Since 2018, I’ve had many conversations in climate and environmental circles with organisations such as Julie’s Bicycle and Culture Declares Emergency and found that there was a part of the climate conversation that was missing. People were talking about self-care. Rest was a big feature but what was missing was a moment to just stop and assess what it is you need that looked like nothing at all. I decided to create a creative event entitled “The Pause”. 

I took to the concept of pausing our hectic lives to encourage a practice of taking a beat, a breath, a moment of inaction to calm the body and settle the chemical, electrical and hormonal charges that course through the body, before launching into the next flurry of action. Even if it was an act of self-care.

Image: Zena Edwards leading the workshop at The Pause Field Lab.

The day had a journey to embodiment and planned like this: 

1. We would watch a screening of “Can I Live?”, an hour-long film with a powerful blend of spoken word, live music,  movement and theatre written and performed by Fehinti Balogun
2. A post- screening Q&A. Lunch (which was delicious).
3. A poetry writing exercise and discussion in reflection of the film.
4. And last but by no means least, an experimental embodiment and storytelling session run by the incredible Stacy Makishi.

The writing and actor’s artistry of Fehinti and the imaginative production experience and skills of the theatre-makers ‘Complicité’ is the collaborative tour de force that brought “Can I Live?” into the world. This hour-long multimedia poetic film explores the tumultuous awakening of one individual to human-fuelled climate change, environmental disparity, and the looming ecological crisis. To the protagonist, Fehinti himself, it became increasingly vital for him to take meaningful action.

As we sat through this thought-provoking and fiery film, one fear or concern reared its head that resonated deeply with many of us: the fear of irreversible damage to our planet and the well-being of future generations. This film was a stark reminder that the consequences of climate change are not a distant future but a present reality.

Following the screening, we had the privilege of an engaging Q+A session with Fehinti, delving into the complexities of making a piece like this: as a person of colour, where does his voice fit in the climate change conversation; how do you get others especially friends and family to care as much as you do; what do you do with the anger at the politics around climate change and what can you do so you feel like you’re doing enough to be part of the solution? 

Because the day was titled ‘The Pause’, Fehinti was asked how he would pause. He spoke frankly about his own burn-out. His advice was to be vigilant about how much energy and passion you invest in collectives and movements overtly pushing for change. It was apparent that pausing gives space for clarity, to comprehend what your thoughts about the actions you have taken are actually and to allow solutions to come to you through your faith in your experiences, rather than striving to the point of an uncomfortable and unrewarding strain.

Lunch was provided and it was absolutely delicious!  And that is all I have to say about that. If you like your food fresh, clean, locally sourced farm-to-table food then take a look at their website – www.farmrj.com

Images: Fehinti Balogun in the Can I Live performance and at The Pause Field Lab Q&A.

I was leading the poetry and creative writing part of the day. I started with a simple embodiment exercise to encourage participants to ground themselves in the present. I asked them who they were without their job titles, without their qualifications and job status. I went so far as to ask them who are they without their friendship or family roles. This can be a tough exercise because people identify themselves with who they know, their bloodline and what they own. I asked them to put that all down and just be a human being in the moment releasing the gravitas of their roles and titles. I’d call this ‘extreme pause’, maybe? Because you are asked to go back to knowing that you are made of flesh, that belongs to the earth and that you are this ‘animal’ first.

My co-facilitator was Eileen Gbagbo. I met Eileen on an Apples and Snakes ambitious and environmentally conscious music and spoken word show Cece’s Speakeasy, upon which I was the artistic director.  The show’s aims were to highlight the impact of climate change on sensitive plants such as coffee and chocolate and use music, poetry, visuals and movement as a tool to raise awareness. As an emerging artist, I want to continue to work with Eileen’s maturity in her awareness and thinking processes around eco-themes. 

Our hour on this Pause Day was to inspire the participants to actively search for alternative narratives to the mainstream narrative of a climate apocalypse.

We started by introducing an expansive eco meaning of the adage ‘what if…?’ 

I shared an extract of a poem by Clauine Rankin – 

What if over tea, what if on our walks, what if

in the long yawn of the fog, what if in the long middle

of the wait, what if in the passage, in the what if

that carries us each day into seasons, what if

in the renewed resilience, what if in the endlessness,

what if in a lifetime of conversations, what if

in the clarity of consciousness, what if nothing changes?

Participants were then introduced to the free-flow poem entitled ‘what if’ and they were asked to imagine alternative narratives to what they had written on the flash cards at breakfast.

The results surprised them and poems did come out of the free-flow exercise.

What if I did not live in constant peril

How about I did not think, even just for a day, about everything

that is so obviously wrong with the world

Imagine if I just lived to be

What if there was currency for compassion

What would it look like?

They say that when things are free people actually take less

What if I did not live in constant peril

How about I did not think, even just for a day, about everything

that is so obviously right with the world

Imagine if I just lived to be

– T

Image: The team exploring play and imagination during The Pause Field Lab.

Stacy Makishi took us all to the next level of exploring The Pause. Not only did we explore some fundamental lessons in play and non-judgement, but the imagination muscle was given a gentle yet spirited workout.

We all surprised ourselves at how far we as individuals, with responsible jobs and burgeoning careers, can go into a state of play, an essential technique to process some of the hard stuff we have to deal with as adults in this moment in history.

By using random objects, we collectively and spontaneously improvised the story of an imaginary character and their made-up existence as a 21st Century imaginary friend.

As each person added a random item, the story evolved from sweet and humorous moments that warmed the heart to cameo moments that were tense and uncertain. Pretty much like life. And we did all of this with NO WORDS! We story-told as a collective with our bodies and the transmission of our intention.

Overall, The Pause was more than just about reflection. It was a reclaiming of head and heart space to really view ourselves as authors of the new existence we want to see, which includes empathy for the human who is more than what we can produce or consume.

And to end with Stacy’s storytelling exercise, we were able to bring completely uncensored and humane exploration to the creative space to pause in a way that felt like a gap in our usually packed diaries which is was filled with…. 

This blog post was created in partnership with Team London Bridge

About Zena Edwards

After graduating from Middlesex University and studying storytelling and performance at The London International School for Performing Arts,  Zena has been a professional writer/performance poet, curator and  creative project developer.

​She is known as a renowned award winning UK based poet of Afr-Carib-British heritage, however
she is also a polyglot, at home with collaborating with musicians, choreographers, and visual artists.
The list of acclaimed artists she has worked with include Theaster Gates, Ackroyd and Harvey and Akram Khan.

Want a refresh? Catch up on part 1 of this blog.

The following is a transcript of a conversation that has been edited for readability.

Z: There was something I wanted to ask you. How has writing helped you as an individual? I understand how, you know, you’re performing, sharing your work with others, but how has it been a device for you?

A: Well, for me, it’s been like having a conversation with myself and God. It’s what I feel in my heart and my soul. Me trying to explain this living that I’m doing, you know. My writing is therapeutic and at the same time, because the people have given me an avenue or a voice to speak to them I want to say something that will help heal them and help them understand. 

You see, the poet’s job is never to tell you something new necessarily. I’m not going to show you another world. I want you to recognize the good that you got in this world, that you just don’t recognize.

I want you to be able to see and understand yourself. I’m not going to talk about a new self that you got to become. I want you to recognize the self that you are and deal with the parts that need to be fixed and work with those parts that are good. I believe the poet’s job is to make you see life from a different vantage point where you can have more control and a better handle on how you living. 

