In February Chill Pill launched their live recording of our Spoken Word show at The Roundhouse in Camden. This is a pilot and an experimentation of an idea we've had for a while now and we hope it makes enjoyable listening.
If you haven't seen this video you MUST! Mystro's 2011 wrap up.
In short, Mystro is a UK Hip-Hop Legend. He blew up in 1999 alongside Skinnyman,Rodney P & Blak Twang, and during the 'Golden Era' of UK Hip-Hop that followed he had a quality album released on Low Life Records. He has been on the grind, working and touring around the world since. I remember my early teens was all about DJ Skully on Kiss 100, it was my UK Hip-Hop fix and Mystro was a regular on his playlist. On March 29th he's one of our featured acts at Chill Pill at The Albany Theatre... Alongside the amazing...
Rachel Rose Reid is an award winning storyteller and as you can see in the video, she is widely acknowledge as a tour de force on the Spoken Word/Theatre & Storytelling World. She will be performing with the amazing REC Choir.
Hopefully you'll agree we're breaking new ground with the mix of styles on the bill - we're excited to see how it all comes together!
There are also six Open Mic slots available, arrive early to bag yours...
London bound New York poet 'Jon Sands' comes to Chill Pill as part of his UK tour. Jon is a celebrator of life - perfect for a funeral! He's also a Teacher, Slam Champion, Published Poet (Write Bloody Publishing) and makes better Tuna Salad than anyone you know. http://www.jonsands.com/
Ken Arkind is poor and he likes puppies. Born in Colorado, Ken has been a major name in the US Slam Poetry realm for the past five years. He's also a Teacher of performance arts and poetry. Expect humour, profundity and beat boxing.
Singaporean born, Stephanie Dogfoot is a kind of surrealist storyteller poet. Her poems have won her stuff and we at Chill Pill are impressed... You will be too! http://stephdogfoot.wordpress.com/
Our only London born Poet on the bill with a wikipedia page. Bridget is part of 'The Roundhouse Rubix Collective'. A raging feminist & grammar nazi that likes words and running and food and politics and music and film. http://bridgetminamore.blogspot.com/
Oh' and a Extra Chair for Brighton raised, London based Chill Pill poet Simon Mole who will be previewing his exciting and new one man show coming up at The Albany.
As we zoom out the universe that Niall O’Sullivan has scrutinized under his telescope, we can hang up our lab coats, free the monkeys from their cages and put away the Oxford Dictionary.
Let us now look into an even more ambiguous belief system - one of spoken word performer - James Massiah.
I mentioned religion being a bit of a crowd splitter so I was a bit worried about getting in contact with James just to ask about his religious views, like some kind of overeager Jehovah’s Witness recruit.
Having seen James perform a few times I decided to ask him more specific questions about the topics he tackles.
Here he is performing a piece called Dance With The Devil.
Massiah, you challenge a lot of stereotypes enforced by society on young black boys... what is your role in breaking down those barriers and does your faith provide a role in that?
Everyone deserves a fair shot at life, and because of the stereotypes and assumptions that are often put on young black males we don't really get that fair shot. Throughout history people have come along and changed social ideals and altered people’s perceptions on certain things I would hope that my art allows people to change their perceptions in a similar way to those that have done so in the past in the fields of art, science, religion, politics and so on. More specifically in regards to this question, I'd hope that I change people’s negative or infantile views on ideas about race, culture and ethnicity; through not only my art but my character and moral values too.
Do you think preaching and sermonising can be used as a form of performance poetry?
In as much as a sermon is often a man with a microphone telling a story and sharing his views on an issue I certainly think so. There may be a marked difference in the preachers style and form in that it may not be as verse oriented as a poet's, but I've seen many an evangelist with tons of charisma turn a congregation much in the way that I have seen performance poets rouse crowds with their poems.
I preached my first sermon before I performed my first poem and so I definitely feel there is an overlap between the two that allows for one to be able to learn or appreciate the values of another, stylistically at least if not theologically.
Are you saving the world or saving yourself?
I'm no pessimist, but I shall certainly sound like one when I say that the world is beyond saving. In saying that though, I truly hope that in saving myself, the small pockets of the world that hear my poetry, see my shows and meet me will be changed for the better as a result.
I would like to sign out with this quote from one of my favorite poets of the moment Charles Simic -
"as far as I'm concerned it is not a contradiction to say both - God does and does not exist"
I heard there is an uprising Spoken Word scene in Glasgow and Newcastle.
