Periodic Reporting for period 2 - POETRY OFF THE PAGE (Poetry Off the Page: Literary History and the Spoken Word, 1965-2020)
Reporting period: 2023-03-01 to 2024-08-31
While poetry scholarship conventionally dissociates literary texts from their physical authors, the Poetry Off the Page project aims to reveal the importance of the voice and the human body within the study of poetry and its history. Poetry Off the Page (PoP) investigates the significance of oral poetry performance in recent British and Irish literary history. This is achieved by taking account of the aesthetic and political potential of oral performance as well as the alternative institutional structures, publication channels, career pathways, presentational formats, styles, and poetic genres that have emerged from its dynamic performance scenes. Drawing on, and contributing to, the recent digital SpokenWordArchive.org.uk the PoP Team historicises British and Irish poetry performance. We conduct in-depth studies on the intersections of spoken word poetry with literary and performance traditions, Black British spoken-word poetry, British poetry slam, Irish spoken word, and spoken-word theatre.
A core aim of the project is to articulate multifaceted theoretical and methodological approaches to poetry performance analysis. These make it possible to explore the aesthetic and cultural work of poetry performance: to shed light on poetry’s inheritance and innovative transformation of oral traditions, on the functions of poetry performance as a form of public address and as a vehicle for identity politics, as well as on its relation to emerging communications technologies and their profound impact on how literature is experienced.
A core aim of the project is to articulate multifaceted theoretical and methodological approaches to poetry performance analysis. These make it possible to explore the aesthetic and cultural work of poetry performance: to shed light on poetry’s inheritance and innovative transformation of oral traditions, on the functions of poetry performance as a form of public address and as a vehicle for identity politics, as well as on its relation to emerging communications technologies and their profound impact on how literature is experienced.
To date, Poetry Off the Page has organized two successful conferences: “Taking the Mic: Black British Spoken Word Poetry Since 1965: Aesthetics, Activisms, Auralities” (18 Nov 2022) and “All Borders Blur: Mapping Intersections and Genre Crossings in UK Spoken-Word Poetries Since 1965” (11-12 Nov 2023). The work from these conferences is currently being channeled into two Special Issue Journals. We have launched a new academic blog (https://poetryoffthepage.net/blog/(opens in new window)) for which we are collecting international guest contributions, and a podcast about our work aimed at a wider audience (https://poetryoffthepage.net/popcast/(opens in new window)). We have conducted 78 interviews with poets and practitioners in UK and Ireland, and recently launched a digital collection on the University of Vienna’s research repository Phaidra (https://phaidra.univie.ac.at/detail/o:2045471(opens in new window)) where our interview recordings will be permanently stored. Russell Thompson, liaison archivist for PoP at our partners Apples&Snakes, oversaw the digitizing of the remaining analogue holdings of the Spoken Word Archive (300 audio cassettes; 180 video cassettes; press cuttings 1982-2000; paperwork 1990s) and completed catalogues of all audio cassettes, video cassettes, born-digital video, CDs and DVDs, and photographs up to the year 2023, thus making vital sources on the history of British poetry performance accessible to the public. The PoP team has also conducted research in a variety of other archives; held workshops on key methods and theories; presented at a range of external conferences; and written/workshopped/produced/submitted articles and book chapters for two PhD theses, journals, the two PoP-edited special issues, a team book centered on the performance event, academic blog entries, and podcast episodes.
As poetry performance is still a vastly under-researched field, most of our efforts can be seen as going beyond the parameters of established academic research and practice. We articulate multifaceted theoretical and methodological approaches to poetry performance analysis, provide new sources, and cultivate spaces for its study, thus making a fresh intervention in the study of British and Irish literature by which we aim to establish poetry performance research as a recognised branch of literary (-historical) enquiry. In particular, our exploration of the ‘poetry event’ – as both a critical lens on and constituent of literary history – in our joint monograph will open new avenues for approaching poetry history, while the two PhD theses-in-progress develop pioneering work on Irish spoken word poetry and British spoken word theatre.