We’re not here to give you a new life. The poets don’t do that. We expose life for what it is and let you make that choice – it’s always going to rest in your hands.

L What support do we need to enable artists to flourish at all stages of their career? 

A: Well, you know, if you’re a good artist, art has a way of making a life for itself. It’s about the commitment of the person, how committed are you to your art? If you’re a painter, then you paint and you make your paintings available for folks to see. If you’re a singer, you sing. If you’re a poet you poet. But the people themselves make a decision and nobody can determine as to who’s going to pick you and make you special in their eyes. I think that the whole truth lies with what is the commitment of the artist himself or herself. How committed are you to your craft? If you’re committed to your craft, you find a way to get it where you feel you deserve to be. 

And it’s always about work. You know, we have to go back to that work ethic. You gotta be able to work hard. And like, in Umar’s case, for example, he shined shoes and like the old adage, they say necessity is the mother of invention, he sees that I need to be better than this guy. I ain’t got no magazines. I ain’t got no black newspaper to sell all I got is my shoe shine boxes, my tools, and I got a voice and I got a brain and I can do my little song and maybe that’ll be enchanting enough for me to get the attention I need. So he found a way to open up an avenue for sales of his shoebox. And that’s what we have to do. We will have to find a way and I don’t have no quick fix formula. 

What I do in the morning might not be what you want to do in the morning. All I know is that you got to do something that’s going to strengthen and give you the courage to move forward, but you cannot take your hands off the plow. If you about this. Be about it. Don’t tell me you’re about it, be about it.

U: Always be willing to share yourself with little people who got little organizations, who think that you are the type of person who never comes and do some poetry for them. Just show up for nothing sometime, or, you know let people know that you are here for them and you believe in them just like they believe in you. I do that. I show up. Or, you know, if I hear some poets in the streets I’ll come in and I’ll join the poet. They be amazed, like  Wow, man, you came and you did some things with us. Why not? Who am I, a Last Poet? That means I’m some great, phenomenal being who just walk past you? Somebody said earlier, we are public servants. Yes. Thank you. 

You know, you just gotta be open to people if you’re a poet. You can’t be closed because that means you ain’t write no good poetry. What kind of poetry are you going to write if you are closed to people and their situations, who they are and their feelings? You have to be open and not be afraid to be afraid. 

D: That’s true. And it puts you in a spot. There are quite a few people who are poets, mainly because they’re introverted and can’t talk to nobody, so they only talk to themselves on paper. They just can’t share because they don’t know how, because they’re scared to death that what they share might be revealing and what they revealed might not be appealing! One of the reasons why we are here on this planet is to communicate with some other souls. And if you’re not doing that, you’re cheating yourself out of a life.

L: What do you think your greatest poetic achievement has been so far?

A: Having children.

U: That is the ultimate of being poetic. 

A: Epic poems. We both have children. We have children who are a part of our lives, very important part of our lives. They make sure that we still functioning like we should. Those are our soldiers and the fathers have strength and bravado to go out and face the world and bring truth into the world. 

L: So what are you planning to do next? What’s coming up? 

U: I have a book out next. I’m hoping that we can get back over to England soon. And, you know, basically just tryin’ to keep myself in good health and show respect to others who deserve respect and try to be, you know, just part of humanity. That’s all. I ain’t asking for too much, you know, 

A: We have a couple of projects. One of our great piano players, Theolonius Monk, his son, has a project that Umar and I’ve been participating in and it’s very powerful. He’s planning to unveil around Black History Month. He’s doing an epic tale of how we lived before they put us on the ships, our experience on the ships, the experience of being on the plantation, and then our return back to who we really are. 

Every now and then something virtual will come up. I mean earlier, you asked what has changed in poetry since we started.  I never did nothing virtually before that’s for damn sure.

L: What would your top tip or advice to someone starting out on their career be in order to maintain longevity – could you offer some pearls of wisdom? 

A: First of all, poetry comes from the people and if you really want to have some longevity, give it back to the people that will always keep you here. Umar wrote, Niggas are Scared of Revolution. Umar can go to heaven happy today, just because of that one poem because it’s so much appreciated, it keeps you alive. 

When you do something that you want to have longevity, you’ve got to reach, you got to touch the pulse of the folks that you’re that, you’re trying to reach. And if you touch their pulse, trust me, that heartbeat doesn’t ever die. I mean, Langston Hughes has been gone on how many years, and he’s very much alive just because he was able to capture the pulse of his people that he was writing about. His poetry’s mentioned all the time and that’s all, we were only judged by our work. That’s where the immortality comes in.

The house that you’re in, your body, your face, that’s cute, but the truth is, what did you do with the time you were given? What did you do? If you did nothing, then we have nothing to remember you by. If you did something, you will never be forgotten.

U: So, you know, it’s been established now throughout the many years I’ve been doing this, that I am a poet for life. I’m always trying to think how much more of a better poet can I be. I don’t want to look for any other occupation, I have established a reputation for being a poet, so I try to live that way and try to, you know, also help others who think that they want to become poets and keep the essence of being who I am, keep it real and to keep the passion real. Every morning I wake up is to have that passion for what I’m doing. 

Links:

Follow the news and musings of Abiodun Oyewole on his website.

Umar’s first book – From the Inside Out (published at 72!) is available from Amazon.

The Last Poets – Christine Otten. Available from Blackwells.

Watch Painstorms – featuring narration by Umar, piano by John Medeski, bass by Michael Hynes as well as drums and programming by Jeff Firewalker Schmitt. Profits from this song will be donated to organizations that support victims of child abuse.

The Last Poets

Abiodun Oyewole, David Nelson and Gylan Kain were born as The Last Poets on May 19, 1968 in Mount Morris Park in Harlem, New York. They evolved from three poets and a drummer to seven young black and Hispanic poets: Umar bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole, David Nelson, Gylan Kain, Felipe Luciano, Jalal Mansur Nuruddin, Suliaman El Hadi, and two drummers Nilaja Obabi and Baba Don.

Modern day griots, fusing politically outspoken lyrics with inventive percussion – The Last Poets spoken word albums foreshadowed the work of hard-hitting rap groups such as Public Enemy. The Last Poets album (1970), is considered the first hip-hop album of all time, and This Is Madness (1971), landed them on President Nixon’s Counter-Intelligence Programming list!

The following is a transcript of a conversation that has been edited for readability.

L: So your careers as poets started 50 years ago, why did you choose poetry as your means of expression above all the other art forms and what was it that poetry could do for you that other art forms couldn’t or didn’t?

A: For me, poetry was the only personal language that I had a control over. With other forms of writing, there are a lot of restrictions, impediments where you don’t always have the freedom that poetry allows. Poetry allows you to curse and you don’t have to apologize about it. I mean, you can express your feelings and I think that there’s no other literature that allows you to express your feelings like poetry.

U:  I’m going to tell y’all the first poem that I ever wrote, it came about when I was a shoeshine boy on the streets of Akron, Ohio eight, nine years old. This guy named Mitchell Lindsay was my shoeshine boy competitor. But not only was he shining shoes, but he also sold Jet magazine. He was always, you know, getting ahead of me because you could read his paper while he was shining shoes. One day though, there’s one lady wanted me to shine her shoes. Mitchell came up and said: “You, read my paper!” And she said: “No,  I want him to shine em for me.” So out of my mouth automatically, I mean, you know, where I come from, I says, 

Shoeshine, Shoeshine, can’t be beat
shoeshine, shoeshine. Give your soul a treat.
I, pop that rag. I click that brush.
A dime and  a nickel ain’t too much. 