I don’t know any poets out there but I do know a poet in Edinburgh called Harry Giles. Me and Harry used to be Slam poets and almost always ended up head to head.
What I really loved about that is the fact we’d always hang out and have a laugh afterwards. We both understand that slams don’t mean shit and you’re only as good as five people say you are on the night.
So, I jumped on the mega bus and headed up to see Harry and hoped to get some insight in Edinburgh’s Spoken Word scene.
The bus took eight and a half hours but to be honest it wasn’t a bad journey...
Well, to me there is no such thing as a bad journey if you get a good piece out of it.
“...I got to keep telling myself it’s not a lottery, just put in the work and the rest will come properly...”
I arrived in Edinburgh in the early evening and met with Harry. We headed down to a local arts centre called 'The Falcon'.
There were three rooms of different things happening. On the main stage there was a band who plugged a Game Boy into an amp then cut up the sounds into break beats with a man half rapping half doing Spoken Word. Sounds cool right? Well... It was more like being slapped around the head by butch lesbians; I didn’t know how to respond to the assult on my ears... I just stood around and as the room formed a mosh pit my head formed an ache.
In the next room there were some art films being projected, each film based around narrative poems written by the students. The idea was good but the subtitles moved too fast so it just became a mental game of “how many words in a paragraph can I read in 5 seconds”.
The third room was the poetry. There was a vintage arcade version of Pac-Man set up where the poets were reading and ironically the poetry was themed around technology. The idea being whether people are in a que to play Pac-Man or standing around in a trance by the bright red, blue and green flashing screen at least the poets have an audience... ah the things we do to feel appreciated.
I’ve spent most of the day walking around the town. I think I’ve walked most of Edinburgh in 7 hours.
It’s a great place to go and lose yourself in. It’s not a complicated town, it’s almost like it’s built within a bowl that you can climb out of and look down on.
I love that there’s a lot of greenery surrounding the old grey buildings. Every sociologist should be a travelling poet.
I’ve performed in quite a few countries and cities now and it’s really made me reflect on how the environment reflects the art that’s created within it.
I wrote about this in my ‘poet in New York blog’ and having performed in a few other cities since then I can expand on that idea.
Most of the poetry I’ve heard in green lands like Edinburgh has come from a place outside the artist. For example it’s mostly been nature, landscape, political or historical poetry and these are the themes explored commonly by suburban poets.
Poets from the city seem to be more neurotic in their work, more detached from nature and perhaps more in their own heads and up their own asses.
I find this an accurate reflection on the people because poets are subjective reflections of their enviroment.
The more greenery you’re surrounded by the easier it is to put yourself into perspective as a human being in a world that's so much bigger than us.
Too much grey makes you lose perspective of real life because real life isn’t the bubble that consumes you in the city.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a city boy to death but there’s nothing I needed more right now than to get out of the bubble of London so I can look at my life and my art at a distance where it's more green.
If Pete The Temp ruled the world it would be squeezed between his chest and arms in a giant metaphysical man hug.
If Pete The Temp ruled the world the C Word would be "Classism".
If Pete The Temp ruled the world he’d sell a lot of CDs.
Every now and then you pick up some roadie stories as a travelling artist and one of my favorites involves the day I met Pete. We were on the same bill at a Festival in Cambridge and Pete had a late set. As festival audiences go the later you’re set the higher chances of a drunken and disorderly audience.
Pete launched into a poem and some disgruntled, pink-eyed drunk woman in the audience barged onto the stage and wrestled Pete. Unable to get Pete on the floor she decided to jump on his back while Pete (without stopping his performance) punched his poem out his panting lungs. He completed his set carrying the woman off stage on piggyback…
Pete The Temp instantly became my hero.
Q. So Pete, you’re a temp?
I graduated with an arts degree and consequently spent my early twenties as a temp. Much of my early work was workplace satire. The Temp part of my name is about solidarity with the underdog. It is for everyone who believes that there is more to life than mindless work that devalues people as human beings, pays them fuck all and channels all their productive time into menial tasks that make a small minority of people rich. You know those vans, that drive up to dusty roadside junctions near the Mexican boarder to pick up men and children desperate for half a days work? That's the same thing as a temp agency. I have spoken to countless people who find an escape from this in writing and performing. By laughing at it and poking fun at it we can make something positive out of something negative.
