Performance Poetry - The United Kingdom

The United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, where the influence of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E was more limited, many avant-garde poets are deeply committed to continuing the performance of Cobbing and his peers. Well-known names include cris cheek and Aaron Williamson. The work of UK poet Michael Horovitz in spreading this tradition in Britain during the early 1960s should also be acknowledged. His Live New Departures - a touring version of his poetry and arts journal New Departures (launched 1959) - gave space and opportunities to poets like Pete Brown and Adrian Mitchell as these three principals combined performed verse with the backing of jazz musicians like pianist Stan Tracey and saxophonist Bobby Wellins. However, the emergence of performed poetry as a popular art form can probably be linked to Allen Ginsberg’s stunning performance at the Albert Hall in 1965 at the International Poetry Incarnation. Horovitz, Brown and Mitchell would join Ginsberg and Beat colleagues Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Gregory Corso and other European poets at that landmark London occasion. These developments were also connected to the emergence of the Liverpool Poets, which referred mainly to the poets Roger McGough, Adrian Henri and Brian Patten who fired up audiences across the UK in the 70s and then the likes of John Hegley emerged in the 80s, influenced as much by stand-up comedy as a love for wordplay, creating the template for what became recognised as contemporary British performance poetry - a format still exemplified by the work of acts such as Murray Lachlan Young, Francesca Beard and Gerard McKeown. In the 90s, however, in big cities like Manchester and London, a different style emerged that was influenced more by hip hop with much less emphasis on comedy in the manner of Def Poets in the United States. Well-known writers from this evolution include Lemn Sissay and the late Dike Omeje from the Manchester scene and Roger Robinson and El Crisis from the London circuit.

On the experimental front, a number of exciting new initiatives have grown around collaborative stage work using poetry and movement. ShadoWork, for instance, aims to 'disrupt and enrich the conventional regimes of author, text and audience' by combining (simple) theatrical movement with the full range of voice and stage in ways designed to draw deeper attention to the text. Developments such as ShadoWork represent a 'counter-cultural' mode of performance poetry which shuns bald entertainment value, and others such as the Tell Tales initiative and Jonzi D's Lyrikal Fearta (which he calls choreo-poetry) go even further, extending spoken word to short prose productions and fusing performance poetry with dance.

British performance poetry continues to thrive at a grassroots level, with performances in pubs and theatres, as well as at arts festivals such as Glastonbury and The Edinburgh Fringe. Slams and open mikes remain popular and are influenced by the work of radio performance poet Hedwig Gorski from the United States, there has also been some crossover into TV and Radio. Many contemporary British performance poets have been influenced by punk poets like John Cooper Clarke and reggae poets like Linton Kwesi Johnson as well as by comedy and hip hop. In 2003 the first UK conference of performance poetry, organised by Lucy English, was held at Bath Spa University. Speakers included performing poets from the United States Bob Holman and Charles Bernstein. Bath Spa university now runs a performance poetry module as part of its Creative Writing programme.