And so that’s helped me. It helped me a lot. It was poetry that they helped me make money when I was in the streets. 

L: Maintaining a career over this length of time is no mean feat. Pretty impressive. Was there a moment when you wanted to give it all up? What made you keep going?

U: There are a million moments where you want to give it up, every moment.

L: Why do you keep doing it?

D: We’re compelled to do it. And the truth of the matter is a lot has to do with the people. Umar and I didn’t really define ourselves as the people’s poet, the people did that. I’m proud of both of us because we’ve been able, with the help of God and all the ancestors, to carry it well. 

Felipe was at my house not long ago and he was saying, you know, I’m really proud of what you and Umar have done because you have been the most consistent of all the poets. And that’s because, you know, we have a good work ethic. Umar was raised with a good work ethic. I was raised with a serious work ethic. 

U: … Both of us from Ohio, that’s what makes us keep going, it’s that Midwestern work ethic.  All the plants, it’s about work, get them out working. So we do.

D: That’s the bottom line. I don’t like to give up something that we know is necessary and people are constantly reinforcing that. We can’t go outside our doors without being blessed by somebody who’s listened to us and, come to us and say, man, when I first heard you, you changed my life. And I have to tell them, you change our lives, we didn’t expect to be running around the world, running out our mouth like this for 50 years, but we have, and I give thanks. I’m very, very grateful. They said in the Bible, in the beginning was the word. That’s no joke. That’s the truth. The word can set you free, but it’s got to be the right word.

If you’re going to be in this world, where are you going to use your poetry to try to help liberate yourself and others? You better be honest because if you’re not honest, it’s going to be a real monster down the line. 

L: How has the way that you work changed over the years?

U: I know how to be a little more easily myself. I come to Flint, Michigan. I sat on my sister’s porch for three months. Just sat. Didn’t do nothing. Cause everybody tell me, Umar, you got to know how to relax.  I just sit and relax because I’ve always been somebody moving, moving, moving, moving, you know, from shoe shining to the Last Poets, just moving, moving, moving always in some way, going somewhere, doing something. When I finally sit down I said, This is okay, to relax and just feel yourself out and, you know, be part of something that’s a little more than what you are. 

Right now, today, I’ve learned how to feel much better about myself, you know. I understand why I’m here. And it helped me a whole lot. It’s learning how to relax and to be part of the scene and not trying to overtake this thing, but just to be part of it, you know, so those words can come out now a little more delicate now, little more sincerely now, a lot stronger now.

So that’s part of the growth of what I’ve been going through becoming older. It’s about knowing who I am before I start writing about other people. 

D: You know, Umar’s words are my sentiments. Exactly. I feel I’ve done the same thing. One thing that we’ve always loved about Malcolm [X] was that every phase of his life he evolved. If you don’t evolve, you cannot really say you’ve grown. A growth is an evolution, and I think both Umar and I have been blessed and sensible enough to recognize certain things had to stop. We both became people that are more settled with ourselves and with a better understanding of who we are. 

I had a lady who used to always say the whole process starts with you feeling good about you. If you can’t feel good about you, we can’t expect much good to come from you. But it takes a minute for you to really get to a point where you can feel good about yourself. 

We have been so damaged by outside influences and our own personal insecurities. It’s really hard to come out on top after you’ve been through the ringer like we have been. But I think that we’ve been very, very blessed because we’re here, the virus hasn’t got us, whether it’s a racist virus or the Coronavirus, whatever virus they’ve got for us we’ve been able to overcome, and we’ve been able to sincerely share, to the point we’re being looked up to by the young folks and they give us love.  They want us to connect with them and get some help from people who have been around the block before. So I feel very honored and blessed. 

And I can say honestly, what Umar just said about being able to be with yourself to find appreciation and being a part of a situation, as opposed to trying to take over and be in charge. There’s a joy to that. There is, there’s a special joy. 

Carry on with part 2.

The Last Poets

Abiodun Oyewole, David Nelson and Gylan Kain were born as The Last Poets on May 19, 1968 in Mount Morris Park in Harlem, New York. They evolved from three poets and a drummer to seven young black and Hispanic poets: Umar bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole, David Nelson, Gylan Kain, Felipe Luciano, Jalal Mansur Nuruddin, Suliaman El Hadi, and two drummers Nilaja Obabi and Baba Don.

Modern day griots, fusing politically outspoken lyrics with inventive percussion – The Last Poets spoken word albums foreshadowed the work of hard-hitting rap groups such as Public Enemy. The Last Poets album (1970), is considered the first hip-hop album of all time, and This Is Madness (1971), landed them on President Nixon’s Counter-Intelligence Programming list!

There were other things about my appearance that were starting to bother me, too. By that age I was wearing a spinal brace, a sort of hospital corset made of white plastic that covered my torso, designed to try and steady my ever curving spine. Scoliosis is a condition where the spine curves and in some cases, like mine, twists, rotating the ribcage around so that a ‘hunched back’ appearance can develop. I also have a nerve condition that slowly progresses, primarily affecting my feet, lower legs and hands. This can cause, amongst other things, legs that look, as the NHS website describes, like ‘upside down champagne bottles’ as the muscles become weak and waste, being particularly thin in the lower legs. With all of that going on, thirteen-year-old me just really thought she deserved a cracking pair of knockers.

I look down at my skinny hands […] and think: someone, somewhere, could be describing these hands as the start of their horror story

There are lots of things I didn’t like about The Ring, but what stayed with me long after the fear of television static was a scene that flashed back to Samara (the evil TV ghost girl) when she was still alive. She sits in a hospital gown, in a clinical, cold, white room, her arms and legs are thin, her long hair is loose, her eyes are planted firmly at the floor. And all I could think was: she looks like me. She looks like me when I sit in hospital appointments, hiding behind my hair, and all I can do is stare at the floor. Her arms and legs look like my arms and legs. Her skin is pale like my skin. Later, zoomed sections focus on her hands that look angular in their form. Just like mine. And it’s all designed to scare you. That really hits home when you’re thirteen. Never mind not finding my body type in magazines, I only recognised myself in horror films. Even as I type this now, I look down at my skinny hands, with all their beautiful, slowly forming weakness and think: someone, somewhere, could be describing these hands as the start of their horror story.

why do we so easily, so lazily, use signs of some sort of illness or disability as a metaphor for evil?

It was sometime later I went to see The Woman in Black at the theatre. I tried watching the film, years afterwards, but couldn’t get past the first five minutes. My thirteen-year-old self still can’t quite get to sleep sometimes, and she scrambles for the light in a way that wakes me. Reading the book by Susan Hill, we find that the woman has, ‘a wasted face’ and sunken-in eyes, pale skin and an ‘extreme look of illness’. All of this is meant to give us the creeps, but what, actually, is so frightening about looking ill? The metaphor, as a device, is key for writers. So why do we so easily, so lazily, use signs of some sort of illness or disability as a metaphor for evil? If you are doing any sort of spooky writing this Halloween, I reckon it’s a good idea to check your descriptors. I love the bloke, but Edgar Allen Poe was always adding a scar or taking an eye away from someone to denote a sense of foreboding. It’s not an exhaustive list by any stretch, but if the “scary” thing in your work is: emaciated, wasted, pale, scrawny, angular, twisted, bony, gaunt, sickly, tired, scarred, drawn, frail or afflicted, I would encourage you to think about why you have used that word to describe something frightening.