I used to do human rights work in Colombia where standing up for yourself as a worker can lead to assassination at the hands of a death squad. Workers there are at the sharp end of the same system – one that values profit over people and seeks to trivialise and casualise employees. The temp thing is also an expression of solidarity with them. But no, I’m not a temp, I haven't been for years. I'm now a corporate lawyer.
Q. I thoroughly enjoy the social commentary in your poems but does poetry and politics have a good relationship?
My big mouth is my gift. It is my duty to channel my creative energies into making a song and dance about what I believe to be important. Historically poets have always been a bit subversive. Poetry engages you intellectually and creates arenas of public discussion and critical thinking. It could be about sexual politics, relationship politics or politics politics. People who prefer to spend their evenings in these environments rather than watching TV are less likely to accept what 'The Man' tells them.
I am currently working on a spoken word stage show: 'Pete the Temp verses Climate Change! We are in the process of finding people and venues interested in hosting it. The aim of the show is to get people talking about climate change and laughing at the same time. While the mouths are open you can throw in some food for thought. Q. You teach performance poetry. How do you teach someone to become a good Spoken Word poet?
Games are an important part of the creative process and are missing from the school curriculum. De-constructing the text of John Hegley and Benjamin Zephaniah from books is not enough to spark young imaginations to engage with 'spoken word'. A large proportion of the workshops we carry out at Hammer & Tongue are warm up games, improvisation games, rap battles and mini – competitions. Games are fun. They engage your body and get blood pumping to the brain which releases endorphins and sparks creativity. I believe this is how we can bring the words to life, get people performing and resurrect the oral tradition.
Q. You sing and play guitar and you have a lot of call and response material in your performance catalogue. Do you feel poetry on its own is never enough to engage your audiences? You can do anything on a spoken word stage – satire, music, character acting, audience participation. I’ve even got away with doing sketch comedy once. The call and response stuff creates a nice dialogue between audience and performer. For every ego on stage there are another twenty in the audience. When it comes to the guitar, stand up poetry has masses of musicality in it already – even without an instrument. Imagery and metaphor is important but that is not to say that it cannot be brought to life! I don’t think that there is any less 'content' or 'writing' in heavily performative poetry – it is just that the pieces are designed to have different effects on the listener.
Q. You were born and bred in Oxford right? When I think of Oxford I think of the place that isn’t Eton or Cambridge University but it might as well be. How the hell did you become the public menace you are?
I exist in the badlands of Oxford. I eat rats in tunnels below the colleges and periodically jump out to eat rich people with my fingernails and teeth.
Q. You’ve performed all over the country how do your audiences vary and what does this teach you as an artist?
Being a performer has given me the great privilege of backpacking round my own country and experiencing new places and people. Poetry is about community as much as it is about words and spoken word audiences are unlike any other – open minded, attentive, aware and friendly. Each venue, night and point in time has its own demographic and its own vibe. The challenge for me is to tap into this and to orchestrate the right set for that particular audience.
Q. Are the rumors true? Do poets die poor?
Someone once said “there is no money in poetry, but then again, there is no poetry in money.” Bollocks! There are too many fantastic performers out there who are not getting paid for the professional work they do. This is not the case in other branches of spoken word like stand up. It doesn't have to be this way. In France and Germany poets regularly perform to audiences of 400 plus. Not all nights have a budget to pay performers and that's fine. Poets in the UK do after all operate in a small artistic economy but this is changing all the time. People are waking up to the fact that poetry can move you, inspire you and even get you singing along. How many poetry gigs have you been to where people are like “Wow! I never knew poetry could be like that!”?. I don't know any poets who want to be rich but they do want to be able pay their rent. Valuing our work as poets is part of the task of changing public perceptions of poetry. If you are a poet and someone asks you to do “a reading during the interval” - decline the offer!
Q. Pete, I love your work and you’re a top bloke... I’d give you a permanent contract any day!
I'd be your office bitch any day my friend. Keep up the good work.
It would be a challenge to forget Scroobius Pip. The appearance of a full thick and untrimmed bush of a beard grown out the face of a man who wears suits with baseball caps to perform poetry is quite striking.
I was first made aware of Scroob in 2007 when a mate of mine invited me to a music night called ‘The Spitz’.
