It's hardly surprising the year is ending with news that dubstep heavyweight Skream is set for a musical collaboration with poet Jodi Ann Bickley. After all, 2011 was the year when spoken word and electronica joined forces, and will surely be remembered for poets putting down their notebooks and turning to the MPC.

The trend began back in February, with the late, great Gil Scott Heron andJamie xx's We're New Here. The two forms have since made sweet, electro-infused music together, with poets embracing the jerky and sometimes downright jarring beats of dubstep and electronica.

Drums Between the Bells, Rick Holland's collaboration with Brian Eno, released on Warp Records back in July, was dubbed "poetronica" by critics and bloggers.

One of the most successful collaborations of the year came courtesy of Josh Idehen and electronica outfit LV, whose album Routes received rave reviews, an album of the month in Mixmag, and bookings at both poetryevents and club nights. Idehen's lyrics were cut and chopped by LV, a fresh and somewhat backwards approach to production. The result is a fun and fast-paced album that Idehen describes as a "true collaboration": "Spoken word works with electronica. It can be a lot more accessible; there are less of the conventions found in hip-hop."

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