If you are doing any sort of spooky writing this Halloween, I reckon it’s a good idea to check your descriptors.

It’s a niche segue, but bear with. Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton write and star in the BBC horror/comedy Inside Number Nine. In the audio commentary to the episode ‘The 12 days of Christine,’ they talk about the moment when a man in a rain soaked anorak suddenly appears in the flat of a terrified woman. The director, Guillem Morales, said of the character, ‘He needs to look out of place, something that doesn’t quite belong in that environment.’ There are two important things to note here: firstly, the very effective result of this incongruity-makes-great-horror theory (the moment is genuinely very scary) shows there’s far more scope to the description of frightening characters than people with ‘wasted faces,’ – a man in a anorak does the job nicely. And secondly, it unearths something even more problematic about using illness or disability as a vehicle for a jump-scare. A man, soaked through from rain, with steamed glasses is incongruous to the setting of an interior, dry flat. Someone with a disability isn’t incongruous to anything. I am not separate from society. It should not be ‘out of place’ to see my body anywhere. If that accounts for part of the reason that the horror genre so often uses the metaphors I’ve described, then that, too, needs to change, along with a much bigger shift in representation and perceptions of disability.

I might still be struggling with whether there really is a heaven or not, but one thing’s for sure: I’m not a ghost, I’m not less, not a “nearly person”, not a surprise, not scary. So poets, tread carefully this Halloween, because the words you use can do a lot more than just provide a passing fright.

by Helen Seymour

Helen Seymour is a spoken-poet-word-artist-human-performance-person. She is known for mixing off-beat comedy with dark subject matters. She has been awarded three Arts Council England Grants, been shortlisted for the Jerwood Poetry Fellowship, and performed her play, Helen Highwater, at the Southbank Centre as part of London Literature Festival. She has recently been commissioned to create a short poetry film looking at the doctor-patient relationship on the theme of ‘Translations’ for DadaFest 2020, supported by Apples and Snakes. For more info see helenseymour.com and follow @whathelens on Instagram.

Photo credit: Jake Cunningham

Exploring beyond the surface

In creating a poem that draws on real life, we can choose to surface or externalise an experience. We no longer need to carry the feelings or memories in our brains or bodies for safekeeping, as we can return to the poem whenever we want to remind ourselves of this experience.

As the Poet in Residence for an NHS Trust, I work with patients, health workers, carers and families, often experiencing uncertainty and stress. For many patients, the repetition and mundanity of the everyday routine contrasts with their vulnerability in the face of life-changing experiences. Patients have told me that taking part in poetry helped them to unearth the meaning in their experiences and catch what is important to them. For their carers, loved ones and health-workers, creative activities such as poetry provide a chance to pause and reflect on the complex emotions that are associated with caring responsibilities. 

poetry helps us to take notice of small, everyday moments of connection to people and places

Now that everyone is more aware of the threat to their health, whether this is a conscious stress or a subsurface unease, the need to connect surface-level ordinariness with extraordinary uncertainty is helpful to many of us. Importantly, poetry helps us to take notice of small, everyday moments of connection to people and places, as well as to commemorate and process life-changing events in our lives. The ability to take notice is one of the ‘five ways to wellbeing’ developed by the New Economics Foundation.

When connecting with others, poetry helps to get beyond surface-level interactions. In some ways, we have become less able to connect physically with others, with our expressions muffled behind masks and hugs forbidden. Yet despite this, many of us have noticed that we are more willing to cut through small talk and express how we are really feeling, now that there is a shared reference point. Poetry enables us to join the dots between our shared experiences from afar, including through individual co-creation sessions, group writing workshops, digital or physical prompt packs and online spoken word performances.

Pandemic as a catalyst for creativity?

The benefits of creative participation for people in times of isolation and uncertainty are well-recorded. For instance, creative activities in hospitals have been found to reduce stress and anxiety levels, which are often heightened during health-related challenges (see for reference these reports by the World Health Organisation and the APPG for Arts, Health and Wellbeing). 

there are many practical factors linked to the pandemic that can distract us from our creative intentions

Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that we should expect ourselves to be in the right space to create. Creativity requires time to explore, and there are many practical factors linked to the pandemic that can distract us from our creative intentions, from changed work patterns and family situations to the multitude of other stressors. Even those of us with more time on our hands to create can find ourselves feeling creatively depleted. Fear can affect creativity as it inhibits the part of our brains that enables imagination to flourish. The pandemic has had an adverse effect on many people’s mental wellbeing, and it affects some people more than others. The irony is that the more anxious we feel, the less we may feel able to write, which in turn can cut us off from the wellbeing benefits of creativity.

So how can we help ourselves to feel more creative?

Personally, I try to stay true to myself; to follow my own creative impulses and not worry about what I ‘should’ be writing. In this sense, writing is like smiling. We can smile – or write – all day long, but it may not be genuine. Better to wait until we feel an authentic desire to write and there is no stopping it; it shines out of us like a genuine beam of truth. Equally, there is evidence that the very act of smiling can cheer us up – when we smile, we can trick our brains into feeling happier. Sometimes, I find the same with writing. When I want to write, but don’t feel overflowing with creativity, I set myself a 10-minute timer and experiment with a free-write. Sometimes, I feel better just for warming up the part of my brain that plays with words. Other times, it doesn’t flow and I have to remind myself that it’s absolutely fine.

many of my poetic breakthroughs come when I’m doing the washing up

In an episode of Radio 4 Desert Island Discs, poet Wendy Cope says that as a writer, it’s important to have time alone, “dream-time” – which she describes as ‘“time just for thinking, when you don’t appear to be doing anything”’ (3.50). What a delicious thought. This article, published in Psychological Science, analysed reports by writers and physicists about how their ideas came about. One fifth of participants’ most significant ideas of the day were formed during ‘mind wandering’, i.e. when they weren’t specifically ‘on-task’. Ideas that occurred during mind wandering were more likely to be associated with overcoming an impasse on a problem. Similarly, this study suggests that boring activities can act as a catalyst for creativity. I find this deeply relatable as many of my poetic breakthroughs come when I’m doing the washing up.

Creative problems, such as the notorious ‘writer’s block’, can be solved when we are thinking about or doing something completely unrelated to what we are trying to write. Of course, having extensive time to daydream is a privilege – but most of us spend at least some part of our day in the shower, walking somewhere, or just sitting quietly for a few minutes. These can all be perfect opportunities to work on our poetry subconsciously.

being creatively super-charged does not make us poets. […] We are poets when we haven’t written a new poem for ages.

To close, I’d just like to remind anyone who needs it that being creatively super-charged does not make us poets. We are poets when we’re eating breakfast. We are poets when we’re worrying about the rent. We are poets when we haven’t written a new poem for ages. And those of us who facilitate poetry in community settings know that even people who have never written a poem are poets… they just don’t know it yet.

You can find out more about Beth’s work at www.thepoetrymachine.live and pre-order her debut collection, Brave Faces & Other Smiles, which launches with Verve Poetry Press this November.

Banner photo: Paul Blakemore

The labels ‘performance poet’ and ‘spoken word artist’ have been variously worn by people who were not allowed to call themselves poets.