The opening act was cockney poet ‘Tim Wells’. Put Tim Wells in any Irish or British pub and you’d think he owned the place. He’s a stocky geezer who took the stage in an overcoat, then rolled up his sleeves to reveal two inked up lumberjack forearms.
Get on the wrong side of Tim and expect a baseball bat to the face or a poem dedicated to your mother, best to expect both.
The next act was ‘Chris Redmond’ a.k.a ‘The Ventriloquist’. A slim man in a straw hat who has the most astonishing talent to make a stroll through the park sound like a spiritual exploration inside three dimensions of a supernatural universe (without being hippy about it).
Since then, The Spiz has been run out of the East End and Scroobius Pip has gone on to release two successful albums with Dan Le Sac, sign to ‘Strange Famous’ (a label run by American Spoken Word and indie Rapper superstar ‘Sage Francis’) tour around the world and god forbid – has he ditched the suits and trimmed his beard?
Q. Scroob! Haven’t seen the suits for a while, where are they?
I still have them! It’s a weird thing, the whole wearing suits thing was never really a stage image. When i worked in a record shop i wore jeans and t-shirt to work. Because of this, i enjoyed the aesthetic of coming home and changing in to a suit for my evenings and nights out. Sounds ridiculous i know. So, after a year or two of wearing suits onstage it kind of became a uniform again so I relaxed on it. I still always wear a shirt and tie though! Got to keep some kind of standard around here...
Q. You’ve had quite an amazing career so far. You’ve inspired poets all over the country and shown us maybe commercial success as a poet is attainable. Was popularising poetry ever on the agenda?
Not particularly. To be honest, there was never much of an agenda to start with. I wanted to write, and, when i had stuff I was pleased with, I wanted to perform it. Everything else after that has just been a bonus. Commercial success is often shied away from in the quest to be "underground" but ive never been sold on that. If you are writing something that means something to you then surely you would want as many people as possible to hear it? Obviously, if you start to change what you write about in the pursuit of commercial success then thats a different story. But, in general, its been great to get to speak to so many different people around the world, and to then have the opportunity to put on poetry nights and show more of the scene to some of the people that have enjoyed what i do.
Q. I’ve seen you do Spoken Word sets as well as music sets with 6ft Pianist, Dan Le Sac and even Kate Nash. Is combining your poetry with music always necessary to reach larger audiences and do you make compromises as a writer?
I dont really know to be honest. For me, i have always been a huge music fan. I am a music fan before a poetry fan really, so there was always a natural urge and desire to work with music too. I stumbled in to spoken word through the lack of anyone to make music with! So when those opportunities started to come up i was eager to see what could be achieved.
Q. How has your journey as an artist changed you as a person since your days participating in slam poetry events and open mic nights?
Its hard to say from my perspective really. I dont really feel it has changed me as a person much. One change is not having as much time to write new stuff as i used too! But thats a product of having a busy schedule so i cant complain about that. In the early days i was always quite confident at the open mics and slams. I always felt that, if i am willing to stand up in front of a room and tell these poems, then i must be pleased with them and proud of them.
Q. You got signed by the amazing Sage Francis, how did this come about and what does he expect from Scroobius Pip?
Signing with Sage was a huge honor! I have been a fan of his for many years and he has definately influenced my work in many ways. It basically came about when someone he knew pointed him in the direction of our myspace page. "Thou Shalt Always Kill" was just starting to build a buzz and he left a comment saying he liked it. Fast forward a year or so and we were finishing off our first album (Angles) and we didnt have a record deal in America. I decided to send Sage a myspace message asking if he would be interested in releasing our album and he said "Yes"! It was as simple as that! Im not really sure what Sage "expects" from me really but it has been great to build a relationship with the guy. Long may it continue.
Q. This year you published a book of your poems which seems to be doing well by poetry publication standards. What’s the story behind this and are you reading any poetry at the moment?
The answer to your first question kind of lays in the answer to your second. Im not reading any poetry right now. And i have never really been a big reader of poetry. It was this fact that made me uncomfortable when i was approached to release a collection of poems. I had always loved watching poetry performed live but rarely read that much. It therefore felt somewhat arrogant to release a book of poetry. "I dont read much of the stuff but you should read mine..." After some thought i came up with the idea of presenting a collection of poems in a more unusual and engaging way. I then spent two years getting different artists and illustrators to submit visual interpretations of my poems via myspace. This was always a side project whilst touring so it all just seemed to build up and come together. All of a sudden i had a graphic novel of poetry. I got in touch with a few different publishers and when Titan showed an interest i jumped at the chance to work with them. Having put out "the watchmen", "Kickass" and numerous others they seemed like a great choice. Several moths later, i had a book in the shops! It really was overwhelming.
