Q&A With York and London based Spoken Word artist - Rob Auton

Rob Auton is from York.

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?

My parents like some of it, not all of it.


Follow Rob on Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/robertauton

PiP Poets In New York pt 3

Me and Maria got to the bar that supposedly put on poetry events, it was a dark Brooklyn night and no one knew what we were talking about when we said “we’re here for the poetry” in fact, the bouncer outside looked at us like we offended him, “POETRY!? nah man!” he scoffed. We decided to go in and have a drink anyway. We got a lot of curious looks from the people in the bar, we certainly stuck out, my bronzy mustard skin and Maria’s Pilipino features were carried loudly among the dominant black crowd. Most women had angels, flowers and names like “Daze-E” or “Shawty” tattooed on their arms or chest. They also had weave in their hair, wide gold looped earrings and bellies that hung down too much to be a pregnancy, we could have been in Seven Sisters or Wood Green back in London. It was someone’s birthday, me and Maria sat at the bar as a cake came out and everyone sang Stevie Wonder’s funky ‘Happy Birthday’ genius, the vibe was contagious and even me and Maria stood up, clapped our hands and sang Happy Birthday to the strangers at the table, we got a few head nods and took our seats with the complete feeling of acceptance.

“Wow New York, your poetry is as big as your buildings”

The crowd whooped and clapped, I had just been called to the stage, I was on Marcus Garvey Boulevard. The venue had a chess chequered floor and dimmed lights generating intimacy. The audience seating was scatted but filled to capacity (about 60-75) I was dazzled by the poets that got up before me and changed my mind about which poem to perform four times, throughout this trip Joshua tells me my best two poems are “my dad poem and my ‘hit me’ poem” but the ‘Hit Me’ poem seemed too delicate considering I’ve been asked to “never perform that poem in public again” so I played it safe with my dad poem (Not For The Dead) and it went down alright, Josh gets up and kills it as usual.

Afterwards, a poet called “Jon Sands” is announced, he walks onto the stage with the cheeky smirk of a precious infant with secret knowledge, the crowd transfixed before his jaw even flinched, a smooth and genius crowd engaging technique… “DAD HAS A PENIS TOO!” he yells “HIS PENIS IS MUCH LARGER THAN MY PENIS, HIS BODY IS LARGER THAN MY BODY, HIS PENIS WOULD LOOK RIDICLIOUS ON MY BODY!” the audience laughed and cringed at the same time as Josh poked my ribs, and muttered “and you were scared of doing your piece” I laughed and shook my head, in fact I probably continued these motions through Jon Sand’s entire set, I was witnessing one of the best all round performers/ writers I’d ever seen, the guy was electric and gave a performance that managed to stay with me. He had balls, passion and his poetry was sharp and filled with the sly kick of sudden heart attacks.

A poet called Chris Slaughter got up and did a terrifying poem called ‘Blood Line’ about two guys in a street fight – “every time (a fist or a kick) landed the crowd howled as if they were looking at two moons” woah! I must also give an honorable mention to a poet who had me spell bound with a story about the future self when your present self is plunged to despair and how the future self that got through your present hardship comes to you to comfort you through the process of pain, and how you’d feel in that moment, to have that connection as if you were your own God” … ugh, I cannot do it justice, just trust me, it was amazing… unfortunately I can’t remember his name.


My initial expectation of New York or even American Spoken Word performances was that they were going to be great performers with weaker writing, I was wrong, very wrong, New York’s Spoken Word artist carry a standard alien to the UK. Poetry in general holds greater appreciation, which is shameful considering the UK produced Shakespeare, Keats, Blake, Wilde, Byron and even Chaucer.

Spoken Word artists make it onto daytime and prime time TV (HBO, Comedy Central etc) as well as having Def Poetry Jam to aspire to as well as the National Slams, poetry is referenced on the walls of most subway stations, the pavements leading towards NY State Library have poems and quotations by Emily Dickinson among others graven into them on bronze plates, there is a strong community of poets and many weekly poetry and performance workshops are held, Spoken Word/poetry is the hustle of many, all the poets in the higher ranks sell merchandise rather well at their shows, venues such as the NYrican poets café and The Bowery are huge theatre venues dedicated to Spoken Word poetry.

I spoke to poet legend ‘Tshaka Campbell’ about this and he helped me put it into perspective “the poetry in NY is different and intense, the UK for the most part is still only interested in the entertainment side of poetry and there is much much more” I agreed.

Something I found interesting was not only was there similarities between the areas of London and New York, there was also similar characters, I went to a poetry venue which resembled The Poetry Café in Covent Garden, just bigger, I noted how professional the lighting was, a small, slightly elevated stage with a mic in a spot light is simple but very effective, it was called the ‘Cornelia Street Café’

This venue was indeed just like Tuesday night at London’s Poetry Café’, I think there was a London equivalent of every poet that got up and read, I mean in terms of form, style, voice etc it was quite surprising, I think I’ll sway from judgments and name dropping but if you haven’t been to the Poetry Café’ in Covent Garden you typically listen to about 40 poets with 5 minutes each and an average 35 of them will think their audience is either a shrink with a caring ear or a lump of meaningless matter that doesn’t matter more than their delightful poetry.