The labels ‘performance poet’ and ‘spoken word artist’ have been variously worn by people who were not allowed to call themselves poets. These may have been punk, dub, or hip-hop MCs, comic poets, poets of colour, or those wedded to the discipline of performance. Each successive surge of the grass roots has built new audiences for poetry and elaborated successfully on an ancient tradition of live verse.

But such labels are quickly abandoned by artists as they mature. Why? Because spoken word is infantile. Spoken word is not a destination, it’s a beginning. Slam competitions and rowdy events in clubs and pubs are fun. But they are no place for serious art.

Slam competitions and rowdy events in clubs and pubs are fun. But they are no place for serious art.

Have you absorbed this narrative, even a little? Haven’t we all? I have interviewed over 100 spoken word poets while podcasting, and later researching my book: Stage Invasion: Poetry & the Spoken Word Renaissance which was released with Out-Spoken Press last year. My research has led me to the firm conclusion that spoken word (a name that superseded British performance poetry in the early noughties) is on the way out. As someone who has spent many years trying to describe stage craft, and the manifold ways this enhances and elaborates written verse, this causes me concern.

In March this year, Spoken Word Educators & Academic Researchers (SWEAR) was established at the UniSlam festival in Birmingham. This is a watershed in the discussion around performance poetry. Given how thriving the scene is, it is amazing it has taken so long. Page-centric poetic dogmas have dominated our educational institutions since English poetry became the subject of formal study two centuries ago.

This has left us without much of a language to describe how professional poet performers can – with the precision of tuning forks – make a crowd shudder with tears, laughter and clenched fists (some early inspirations for me were Mark Gwynn Jones, Benjamin Zephaniah and Kat Francois). Another consequence of this neglect is that pockets of experimentation and expertise get ignored or forgotten. The sub-genre of stand-up poetry, for example, has received almost no discussion, despite the fact that many brilliant artists have dedicated their lives to it (see John Hegley, Rob Auton, Kate Fox and Connor Macleod to name just four).

Such poets didn’t drop out of thin air of course. Stand-up poetry (and UK spoken word more broadly) has deep roots in the alternative cabaret scene of the eighties. Here poetry existed alongside drag acts, comedians, musicians and theatre troops. Anything could happen in alternative cabarets, with costumes, props and a manic experimentation. As Jonny ‘Fluffypunk’ Seagrave remembers:

You’d have things like Ian Saville, the socialist magician…and Randolph the Remarkable who used to pick up a washing up bowl with his stomach…and poetry was part of that…and it certainly wasn’t coming from the canon.

The poetry of alternative cabaret had less of the emotional range and sincerity than we associate with spoken word today. Yet its spirit continued into the nineties and noughties with acts like Rachel Pantechnicon (the comic surrealist drag act of Russell Thompson). Thompson, who served as an Apples and Snakes London Programme Coordinator (and has since gone on to work as an archivist for the scene) laments that spoken word, for all its greatness, has ‘lost some of its experimental edge’.

There can be no props, costumes and stage personas if we absorb the assumption that poetry is not a performing art.

Could it be that there is too much poetry in spoken word? There can be no props, costumes and stage personas if we absorb the assumption that poetry is not a performing art. The fire-side tradition dissipates into the cerebraliterations of “readings” and “recitals”. The ritual theatrics of shamanistic shape-shifting fall into the darkness.

What motivates this argument is not romantic nostalgia, but a concern for the professional survival of the scene I belong to. As stand up poet Thick Richard puts it: ‘”I think what has held the poetry thing back for so many years is the reluctance to improve to meet the standards of other forms of entertainment”‘. I concur.  Too often I have seen punters leave at the interval, never to return. Poet Jem Rolls calls spoken word’s recent literary turn ‘the revenge of the normal’. Add to this a cosy and accepting culture of emotionally sophisticated first-person narratives, and “normal” becomes a toxic combination of ethical high mindedness, and safe, genteel, literary behaviour.

Poets have a long history of leaving poetry in order to do poetry.

When Thick Richard was a double act, he had a partner in crime called Bob Moyler. Moyler subsequently left the poetry scene and now does comedy stage shows involving a robot that reproduces (mis)recorded scripts of Hollywood blockbusters in what amounts to a form of experimental poetry. Could it be that the avantgarde cabaret tradition of breaking conventions is migrating out of stage poetry altogether? Almost definitely. Poets have a long history of leaving poetry in order to do poetry. As neo-Dadaist and cultural historian Olchar E. Lindsann explains:

For most of the nineteenth century, most of what we retroactively identify as “sound poetry” was presented as satire because you can get away with it. If you wanna do something really fucking crazy, just call it comedy and your chances of getting it past just went up about five hundred per cent.

It is not my intention here to regurgitate page vs stage. As someone with a creative writing degree, I’m not qualified to do so, and frankly, we all have better things to do with our lives.  Nor do I mean to defend spoken word carte blanche. Indeed, there is much I would like to see change. Recent trends towards a prevalence of identity politics, “trauma porn” and the aped American cadence of Button Poetry YouTube channel, for example, are stifling the art of creativity. If we are not doing anything new, we are not being creative. This is also true of adopting the writing conventions of accepted literary norms.

it is vital we champion the “high art” of stage poetry – a destination that can take a lifetime to master.

As we file politely towards the post-spoken word era, we should remember that there remains an asymmetry between the (still-emerging) performance community and the larger and better financed world of literature (spread across hundreds of university departments, arts bodies and publishing houses). In this context, it is vital we champion the “high art” of stage poetry – a destination that can take a lifetime to master. The literary awards and broadsheet articles celebrating those who have made poetry so popular in recent years, do not mention – or wish to support – the stages so many of them grew from. In these conditions, it is easy to see how the low hanging fruits of performance poetry can be basketed, and held up symbolically, in ways that ultimately reinforce those who continue to define poetic value.

Ultimately, people will define their work as they please. So I will finish, appropriately, by talking only of myself. I am a spoken word poet. My words are physical (involving warm ups and breathing exercise), vocal (with beatboxing and other forms of musicality), theatrical (inhabiting onstage personas) and interactive (bants).

When I’m on stage, the poetry I practice is a performing art. It has been a great privilege to experience and write about its distinct sub genres, traditions and practices. It is musical but not music, theatrical but not theatre, literary but not literature, comic but not comedy. It is spoken word poetry.

–Pete Bearder

Pete (the Temp) Bearder is an author, spoken word poet and musician. His new book Stage Invasion was described by Ian McMillan as ‘the book we have all been waiting for’. Pete is a former National Poetry Slam Champion and his work has been featured on BBC Newsnight, Radio 4 and The World Service. petethetemp.co.uk

‘And ever in our hearts doth ring
This song of Spring, Spring!’

and Seedling…

‘As a quiet little seedling
Lay within its darksome bed,
To itself it fell a-talking,
And this is what it said.’

There is something about nature and poetry that is interconnected, something felt and experienced whenever we give ourselves time and space to be present in nature. An indescribable sense of peace that can stay with us as Wordsworth says in I Wondered Lonely As A Cloud, about the daffodils he spied….

‘For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.’

nature feels intense and overwhelming and begs us to write for her

And this is not just some poetic, arty nonsense; time in nature makes us feel better. One recent study showed that spending 120 minutes in nature a week is associated with good health and well-being. But is this really a surprise? I think it’s fair to say that we all feel better for getting outside, feeling the sun on our skin and breathing in fresh air. Poets tend to be observant and sensitive. It’s part of the job description to observe the world around you and to feel as you observe and to condense those feelings and emotions into a poem. It is easy to see how we have ended up with so many poems that reflect on nature, nature feels intense and overwhelming and begs us to write for her.

