29.8.19

What's spoken word?




What's spoken word?

Don't tell me you've never heard. That's absurd. You know poetry, right? For one night we do it in the spotlight, rhyming lines about life, rights and fights, completely undeterred. We each take our turn to make the crowd emotionally stirred. Spoken word the opposite of that feeling of being in a group of people singing a song you've never heard.

What do people talk about?

Whatever they need to get out. You can't predict which way creativity's gonna sprout. It's not just about rocking up at your nearest pub holding a bottle of Bud and seeing what you can churn out – that's a cop out. It's about being honest and seeing who takes your hand when you hold it out. It's about getting over your self-doubt and making yourself count.

What types of people perform?

There's not really a norm. Tutors, roofers, Chief Supers, drivers, miners and skivers – everybody can get something from this art form. Come along and you might see former drug addicts explain how they reformed, grieving widows describe a loved one they desperately mourn, and dreamers talk about the moment they were spiritually reborn. Anyone can get up on stage and cook up a storm, open hidden doors and be impossible to ignore. What did you think, we all wore uniforms?

What do they sound like?

It's kind of a cross between poetry, hip hop and rap, with so many blurred lines. People tear open their wounds and make them shine. Every time you turn up you don't know what you're gonna find. Some people shout, throw their weight about and look you right in the eye – others hide behind their phones, and you wonder why, because their words are powerful enough to make you cry. You'll hear rehearsed and improvised rhymes by nervous and confident kinds going up for the first or the 50th time.

How does it make you feel?

It's unreal. Sometimes poetry's a bit of light-hearted fun, other times it's a proper ordeal. It might be politicised and open your eyes to a human rights issue, or it might plan a seed that slowly makes you feel free and inspires you. There's nothing more real than when people reveal what destroyed them and helped them heal. We're beloved, accepted and empowered in our collective ideal.

Why do you go?

At first I went there to meet girls, but at the first show I went to everyone was so old. And they were so slow, their rhymes had no flow – no one there was a pro. But that was so long ago. These days I don't come to meet girls, or bring girls, or escape girls, but to rock my world watching complete pros steal the show with poems that make you go 'woah'. And I'm distant from my family, but what I've come to know, is that spoken word is my home. When I'm low my brothers and sisters here help me grow. So I'll keep coming here 'til I'm old, get all slow and lose my flow – because it's what I owe.

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Our love is




An intense love, like two tornadoes ravaging the world as they sweep towards each other  tearing structures to shreds, tossing debris into the air, flattening every object in their path. One tornado blasts its way across the Pacific Ocean and arrives on Asia's shores, crushing ancient civilisations as it moves purposefully, deliberately towards the other, which incinerates jungle after forest after field in its equally ferocious journey through the Americas.

A complex love, like a 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle we start tackling first at the corners, before building the edges and sides to slowly form a complete image over many years – one granular piece of detail at a time. The jigsaw is a patchwork of our individual lives, experiences and identities  constantly evolving misshapen pearls which, before our eyes, merge and marry into a pure picture of our shared soul.

A hopeful love, like a dog walking to meet his master at the train station every day at 5.30pm without fail (and without having to be taught). A dog which, even when his master doesn't make it home one evening, because he has died at work, continues to wait at the platform. He sees his master's train come to a stop and the doors open, and his master fail to appear  but he stays there a while longer, just in case. His face bears the brunt of 100mph winds from a dozen subsequent trains speeding past. At midnight, the station closes. The dog returns to his master's home and sleeps in his kennel, repeating the routine the next day and  such is his loyalty – every day for his remaining 14 years.

Our love is this.


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