Anyway, Joshua had his video recorder out and captured possibly the most contrived, pretentious performance poetry I’ve ever seen in my life! I refer to this poet as “the awful one”. I will get him to upload that video as my description will not do it justice. There was a poet who was up before “the awful one” who was telling an amusing story about a car crash that changed his life and almost crippled him and his father.

“as our lungs shrieked and impact threw me and my father through the window screen, we lay bloodily…”

A bell rang and the female host walked to the stage and said “I’m sorry we have to move on” it was so abrupt; the poor guy was approaching a climax in a painful story of his life. He smiled awkwardly, “ok thank you” he said and hobbled off stage probably in the same manner he hobbled from the car crash… bless him.

I got good feedback from a few audience members after the show, I tell you, I can’t stress that enough, if you go to a poetry night and you like a poet, please tell them, "most poets die without compliments." - Niall O'Sullivan.

PiP Poets In New York pt 2

When you go aboard to a place you’ve never been you tend to walk around it with the naivety of new couples that have not yet met the sinister bones of their partners. On a particular Sunday night Josh and me had our honeymoon bubble popped when we were knifed by the realization that we are more vulnerable as outsiders.

Josh had read about a club in ‘NYC Time Out’ and suggested we check it out; it was a few blocks away from where we stayed so we walked there. When we got to the club they tried to charge us more than the club was advertised for, we showed we were wise and they folded, letting us in for the correct price. We strolled in, walking through the dance floor to stand next to the bar; this was to be the only space we’d occupy for the night.

A tall black guy with muscles as tight as his pouting lips danced in front of us like dust in a whirlwind, he was gay, no straight man points his toes, flicks his wrist and vibrates his hips like Beyonce’ on a power plate. His moves were slick, combining Salsa and Body Popping Street dance with progressive Drum and Bass/house music. The kind of sound you’d hear in Herbal in Shoreditch, just instead of fitness fanatic, toned bellied dancers you find teenage dirt bags in their late twenties zoning out on drug-fuelled cocktails. Josh turned to me and said he preferred watching druggies dance to this kind of music, I laughed.

As the place gathered we then noticed everyone there was some kind of street dancer, lots of annoying dance moves that involve elbows and not drumbeats were flying around the room, busy as epileptic fits. We wanted to dance, but we couldn’t share the floor, not just because we wanted to two-step but because these guys were floor hogs, if we stepped two meters forward we’d been in ‘elbow to face’ impact zone, then we would have had to sport sunglasses like the clowns in the Hip-Hop, R&B night clubs.

So we shifted, I was hungry and Josh was tired, the plan – get money out the ATM, find good pizza, go home.


Josh finds an ATM outside a deli, the card, clamped in his hand moved in slow motion towards the slot when we heard a man shout “STOP!” everything in the world froze, even our hearts. “BEFORE YOU DO THAT! I AM NOT GOING TO ROB YOU!” a black guy, about 5’9 and wearing a bomber jacket that made him look like a turtle in a hard-shell stood before us, holding out a piece of paper “I HAVE JUST COME OUT THE STATE PENETENTARY, THE BUS DROPPED ME OFF AND I NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE” our eyes were wide, any tiredness we may have felt vanished as we anticipated any sudden movement “ALL I NEED IS $2.75 TO GET OUTTA HERE! ARE YOU GOING TO HELP ME!?” … silence, the heavy hands of time fought against us, Josh moved the marbles of his eyes without blinking, they swung back and forth like a restless lunatic. We were straight jacketed in 10 seconds of awkward silence, procrastinating… “errrrrrrrrrrr…. Errrrrrrrrr…. Errrrrrrr…. Nooooo …” now I half expected the worse “muthafucka!” he mumbled to himself and quickly walked off, fading into night.

Josh and me looked at each other, relieved. Josh then realized his arm was still extended with his credit card still frozen in his hand. It never made it to the slot of the machine. Josh said “ok. Won’t be getting out any money, you can buy my pizza” and put the card in his pocket, it took me about thirty seconds to laugh at his cheeky comment.

We then saw a pizza place across the street, we jay walked across it and I noticed five hooded up black guys walk in just before us. We took one look at the flat and plastic appearance of the pizza and walked back out, but as we did one of the guys says “what’s good black!?” to Josh, he ignores them “HEY!” he shouts and then we hear another voice this time aimed at me “HEY WHITE BOY, WHITE BOY, COME HERE MAN!” we power walked out the shop and up the road before Joshua says “ohh’ kaay .. This is getting a bit strange.. lets go home!” we found a Pizza joint by a busier road that we were familiar with, we sat hidden at the back, nibbling our pizza in nervous silence like mice under thin floorboards.