I suspect this revival is no longer just because of Nature’s awesomeness, but because of her vulnerability

With the Poet Laureate’s new poetry award for nature poems (The Laurel Prize) it seems that nature poetry is back in vogue and there have been many fabulous new poetry collections celebrating all that is nature, from the wonderful works of Nicola Davies to Robert Macfarlane’s and Jackie Morris’ brilliant The Lost Words. I suspect this revival is no longer just because of Nature’s awesomeness, but because of her vulnerability. Climate change has gone from being something we can avoid to a threat we must try to minimise, we have depleted the seas and filled them with plastic, we continue to burn fossil fuels and just in the UK alone our most important wildlife species have plummeted by 60% since the 1970’s! (nbn.org.uk) Nature is in peril and maybe poetry is a way of inspiring change.

My poetry collection A Year Of Nature Poems (illustrated by Kelly Louise Judd) follows on the poetic tradition of nature writing with one poem inspired by the natural world for each month of the year. I wanted to readdress humanity’s apparent separation and disregard for nature by focusing the poems on moments of human interaction with the natural world, such as sitting outside during the April showers, watching mayflies rise from a garden-dug pond and playing in autumn’s dry leaves. My hope was that in centring these poems around the human in nature my readers would reflect on their own experiences in the natural world. Unfortunately it became impossible to just revel in the magnificence of nature in these poems (as poets had the freedom to do in times gone by) as so many of the topics I wanted to write about are directly affected by climate change, from amphibian decline to changes in jet streams affecting our local climate. To that end each poem has a brief introduction highlighting some of the larger issues at play allowing, I hope, for further reflection and action.

Nature is in peril and maybe poetry is a way of inspiring change

I’ve been so awed and impressed with the active role young people are taking in highlighting their concerns regarding the planet they are set to inherit. They have brought the issues of climate change and the natural world booming ever louder onto our TV’s and radios and social media feeds and outside our local schools. There is clearly a long way to go to change government policies to make long lasting significant change but as we strive forward I know that poetry is going to be a big part of this journey. How else can we truly communicate what is under threat, how else can we truly grieve what we have lost?

Joseph Coelho’s Poetry Collection A Year Of Nature Poems, Illustrated by Kelly Louise Judd, is now available in Paperback and published by Wide eyed Books. Find out more about Joseph’s work at www.thepoetryofjosephcoelho.com

Photo credit:  KT Bruce

When setting up Burning Eye Books, why did you choose to focus on platforming spoken word artists in particular?

I didn’t. It is not a term that I would have recognised at the time and it is not one I particularly like now. We publish poetry. We just happen to focus on the performative end of the spectrum and often in a place where poetry and comedy collide. Many of our poets cross over a line where if they only published printed words rather than got up in front of microphones no one would feel the need for any word other than poet. I compromise and say spoken word poet sometimes to differentiate from non-poetry spoken word. If you look for spoken word in a bookshop you find audiobooks.

What do you think the page offers to a poet that the stage doesn’t, and vice versa?

The page = book sales. Books are merchandise. Books as merchandise. That is what Burning Eye was started for and this remains at the heart of the mission. I read an interview with the late great Felix Dennis where he bragged about selling more copies of his book at one sell out gig than that year’s TS Eliot winner had sold in total and thought there was something in that. The thing is that the reader, the audience member doesn’t care. It is all poetry to them and if they read a poet they like they will go and listen to them read or perform and if they hear a poet they like they will buy the book so that they can take the voice home with them.

How do you work with your writers in the editing process to get from initial manuscript/pitch to book release?

We take a “we are making the book of the show” approach so take a light touch to editing but a more rigorous approach to copyediting. We allow input on covers which is unusual. The printed version of the poem cannot stray too far from the live. OK it can to a degree but only in the sense that it is the studio version not the live album.

What advice would you give to spoken word poets looking to start submitting their work to publishers?

Follow the guidelines. Follow the guidelines. Follow the guidelines. Gig. Gig. Gig. Work the poems over and over and over. Most poets submit too early before they are ready. It takes most poets five years or more to build a name and a body of work worth publishing. Be patient. Read more poetry. Then read some more. Read the poetry from outside your poetry bubble. Look at the shortlists from the Forwards and Eliot and if you don’t recognise the names do something about it. The best Burning Eye poets are not influenced by other performing poets and it helps them stand out. Have reasonable expectations of what an independent poetry press can do. We get some poets who think we have the resources of Penguin Random House and are surprised when they realise Burning Eye is a desk in the corner of the spare room of my home from where I coordinate a small part time team of freelancers. Also Burning Eye is not the only publisher for performers. Look around. Buy and read books from different publishers and understand who does what and how. If you have never bought a book by a particular publisher don’t even think of submitting to them until you have.

What seems typical to you in terms of a submission?

One that follows our guidelines and comes in during a submissions window via Submittable and by no other route. Anything else gets ignored. I get a couple of envelopes through the mail every month of unsolicited submissions. I reason that anyone who can’t be bothered to look up our submissions policy is not serious. In terms of style of poetry there is not a typical submission. Oh we get a lot of over rhyming poetry with the same sound of the end of line after line after line, of course. But as that is a pet hate of mine they rarely get past the first cut. Don’t do it guys. It has been done to death. Move on. Try harder.

Is it necessary (or of benefit) for poets to have agents?

Makes no difference to us. Booking agent yes – get more paid gigs. Lit agents that are interested in poetry are like unicorns. I wouldn’t encourage poets to waste time looking for one.

What do you think are the common misconceptions around submissions to publishers or publications?

That the publication of the book is the end of a process when it is in fact the beginning. Books only succeed if the writer, the poet is relentless in pushing the book. Assuming a tiny poetry press has marketing department is a common mistake. Expecting your debut book on a fringe press to get reviewed in the TLS and the Guardian is another. Not realising that you the poet will be the biggest customer for your book no matter which publisher you go with. Expecting your book to be stocked by Waterstones. Bookshops sell tiny quantities of poetry books a minuscule amount and 75% of that is by dead poets. 75% of the rest will be anthologies. 75% of what is left after that is Faber and Faber and 75% of what is left after that is Bloodaxe, Carcanet, Picador etc. The big dogs. We get good sales as a whole from the book trade but is its 20% of the total and that is dominated by our bigger sellers.

Have you ever read a manuscript that completely stopped your world? If so, can you say what it was?

It happened recently with Dan Cockrill’s Notes on Loneliness. When it landed I opened it up and started reading and didn’t move until I had read the whole thing and it is a big book. That doesn’t happen very often. Stand outs are Sally Jenkinson, Emily Harrison and Hafsah Aneela Bashir. They all had a similar impact.

Outside of Burning Eye, Dostoevsky Wannabes sent me Lou Ham: Racing Anthropocene Statements by Paul Hawkins and I did the same thing and read it cover to cover in one session. It is a remarkable book that deserves a wider audience.

What are the top three things you look for in a submission?

A distinctive voice, proven track record in live performance and precise adherence to submission guidelines.

What are the common mistakes made when submitting work?

Not following the damn guidelines. Blanket bombing emails to editors with “Dear editor” and all the email addresses in the To: field. That’ll get you blocked for good.

When it comes to spoken word it can sometimes be hard to define success. For many poets one indicator can be winning a major slam title. This was the case for me. In 2007 I won the UK Slam Championships at Stratford Theatre Royal under my AKA John Berkavitch. My prize included a trophy, a small cash reward, and a title that for the last 12 years has featured in the first couple of lines of my bio.