Q. I’ve noticed sometimes you’re referred to as a rapper and sometimes as a Spoken Word artist or a poet and I’ve never seen you correct anyone... Just what is Scroobius Pip?
Whatever! haha. I have never been too precious over titles. I normally choose "spoken word" artist as it is the most literal description of what i do. I speak words. All the time. Sometimes to crowded rooms, sometimes in a recording studio. I think people are often too eager to label things when we dont really need too. I took my name from an Edward Lear poem about that exact same issue. Trying to catagorize that which cannot be catagorized.
Q. Scroob, you’re an absolute inspiration to so many of us out here... but how much would I have to pay you to chop the ol’ beard?
Young man you don't have the bank balance to enter in to such negotiations...
While I was in Berlin a lovely little shop printed my first collection of poems... They'll always be in my bag at gigs (until I sell out, sold 50 already) so come to a show and get one!
as well as the pamphlet I have a little Spoken Word EP I recorded in January 2010 and decided to give it away for FREE DOWNLOAD.
Also been working on the Speed Camera Shy project with Jim Whelan. We've had Musa Okwonga, Zayna Daze and David J in the studio with us recently. Our website is being made and will be up soon...
Back in April I did a Spoken Word set at 'Jazz Verse Jukebox' which happens monthly at Ronnie Scotts.
The night is hosted by the amazing Jumoke Fashola and the night has a jazz and poetry theme surging through it (believe that its quality without the poncey show boaty business that often arrives at Jazz and Poetry events). Two poets feature per month and so it happens that I was on the bill with the beat poet legend Michael Horovitz.
It was an incredible night with a powerful open and feel good vibe about it... easily one of the most enjoyable and memorable gigs I've ever done.
A week later I emailed Michael Horovitz asking if he had any advise for a young poet. He emailed me back something he posted on his website about me. I was honoured.
“It was a fabulous quantum leap of sorts when performer after performer connected with a vocally sensitive and euphoric bunch of jazz poetry celebrants just about none of whom were even slightly obnoxious, overlong or deafening as has been my usual experience at Slams and the like. And one of the most enthralling exhilarations of this series of highspots was Ray Antrobus’s set – he strikes as a vastly promising exception to what seems to be the rule of youngsters assuming that being a gobshite in command of a few streetwise attitudes & expressions is all that’s needed to become a rap or poetry superstar overnight. Ray’s act suggested that if he perseveres with high energy & deeply felt examinations of himself and others as ventilated that evening he will join the constellations relished by wordsound travellers who will drop just about anything because there is a performance by the likes of Johns Hegley & Cooper Clarke, Francesca Beard & Zephaniah, Patience Agbabi & Sophie Woolley.”
The first series of the Q&A comes to a close… Mighty thanks to Paula Varjack, Jon Sands, Paradox, Hollie Mcnish, Bohdan Piasecki, Deanna Rodger, Rob Auton and Simon Mole for your thoughtful and honest answers… I salute you!
Meanwhile... myself, Mista Gee, Deanna Rodger, Kim Leng Hills and Craig Tomas have been working hard developing our weekly Spoken Word Poetry and Music night ‘Chill Pill’ at the top of East London’s Brick Lane.
It’s been a smash hit. The first three weeks we had a room of an average 25-30 people a week…
we’re now cramming them in at an average of 50-65 heads a week after running for two and a half months…
Spoken Word Poetry is on the rise and it’s as cutting edge as ever!
Here's some shots of some of the poets we've had down the last couple months...
I first met him at a poetry slam where he was disqualified for using props – I thought he was a genius straight away and felt his disqualification was part of the act. Once you made it into my books as a genius you get a license to get away with anything in my world- a bit like Phillip Seymour Hoffman when he gets an unlimited arts council ‘Genius’ grant in the film 'Synecdoche New York'...
Rob Auton is from York!
He was at PoeJazzi recently and I took a CD off him. I loved the way it was packaged in a little cardboard slip, stapled together with a child like drawing of what looked like a whale with a beak and little wings – bless him.
The CD was brilliant – 21 short satirical poems and short stories–
“I can tell by the look of her cat that she doesn’t like cats I can tell by the look of her dog that she doesn’t like cats”
There was also a poem about a car spotter.
“I am a car spotter, my favorite type of traffic is jam”
I call this genius and that might make me a dunce! Who knows?
Q. Rob Auton, how are you, who are you and should we care?
I'm OK thanks. I'm writing this in the heart of an Internet cafe in Walthamstow. Not a hot drink in sight. There is however a vending machine, it's full but the light is off. Does that mean the drinks are luke warm? Yes, yes it does. 14 minutes of my 50p hour have passed.
Q. Are you comfortable with being called a Spoken Word poet? Do you see yourself this way?
Are you calling me a spoken word poet? If so, then yes I am comfortable with it. Nobody has ever called me that to my face. My iPod batteries have just run out. So I can now hear the tapping of these keys, and people talking on skype. The guy next to me is talking to his girlfriend, I can see her, but she can't see me. Or can she? No she can't. I’m not looking again. They are having a private conversation, what better place to have it than in an Internet cafe?
Q. What’s your work ethic as a poet/ writer and performer?
If I have an idea, I write it in my notepad or into my phone, whichever is in my pocket at the time. If it's an idea that I like and it keeps poking me in the centre of my forehead throughout the day, then I will work on it when I get home, or on my lunch break. Sometimes things work on themselves, other times I've got to do it. I like the ideas that come like ready meals and I've just got to heat them up with as little effort as possible. I want to get as much stuff down as as I can so I can go back to it and see if it is rubbish or not. Is that an ethic? I want to put things in people's heads that are not already there.
Q. How do poets make money?
Working in art shops in soho.
Q. You run a night called ‘Bang Said The Gun’? Is it successful by your own standards and what would you advise on someone who is starting out their own poetry night?
Since Bang Said The Gun went weekly in February it has really started to fizz. I jumped on the Bang wagon after it had been going for ten years, by that time, the guys that started it had cemented the spirit of it to have real guts. We keep trying to build it and add things every week to keep it fresh. I think you have got to have the audience at the front of your mind all the time, you can't put on a poetry night for you it has to be for the audience. Not that I put it on, I help to put it on. I think it’s important to be part of a team of people that you share a goal with.
Q. What is the future of poetry? Is there one?
The future of poetry is the people who feel the need to comment on this thing that we have all been born into. I remember one of your status updates saying something like "a lot of people have died in the past, we are the small few who are alive." It's true you know, all the people who are alive now, it's like we are on the front of a really wide train powered by the past and we are all clinging onto the front with the wind in our faces travelling into the future. Say you had a black rectangle that was 50 meters long and 5 meters high we would be the yellow millimeter at the right end. The future of poetry is people feeling that thing of going, ‘YEEEEAHH come on lets have it, pass me that pen, I want to WRITE about this stuff that going on’.
Q. As a poet are you under-rated or more so misunderstood?
I didn't consider myself to be either until now.
Q. Is your poetry consciously outrageous or have I just insulted you?
I don't think my poetry has ever caused outrage. I got an old woman in a brief loving headlock on the tube after a large amount of Tequila, that was outrageous behavior that I regret.
I've been doing this for 51 minutes.
Q. Where do you see yourself tomorrow?
I will be in the art shop at 8am dealing with a Daler Rowney delivery. Tomorrow as in the future, I will be having ideas, seeing if I like them, then seeing if other people like them.
Q. Rob – your stuff is brilliant – you know that right?
It’s 2008, I’m strolling off Brick Lane and into 93 Feet East on a wet weekday, literally walking into the life of Paula Varjack, a smokey dim-lit bar and lots of trendy artistic-looking men, grinning at the pink high heels, full red lips and glossy long legs of poetry. Varjack impressed me immediately.
The first time we spoke was at Farrago in Shoreditch where I was also performing, she came up to me after the show with her book and said “hey, if I give you my book will you actually read it?” “of course!” I took it and actually read it. I genuinely wish that everyone introduced themselves to me with a book of their poetry.
We became mates; she was the first person I told about my plan to give up my well-paid full time job as a Personal Trainer for Spoken Word poetry, she’s probably the only person who didn’t question my mental stability. We were sitting on a night bus when I told her, to which she replied, “great, you have my support”
A month later I’m out in Berlin with her, hitting up some slams, she’s quite a celebrity among the poetry heads in Berlin, she had her own one-woman show with the same title as the book she gave me ‘Kiss and Tell’, she created the anti-slam where the worst poet wins and she too gave up a professional career for poetry and documentary film making.
