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Stage Invasion: Poetry & the Spoken Word Renaissance
Award-winning poet Pete 'the Temp' Bearder presents the unwritten history, science and skill of spoken word. Stage Invasion answers some strangely unaddressed questions: How was the live art of spoken verse kicked out of the Kingdom of Poetry? What is the history of the art form? How does emotional contagion happen in live performance? What has spoken word got to do with hypnotism and ecstatic states? This groundbreaking book explores a thriving ecology of artistry, and how it can serve us for cultural, social and political renewal.
368 pages, Paperback
Published July 8, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 19, 2020
Pete Bearder makes an impassioned, informed and compelling argument for performance poetry in his book, Stage Invasion: Poetry & The Spoken Word Renaissance. He claims it to be more than a medium, more than a style; more a sphere of human action, a democratic literary movement, defined by a people and the ethos that animates them. He traces its social and literary traditions from Homer to slams, via romanticism, the Chartist poets, the Harlem renaissance, Beat poets, Liverpool poets, Dub, Hip Hop and Punk. Spoken word, he argues, is a lived relationship between art and life.
The word poetry derives from the Greek “to make”. In spoken word, the making is as much about the communities as the words and performances around which they rally. This has led to a well-documented change in the way in which poetry is produced and experienced: now a stalwart element of festivals and clubs, with spoken word workshops available on the NHS, a recognition of its ability to give voice to the voiceless, create spaces for healing and expression. One cannot argue with his statistics, that sales of poetry books are up by almost 50% since 2014, with two-thirds of buyers younger than 34, a trend he associates with the live, carnivalesque experience in which “the body is the material, the media through which the poetry is published.” (p190)
Of course, slam has its detractors, arguing poetry shouldn’t be a competition,to which Bearder replies that competition isn’t exclusive to slams, citing funding applications and submissions to publishers. Others claim, with Lemn Sissay, that slams have prevented the intellectual and artistic growth of an entire generation, with poets competing to be the best in the room, rather than developing their own voices. Bearder retorts that slam is raucous, accessible and allows the audience to participate in the validation of art. It’s a conversation between bodies.
Beautifully illustrated with writers mid-performance, their faces contorted with intensity, from Charles Dickens to Salena Godden, this is a fascinating and learned contribution to the debate, worth studying by anyone with an interest in that poetry which lies, in Steve Larkin’s words, “halfway between speech and music.”
The word poetry derives from the Greek “to make”. In spoken word, the making is as much about the communities as the words and performances around which they rally. This has led to a well-documented change in the way in which poetry is produced and experienced: now a stalwart element of festivals and clubs, with spoken word workshops available on the NHS, a recognition of its ability to give voice to the voiceless, create spaces for healing and expression. One cannot argue with his statistics, that sales of poetry books are up by almost 50% since 2014, with two-thirds of buyers younger than 34, a trend he associates with the live, carnivalesque experience in which “the body is the material, the media through which the poetry is published.” (p190)
Of course, slam has its detractors, arguing poetry shouldn’t be a competition,to which Bearder replies that competition isn’t exclusive to slams, citing funding applications and submissions to publishers. Others claim, with Lemn Sissay, that slams have prevented the intellectual and artistic growth of an entire generation, with poets competing to be the best in the room, rather than developing their own voices. Bearder retorts that slam is raucous, accessible and allows the audience to participate in the validation of art. It’s a conversation between bodies.
Beautifully illustrated with writers mid-performance, their faces contorted with intensity, from Charles Dickens to Salena Godden, this is a fascinating and learned contribution to the debate, worth studying by anyone with an interest in that poetry which lies, in Steve Larkin’s words, “halfway between speech and music.”
March 2, 2020
Absolutely brilliant, really well written and informative for anyone practicing spoken word or poetry
March 21, 2023
A good overview of the English Slam scene that also charts its history and that of poetry/spoken word. It’s very well written and covers a lot of fascinating material and ideas. It’s back cover talks about ‘the history of performance poetry in the UK’ but that is nonsense. Wales doesn’t get much of a mention, from the early 1980’s with Cabaret 246 to the Cardiff Slams from 1995 onwards. It does even mention the Bristol Slams which started before that, run by Glen Carmichael. It’s just London, Liverpool and Manchester areas as usual and not the UK. Apart from that it is great to have a book like this shouting out of the dark and, elucidating so well, an alternative to the staid establishment idea of poetry.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews