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.