‘Former UK Slam Champion’ has never really been an indicator of the kind of work I make but has definitely secured me numerous bookings. Slam itself can be a fairly rigid format. There are time constraints, some styles fair better than others and the judging system can be incredibly subjective. The poems I used to win my title had been written with these things in mind. I entered the slam with a strategy and on the day I was lucky. I have never believed that I was the “best” poet on that stage just that I managed to hit the perfect combination of hard work plus opportunity multiplied by luck. 

By 2008 the work I was making had moved a long way from slam but I still felt a pressure to live up to that title. I find this balancing act incredibly interesting and decided to ask 10 other high profile Slam winners for their take on it.

Adam Kammerling
former National Slam Champion

Being the National Slam Champion meant that I got a lot of gigs. I think the artist’s relationship with an audience can be quite problematic and that if you spend a lot of time on stage then you come to need it, or you come to appreciate it more than the things that actually matter. So you lose sight of your own authenticity before you even think about writing your own truth; you kind of exist for your audience and that is when authenticity and truth get lost.

Vanessa Kisuule
winner of over 10 slam titles

I think by the time I was really hitting that stride with slams and winning, I already had an awareness of the limitations of it as a format. The minute everything’s a little bit too slick, a little bit too chill on stage, you need to just go and start writing in a different form, you need to go up there and do a fresh-ass poem and be, like: ah s***, is this any good? You just need to keep yourself a little bit clenched. 

Kat Francois
former BBC TV Slam Champion & former World Slam Champion

I’m actually at a stage where, you know, you’ve got the performance skills, you’ve got the writing skills, what are you not dealing with? We think as performers we can go and talk about anything, but there’s still stuff that is taboo. I think it’s important that I bring some of that to the stage. I think it is. No matter how uncomfortable it makes people feel, or me. I’ve always come from a personal political standpoint, so I talk about things that have personally affected me. I know as writers we can write about anything but there is a level of authenticity with poetry that I like to feel when I read and see people perform. We’ve all got stories, and important stories, to tell so, like, tell your own stories. Those are the strongest stories you can tell.

Jess Green
former BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam Champion

This thing about authenticity, I think I’m obviously very public about the fact that my politics is very tied up with my poetry and my performance. I feel that when I’m performing work that it’s very much that these are my beliefs and I stand by them, and I really want that to be true and not just to be because it makes a good poem that wins a slam. And at times that’s been a bit difficult. The only person you should be making work for really, I feel, is yourself and what you’re comfortable doing. So I think, if you can, you need to make a choice about how much you buy into that pressure.    

Toby Campion
former UK Poetry Slam Champion

I think after I’d done a lot of slam, and essentially come up through spoken word, my interest shifted a little bit more to the page, and creating stuff that works on the page as well as it does on the stage, and opening the door to that world. And I have felt at times, will people that liked my stuff before like this stuff now and be onboard with it? But I think that’s part of being an artist and part of being a writer – that you’re always changing and your work’s always developing – and I think what’s challenging is when people feel like they have to stay in that thing that they were at the beginning. I feel like I’ve seen that more in America where people make a living from being in slams and, therefore, they don’t have room to grow, or they feel like they always have to write that poem just in a different iteration.

Poetry is so personal. Regardless of whether it is your experience or not, people are going to assume it is when you’re performing it on stage and it’s just you and the microphone. And I think there is more of a question about that now – of is it your story to tell? And who should be telling that story?

Sara Hirsch
former UK Slam Champion

I think authenticity looks different to everybody, and I think success looks different for everybody. I had to experience inauthenticity to understand what authenticity was. I think I probably did alter what I was writing, or felt like I needed to maintain the same standard, and then very quickly realised that that was taking me away from what I wanted to write or how I wanted to express myself. I’m not one-hundred-percent convinced that once you’ve got to that level you can stay in slam and remain completely authentic. I think the trick is to just keep pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, whatever your comfort zone is. My comfort zone was ‘three minute slam winning poem’, so I just keep trying to make sure that I’m writing stuff that challenges that or, if it doesn’t, as long as it feels like what I wanna write, that’s fine. 

Solomon O.B
former National Slam Champion

If your internal compass and what you want to get out of your art is the most important thing, then I think, regardless of any kind of outside influences, any success, you still know what you wanna do. For a lot of people it can be hard to keep that focus, especially when you start to get your eyes pulled in a certain direction of what other people are doing and what you think the public might want from you. But again, for me, that was just kind of more confirmation of ‘ok, well you’ve got to a certain level of success by doing you, so why change that now?’

When it comes to artistic voice, I feel like once you’ve got to a level of craft, a level of expertise, and a level of development with your skill and your voice, I think probably the most important thing is for your unique voice to come through. Ultimately, you are the authority on your art, and there’s only one version of you, so make sure what comes out is as true to that as possible.

Harry Baker
former World Slam Champion (youngest ever winner)

For me, it always felt very natural to write from a place of experience. So when I started, most stuff was about coming of age, but I think I’ve realised that I’m in a different place now to where I was when I started writing and performing poems. I’ve had to think about where I’m at now and where I’m writing from. So I think, just trying to keep writing new stuff that feels relevant, but also analysing why you’re writing what you’re writing and the place you’re coming from.

Zia Ahmed
former Roundhouse Slam Champion

Who defines it? Because if it’s about truth and authenticity, are you defining it? Because if you’re doing a gig and some next person says: oh, this guy’s authentic. Like, how do they know? I guess it all comes down to how you define truth and authenticity for yourself. You’ve just got to remember why you started. Remembering the intension while you’re writing will give you a centre.

Stephanie Dogfoot
former Singapore Slam Champion & former UK Farrago Slam Champion

I do sometimes find it harder to take risks and risk failing in my writing because it feels like people will doubt my achievements, question whether I deserve to be where I am or start to take me less seriously if I try something new and it doesn’t work. I’d say this has definitely sometimes made it harder for me to write new things. I remind myself of the reasons why I started writing in the first place, for the fun, joy and human connection that I got out of it. I also remind myself that I am most powerful and connected when I’m being vulnerable and honest in my writing, and that this vulnerability does not just apply to the things I write about but also in trying new things and daring to write ‘badly’ sometimes. Also, reminding myself to be open to taking advice and criticism from everywhere.  

How were we to know/ that when we were cleansing/ we were erasing our whole existence – CUNTO, Joelle Taylor

My whole life has been a protest, and my body a political placard. My body has also been a battleground and a bar room, a tourist spot and a cemetery, a haunted house and a roadside memorial. What it has rarely been is mine.

I hitched to Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp from Lancashire several times in my teens, having read about the radical nature of a women-only protest. Founded by nuns who had walked from Wales to Berkshire to confront the cruise missile base, the camp became a homing signal for all of us badly written girls.

A furious mix of naive and brave, I turned up to Yellow Camp (main gate) aged 17 with nothing but a borrowed rucksack of rages, a notebook crowded with small black handwriting, and a pen. The pen is important. Think of it as the same one I write with now.

Greenham was far more than a peace protest for many of the dispossessed under-class women who made our way there. It was alive with possibility, mutable, irreverent, long-talking, kind, bad-mouthed and above all woman-focused. We were a new way of doing things, we were new things. I spent most of my time crouched in front of the fire, taking copious tiny handwritten notes and writing letters, or listening to elders talk about the first wave of feminism and CND. I was alive.