Q. Paula, you gave up a good career in television are you MAD!?
Paula - oh mad without question. But I should probably clarify that I didn't give up my production career for poetry (although that previous life does kind of relate oddly) I was working for an animation company, specifically in charge of all the audio production which meant I co-ordinated and managed all the voice over talent for the voice records of the shows. I didn't realize one day I’d be on the other side of the mic, but I didn't give up animation for poetry. Before I moved to Berlin, in London I’d been working in the same company, with more or less the same responsibilities for years. As fun as it was and as talented as the people I worked with were, it didn't feel like I was going anywhere. Other more uh...domestic matters... went wrong around the same time. Suddenly I very much felt like I needed a change, a drastic one. Berlin was an idea that had been floating in my head for a while, it was almost mythologized and it seemed as good a place to runaway as anywhere, so I rented out my flat and went, moved to Berlin without a lick of German and only a couple friends there. I actually had this crazy idea that in Berlin i could focus and work on my new passion, documentary filmmaking. I rented a little studio near my new flat to edit in (it was actually painted *gold* no lie) and before I knew it I started to make friends and more friends and learned enough German to get by. The crucial turning point was when my thirtieth birthday was coming up; a friend in London invited me to perform at a new cabaret night she was launching. it seemed like a great way to turn thirty. I was never a performer but I’d always been into the idea of slam. I thought I’d put together a short-spoken word set, and from that night forward, well... I never finished that documentary...
Q. You’ve lived in many places (all seem to be cities) Berlin, London, Washington DC, I know you were out in Ghana recently. How has this influenced your writing and performance?
Paula - I’m completely culturally schizophrenic. I speak English with an American accent, London slang and the odd German word thrown in. I’ve always been obsessed with cities. My mum is from Accra, my father is from London, I was born in DC. Summers were divided between London and Accra visiting family.I grew up in the suburbs of DC, but as soon as i was old enough to take the metro into town by myself I was there, at cafes, gigs and art galleries. If I go on holiday I never go somewhere remote and scenic. I like urban landscapes, architecture, art, people, noise. The first performance piece I became known for, was about how living in Berlin felt like having an affair behind London’s back. It is an ongoing theme. In film school, my graduation film was about the city of London giving relationship advice to the main character, through a series of interactions with strangers. I then moved onto blogging where I was always characterizing/personifying cities as characters (mainly female ones...)the characters I constantly meet in cities, are a tremendous influence to me. The energy of urbanism is what keeps me feeling alive.
Q. What came first – The kiss or the tale?
Paula - ah... that’s a ‘how long is a piece of string question’ no? Sometimes the story leads to the kiss and sometimes vice versa. Generally with the work I’ve done to date, the kiss comes first. Then again, I have a writer/filmmaker head that leads me to constantly seek out narratives, subtext, back-story. Sometimes the subtext is even better than the kiss. Sometimes the fantasy is better left as a fantasy, but I’m off the kiss and tell track now. It was a fun adventure and great material for sure, but now I want to focus on other kinds of stories.
Q. You were a touring poet last year with your Berlin crew, how did it go? What did you learn? I want some roadie stories!
Paula - yes I’m one fourth of a crew called *skint but sexy* an anglicized version of when Berlin’s mayor famously (infamously) called Berlin "poor but sexy”. It was a brilliant tour, mainly because the people I toured with: Michael Haeflinger, Moon, and musician Joe Czarnecki are such wonderfully talented people, and soooo not egocentric. I mainly learned how both draining and exciting the experience of performing in a new city each night can be. Roadie stories? Oh loads... our arrival was pretty rock and roll, we were picked up at Bristol airport by Andie from the acoustic night at halo, in a big shiny white Mercedes van. Ending up having late night whiskeys in a soho members bar with Salena Godden after the book club boutique gig was pretty cool too. There were definitely tour casualties,like Moon's passport, and very nearly Joe’s laptop (Which he realized he'd left in the train just as we saw the train leave. It was saved by a sympathetic station controller)
