b> something vulgar about poetry given a voice, a loud voice maybe even with a (shock horror) regional accent. There\u2019s something offensive about how it refused to stay still on a page, or go through the filters of publishing houses and editors before being heard. It\u2019s obscene how it was performed in public spaces to people who might not have touched poetry since school.<\/b><\/p>\n

In other words, spoken word was vulgar because it was unashamedly working class, because it spoke to working class audiences. As they were told they should change their subject matter, they continued to write what they wanted. At a time when they were told to be quiet, they raised their voices higher. When they were told to become more sophisticated \u2013 read: exclusive \u2013 they pulled more people in. And long may they continue to do so.<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2026one of the reasons it all turned a bit weird was one of those guys saying \u2018I don\u2019t ever want to read [on stage] It\u2019s such a vulgar thing to do.\u2019 \u2013 Joolz Denby Despite what some people would have you believe, the history of poetry is an oral one, with a tradition going back…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_surecart_dashboard_logo_width":"180px","_surecart_dashboard_show_logo":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_orders":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_invoices":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_subscriptions":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_downloads":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_billing":true,"_surecart_dashboard_navigation_account":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[33],"article_type":[9],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-as","tag-kibriya-mehrban","article_type-read"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":49,"label":"A+S"}],"post_tag":[{"value":33,"label":"KIBRIYA MEHRBAN"}],"article_type":[{"value":9,"label":"Read"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/AS_holder_2-1024x589.png",1024,589,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"D237","author_link":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/author\/d237\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":49,"name":"A+S","slug":"as","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":49,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":192,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0","cat_ID":49,"category_count":192,"category_description":"","cat_name":"A+S","category_nicename":"as","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":33,"name":"KIBRIYA MEHRBAN","slug":"kibriya-mehrban","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":33,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw","term_order":"0"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/applesandsnakes.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}