Reading the Applause: reflections on performance poetry by various artists

Ian McMillan's foreword to the book

It's great to have a book devoted to performance poetry, (although of course we have to accept that a book about performance poetry is a bit like a photograph of a bag of chips or a drawing of a piano concerto) after years and years of performance poetry being treated like some smelly homeless person who plays the clarinet on the subway. I once went to a school and did a day of performance poetry and the teacher said 'You were very good: we've got an author coming in next week', as though I'd found my stuff on the street.

Children and young people perform poems all the time, whether they know it or not: rhymes, raps, dips, gags, songs, jokes, chants, lists, knocknocks, flitting in and out of everyday life all the time, and it's the job of the poet to capture the words and help them to fly, and to help the children and young people to make them fly.

I wish we could find another word for this kind of poetry, though: it's an oddity that the supplest, most adaptable kind of poetry (you couldn't say that about the sestina) has got one of the clumsiest names. Performance Poetry is a heck of a mouthful. I used to like the term Standup Poetry, but I've gone off that lately; I quite like Spoken Poetry, but it suggests best-suit-and-tie Choral Speaking. Oral Poetry it certainly is, but that term's a bit academic for me. Perhaps the purpose of this book will be to spark a debate about this kind of poetry and maybe a new name will emerge.

I used to work as Literature Development Worker for Doncaster Community Arts but I found that the word Literature was strangling the job. Literature is formal. It says Shhh and sit up straight; so now I'm Words Worker, and that feels friendlier, it feels like come-in-sit-down-have-a-cup-of-tea. And that's what I know performance poetry is: friendly, accessible, immediate, democratic, historic, profound, and a damn good laugh.

So let this book be the start of something. Something huge...

Contents

Introduction: Stephen Wade

From Early Manifestos: Bob Cobbing
Concrete Visual Sound and Performance Poetry

The Oral Tradition:
Joolz - the Parable of the Tellers and the Scribes
John Coutts - 'Were the warriors listening?'
Aileen La Tourette - Irish Lament Poets

The Interviews:
Adrian Mitchell (interview by Stephen Wade)
Roger McGough (essay and interview by Stephen Wade)
John Mole (interview by Stephen Wade)
SuAndi (interview by Michael McMillan)

Essay: Paul Beasley - Performance Poetry or Sub-verse

Voice and Cultural Identity:
Debjani Chatterjee - South Asian Poetry in performance
Leah Thorn - Poetic Dis/closure

Behind The Scenes:
Andrew Darlington - The Ranters, 18 years on...
Oliver Comins - No rehearsals: poetry and jazz with 'Tortoise'
Paula Claire - Ginkgo Fanfare for the Millenium

... in Education:
Trevor Millum - What's in it for the kids?
Peter Dixon & Geoff Ridden - 'Do I have to go?'
John Walsh - The Actor Poet

Ordering a copy

Please send a cheque for £5 made payable to NAWE to PO Box 1, Sheriff Hutton, York YO60 7YU