Q. The Anti-Slam concept is genius! What inspired the idea and how’s the night going?
I can't take the credit for the concept. I visited New York last fall and saw a performance at the Nuyorican poet cafe by Jamie Dewolf. As part of his feature set he performed a winning piece from his anti-slam event in Oakland. I was totally blown away. It managed to satirize every bad habit in performance poetry. There were cringe-worthy rhymes, shaking hands holding the poem, defensiveness, terrible metaphors (etc) I knew right away that I wanted to bring the idea to Berlin. As soon as I came back I started asking everyone i knew on the scene what they thought about the idea. The response was so positive I knew it would take off if I did it. I've hosted/produced three of them now. With the concept you can't really do it too often I think. I also like the idea that it’s a special event, without any clear regularity of when the next one will happen. The last one happened on Valentines Day and was an anti-love poetry special. It was seriously hilarious. The next one will be mid July with a political theme. I’m extremely excited and curious to hear some pathetic political ranting. Wolfgang Hogekamp is producing this one with me which I really think will help take it to another level in terms of promotion and event production. I'm really keen also to bring the event to London in the fall. I just need to find the right person or people to produce it with, so if anyone's interested, holler.... Q. Many of us poets are hungry to jump into the world of one-person shows – Is this the way forward for Spoken Word artists who have been on the circuit for some time?
Paula - I think theatre is a logical progression from spoken word. I think the best slam pieces are in effect microcosms of theatre, or at least very much monologue based. Music is another direction a lot of performance poets move towards. I don't think any of these things are mutually exclusive either. However, I don't think that solo shows are for everyone. I also don't think a solo show should simply be thirty to sixty minutes of poems. I did this in a way with my last solo show, built up a narrative through poems and monologues. It did work in a way, but I realized that theatre being a whole other medium, I’d rather connect with that medium in its own terms, not force another medium (spoken word) into it. Its something like adapting a book to a film, you know? The question is an individual one, what each artist personally wants to achieve. You shouldn't do a solo show just because you've been doing slam poetry for a while, you should do a solo show because that’s a medium you want to explore, and it suits the story you want to tell. For me, as much as I love slams, I want to perform and tell stories that are longer than a three-minute limit, or even fifteen-minute feature sets. I want to combine multimedia elements of music and video projection; I want to work with physicality and silences as much as text, so theatre seems the best way forward for me.
Q. I want to go back to Berlin and do more performances out there – what’s the scene saying at the moment?
Paula - The scene is always open to you coming back Ray :-) the English language scene is very much thriving, a beautiful new English literary journal has just been published called Sand (http://sandjournal.com/) that kind of commemorates this. Berlin's slam scene is varied, expansive and receptive to English language performers. It’s a large part of what keeps me here.
Q. Have I been Varjacked? Its hard to tell?
Paula- ah no, trust me, when you've been varjacked... you definitely know...
As we zoom out the universe that Niall O’Sullivan has scrutinized under his telescope, we can hang up our lab coats, free the monkeys from their cages and put away the Oxford Dictionary.
I heard there is an uprising Spoken Word scene in Glasgow and Newcastle. 
If Pete The Temp ruled the world it would be squeezed between his chest and arms in a giant metaphysical man hug.
Q. I thoroughly enjoy the social commentary in your poems but does poetry and politics have a good relationship?
Q. You teach performance poetry. How do you teach someone to become a good Spoken Word poet?
Q. Are the rumors true? Do poets die poor?
It would be a challenge to forget Scroobius Pip. The appearance of a full thick and untrimmed bush of a beard grown out the face of a man who wears suits with baseball caps to perform poetry is quite striking.
Q. Scroob! Haven’t seen the suits for a while, where are they? 
While I was in Berlin a lovely little shop printed my first collection of poems... They'll always be in my bag at gigs (until I sell out, sold 50 already) so come to a show and get one! 
Also been working on the Speed Camera Shy project with Jim Whelan. We've had Musa Okwonga, Zayna Daze and David J in the studio with us recently. Our website is being made and will be up soon...
Rob Auton is from York.
I'm OK thanks. I'm writing this in the heart of an Internet cafe in Walthamstow. Not a hot drink in sight. There is however a vending machine, it's full but the light is off. Does that mean the drinks are luke warm? Yes, yes it does. 14 minutes of my 50p hour have passed.
Q. What’s your work ethic as a poet/ writer and performer?
Q. You run a night called ‘Bang Said The Gun’? Is it successful by your own standards and what would you advise on someone who is starting out their own poetry night?
Q. As a poet are you under-rated or more so misunderstood?