I spent most of my time crouched in front of the fire, taking copious tiny handwritten notes and writing letters

I can’t remember the names of the women who parented me at Greenham, but I do remember the cheap tent they erected for me, the blanket they found. I remember the quiet fire, and the crackle of conversation. I remember the plans for a changed world that showed us the shapes of our own mouths. I remember the long and freezing nights curled around ideas. I remember how we unpicked sections of the 9-mile wire perimeter fence as though it was a badly knitted jumper that needed reimagining.

My first direct political action involved cutting an opening in the perimeter fence over a number of days, taking care to tack-stitch it together again so the soldiers wouldn’t notice the base had been breached. Using wire cutters to slit a fence takes time, and so we divided the work between several of us, cutting it by increments. If we had tried to cut the whole opening in one go we would have been easily caught. On the appointed night of the action, seven of us quietly stole ourselves away from Yellow Gate into the surrounding woodland. We slept in the open and waited. At 4am we returned to the tacked opening, unpicked it and entered the base. We used blankets to help each other pass under the inner razor wire fence, until all seven of us were inside the facility, next to the runway. It was that easy to break into a high security nuclear missile base. This was one of our main points; if a group of 7 untrained women ranging from 17 to mid 70’s could break in, imagine what a militarily trained organisation could do. We made our way directly to the missile bunkers, carefully planted the saplings we’d brought with us and waited. I probably took the opportunity to hand roll and smoke a cigarette (which I also did while in the dock at my trial – irreverence for authority was a particular Greenham tactic, arguably natural to a group of little sisters and grandmothers). After far too long a time the soldiers came and aimed their rifles at us. We giggled. We could: we were all white.

Writing allowed me to put a thin piece of paper between myself and a world that did not want me there

We were arrested and taken to separate huts for interrogation, but all refused to speak. This is much more difficult than it sounds. Eventually I was charged under the 1984 Prevention of Terrorism Bill and was tried and sentenced in court.

Over the years, there were more actions and more arrests and detainments, but through it all was the pen. It seemed to me that I would always be safe if I had it with me, if I immediately wrote down what was happening and how. Writing allowed me to put a thin piece of paper between myself and a world that did not want me there.

From that point on poetry and political action have always walked beside each other for me. They are twins I sometimes have difficulty telling apart, in the same way that my politics and my body are linked.

The butch woman wears bare face and short hair not to accentuate a masculinity but to force a rethinking of what a woman is. Is she just clothes and make up? Really? In the 80’s it was a frightening thing to do, to stand there like that out in the open. And it helped us recognise each other, to form a strong and instinctive community. After Greenham we tribed together in dyke bars and art squats, still political by the simple act of being. We were kings of nothing much. To live outside the system is easy with a community such as this: no job, no fixed abode, no bank account. In the background were other activist groups;  Act Up was ferocious in its defense of gay men and tackling prejudice around the AIDS epidemic, and the Lesbian Avengers staged protests, including abseiling into the House of Commons, and breaking into the live Nine O’Clock News. Culturally we had spaces where we could hang out, from bars to theatres and even Dyke TV on Channel Four.

Poetry and political action have always walked beside each other for me

Now that all of this lesbian-focused space has receded like the tide before a tsunami it is time for us to remember our journeys, our bodies, our friendships and how radical an act it was and still is for us to simply breathe.  

My spoken word poem CUNTO is a way of breathing. It highlights the journey we masculine women, we butches, we gold star lesbians have taken. It speaks of the female body as a political act and focuses on one simple intent: the taking back of a body. It looks at homophobia and misogyny and talks about the community we forged to overcome the grief of our own lives. But it is also a celebration of the protests led by women from the 80’s through to mid-2000’s, and how much I owe them as a woman and as a writer.

Today writing has become my political act. The fact that I choose to write is political in itself. There is something about the contradiction between the potential longevity of words and the brief and unrepeatable act of performance that attracts me, that is radical at its core, and which proves to me that I am still alive.

See Joelle perform CUNTO as part of Rallying Cry | 28 & 29 May, 7.30pm | Albany, Deptford | info & booking

Banner photo: Suzi Corker

Spoken word is, or should be, for everyone. Whether an organiser or a performer, you have the responsibility of taking appropriate steps to make sure that the event is as accessible to as many people as possible.

As an organiser, when booking a poet, ask them if they have any specific accessibility needs.

If you are a poet with accessibility needs, inform the person who has booked you of your needs so that they are aware of the ways in which they can help make your performance run without a hitch.

Accessibility

Here’s a short list of what to look out for when either choosing a venue to host an event or if you have been booked to feature at an event.

Is the space physically accessible to all?

Steps and stairs can be a barrier to those in wheelchairs or with mobility issues. All venues should have made reasonable efforts to accommodate those with mobility issues. For example, does the venue have ramps, stair lifts and/or a suitably sized lift for people to gain entry and to get to upper floors? Are the toilet facilities adapted to be used by people of all abilities?

Larger venues should have space for wheelchairs in their auditoria or performance areas, and many have staff in attendance who are trained to help if needed. Smaller venues should consider that chairs may have to be removed to accommodate wheelchairs.

Where do I begin?

I’m not in a prison most

People would associate

Being in.

My wheelchair’s my incarcerated space

You just can’t go any place

I watch with envy as the able bodied pass me by

How free they are compared to me!’ I sigh

I have to cross roads where the curb drops

And don’t get me started on shops

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve wept and cried

As most are stepped and I can’t get to the merchandise inside!

It’s the same with pubs, cafes, theatres and clubs

Why should I be denied drink, fun, culture and grub?

I feel like a third class member of this so-called ‘inclusive society’

Which is tantamount to fascist hypocrisy.

– Olly Chester, disabled poet who uses Apples and Snakes

Is the event suitable for those with visual impairment?

Harsh lighting with sudden changes from light to dark can be disorienting to the visually impaired. Pathways should be clear and clearly marked (such as lighter strips delineating the edges of steps) as attendees may be liable to trip or hurt themselves on objects that they do not see. Larger venues should have staff in attendance who are trained to help if needed.

Is the event suitable for those with hearing impairment?

Ensure that performers and readers use the microphone provided to help those with partial hearing not struggle to understand what is being said. To accommodate those with more severe hearing issues, consider employing a BSL signer to convey the performers words. Larger theatres may be equipped with a hearing loop (an audio induction loop) for those with hearing aids. Perhaps consider a projection of the poem for audiences to read or, in some cases, performers themselves have included signing as part of their performance. For more information read this excellent blog on what you’re saying when you say ‘I don’t need a mic’.

By using a fully accessible building you are supporting and giving opportunity to artists and audiences who might otherwise not be able to experience spoken word.

Relaxed events

Relaxed events are designed to be accessible to people who have sensory issues and find it difficult to filter out loud noises and sudden changes in lighting. Often warnings will be posted to alert attendees of theatrical effects such as strobe lighting, smoke or sudden bangs, but having a dedicated performance where the lighting and loud noises are toned down will mean people on the autistic spectrum may feel less stressed by your event. Relaxed events also allow for people to move around or leave if needs be and for the audience members to talk or make noise without affecting the performance. Some relaxed event venues even provide quiet spaces for people to relax in if they find the performance too stressful.

Spoken word is for everyone, so when taking part in, or organising a spoken word event, it is important to consider how everyone can enjoy it.

First published October 2018