On another night Josh and me separated, I went to Brooklyn with Maria, the lovely lady who we stayed with for the first few days. She told us about a poetry night uptown and we went. During that journey we ignited conversation, the type of talks you can only have with a handful of people. It was mainly about love and loss until we got into politics. I should know to sway from any political conversation from any American citizen; it nearly got my head served when I was in Ohio three years ago when I referred to George Bush as “the worlds biggest terrorist”. Maria and me were sitting on the train when 9/11 came up in our conversation. I shared my views about it being a dirty inside job…Maria was appalled, I defended myself until she explained she was there on that day. “No one person could do that, I saw it, you weren’t there, trust me no one would do that to their own country” “Hitler did” I said hastily “but I guess that’s another story”, she got upset with me again, I thought fast, quickly springing our friendship to the rescue … “well I love OBAMA!” a smile then swam to the surface of her face and we shared our favorite Obama facts.

To Be Continued ...

PiP Poets In New York pt 1

Having seen so many films set in New York, when I actually got there the entire city looked silver.

I'm on the subway clattering uptown. The buildings, traffic, streets etc all share such a strict symmetry, if the city were a set of teeth they could only belong in the mouths of clean cut American dreamers. I'm from London; my teeth have cracks, gaps and black fillings. Seeing such order makes me suspicious. I met a New Yorker later that day that filled me in, explaining how most crime was happening in alleyways so they closed them up so the city can advertise a prettier smile.

Second night and me and Josh are in Essex to perform an 8 minute set in a basement of a bar called 'Happy Ending' which I later realised was probably an innuendo. I met a lady who works as a journalist who tells me she's been out most nights of her life since she was 15, “YOU DEVIL!” I scream, “Well, I need to suck the blood out the city if I'm to write about it” she then disappeared into the red lights oozing out the ceiling to find the warm necks of her subjects. I took out my camera and got busy sucking my own blood.

Joshua and me performed by the DJ booth and the crowd gathered in their comfortable corners. I got to say though; following Joshua's epic 'My Love' piece is like a punishment for not being a better writer or performer. The crowd was attentive and mildly responsive. I believe my work will improve when I stop trying to make people like it.


After the show I discovered the upstairs room was a “pleasure party”, a gathering of people who pride themselves on their sexual awareness, meaning they are aware they like sex and they want more of it! There was a long, thick banana on the table and lots of fat women with cupcake flab and breasts that looked like over inflated lungs, which amused me. After an hour the crowd had filtered, those that still stood around were the uglies left out the orgy. I'd seen enough and followed Josh and his new friends to a venue across the road called 'Weird' (deliberate typo) it was a smoky dystopian lounge full of 20 some-things that looked like runaways. Scruffy clothes, tattoo's, piercings and faces that looked like they were washed with collage diplomas. I'd tired myself out taking photos and faking my enthusiasm for the American punk and rockabilly music – I'm snobby like that, if something doesn't feel authentic I will not move. The DJs stopped and a band came on stage. Imagine a dark and minimal Little Dragon that uses lots of heavy bass lines and echo re-verbs in their vocals, now imagine it doesn't sound very good. Josh and me headed back to Queens at 2am, exhausted, grateful and envious that the New York Subway runs 24/7. We slept like babies with hot milk.

The next morning I wake up and Josh turns on the TV, a commercial for diet pills lights up the screen. “IT’S GREAT TO BE THIN!” shouts a smiling fake tanned white teeth white woman, “she did not just say that!” says Josh, unimpressed, “MY LIFE IS GREAT!” she says, running along a beech in a bikini barley covering her nipples, Josh changes the channel and I think about America’s suicide rate.

We went into town that morning to look for a café with wireless Internet; we go into three Star Buck coffee shops before we accept they don’t have it. It was on the street walking towards what I thought was the Empire State building that we both realize New York is just like London, just built a lot higher and wider, Josh called it “London’s bigger brother”, I agreed.

The New Yorkers themselves were also on a similar but larger scale compared to Londoners. I walked into many NY pizza joints that could have been run by the same grease as a typical Kebab shop in Brixton or East Ham.

The R&B and Hip-Hop club we went into had guys like they do in the London mainstream clubs, wearing sunglasses, standing in the corner either playing with their phones or just staring at the wall, slightly nodding their heads to give themselves just enough reason to be there. The girls were mainly dolled up, quite a few of the really pretty girls were underdressed and overdressed at the same time, dancing with some of the meanest muscle bound mugs I’d seen in my life. It could have been London’s Bar Rumba in a bigger venue.

The poets too, some of them were like the American equivalents to some of the London poets I know, not just in their style of writing and delivery but their humor, stage presence and mannerisms. This got me thinking about how the environment influences its artists, it was fascinating to discover these doppelgangers and how it’s likely they exist because of London being such a similar setting.

Some parts of Brooklyn looked like Hackney, Manhattan was like Westbourne Park, Queens was a bit like Brixton, Times Square looked like West End, there is probably a London equivalent for every part of NY.

The streets are definitely cleaner and Josh spent days trying to figure out why his breath disappeared when he glared down the busy roads between the skyscrapers. He was so happy when he figured it out, “I GOT IT!” he said resuming a three-day-old conversation, “the streets don’t end” and he was right, you can see right down the throat of almost every high street, unlike London which has more turns and dead ends than teenage relationships.

Another thing I found interesting was the fact that almost every carriage I got into on the Subway had a homeless guy asleep in the corner, if I had taken a picture of every case I saw I could have made a pretty cool collage of homelessness.