Trailblazer of a new wave of stand-up poet taking the noble art by the scruff of the neck and turning it into something that can delight audiences at comedy clubs, indie gigs and literary festivals.
On the nights of Wednesday 30 July and 6 August, Bespoken Word comes from the Latitude Festival. To give you a flavour of the atmosphere, here’s our Latitude Diary!
My Latitude, by Luke Wright
Luke Wright, one of the poets featured in Bespoken Word,and the man behind the Latitude Poetry Arena, set out to stage the largest poetry gig in Europe – but will anyone hear anything he says?
Thursday 17 July
Latitude - more than just a music festival. Twenty-five thousand people enjoy the best the UK has to offer in theatre, comedy, cabaret, literature and - of course - poetry. That's why I'm here, I co-programme and host the Poetry Arena and have done since the festival began in 2006. I work with Tania Harrison from Festival Republic. This year programming began in January and I've booked 62 poets to perform at this year's festival. Latitude is one of my biggest and most enjoyable jobs of the year, it's been on my mind for the last six months and tonight it kicked off in fine style.
This is the second year we've run the tent on a Thursday night. The theme this year was East Anglia. All the poets we had on either live in the region or have come from the region. Our headliner was Luton's favourite son John Hegley, who delivered a killer set with Keith Moore on double bass. Other highlights included The Mid 90s la la la by Patrick Lappin & John Osborne, a show about Britpop nostalgia and growing up in small towns. I'm directing the show at Edinburgh this year, so I'm biased, but it was great nevertheless.
It was quite a hectic night actually, I'm presenting BAFTA's coverage of Latitude as well as compering my tent and performing. Tonight I spent a good chunk of the evening watching the 1928 silent film Moulin Rouge and vox popping the audience about it. I also got to meet Robert Zeigler, conductor with the Matrix Ensemble who accompanied the film with a live soundtrack. Truly awesome.
With the light totally faded I headed back to the poetry tent for Aisle16 & Friends. This is how we finish the tent every night. Aisle16 is the collective of poets I formed in 2000 with Ross Sutherland. The Aisle16 & Friends session featured Ross, Chris Hicks, Joel Stickley, myself and Tim Clare, who'd done a fantastic job hosting the tent in my absence. John Smith, a singer-songwriter friend of ours finished the night with an amazing cover of Queens of the Stoneage. It's now 4.00am, I have foolishly stayed up drinking with Tania [Harrison] and Chris. It really is time for bed now, the festival hasn't even technically started yet.
Friday 18 July
What a day, what a day. I'm writing this on Saturday morning, wasn't really in the best of states last night. I think I'm losing my voice. This normally happens on Sunday, it's a bit worrying that it's happening now.
Our main headliner yesterday was Carol Ann Duffy. I'm a huge fan of her work, always have been. She was the first poet that I read on the page and enjoyed. I, like many of our other poets here this weekend, studied her at A-Level, which is quite a thought.
I was compering for Carol Ann's set and got to sit down with her beforehand and have a chat. She was really nice, just how I imagined, funny, charming, clearly very intelligent and not in any way fussy or prima donna-ish (as, I must stress, are none of our poets, they really are a pleasant bunch.) Before Carol Ann's set I tried out a new poem - "Colonel Crampon Goes Off" - which went very well and I brought her on to a crowd of 800 or so people whooping and cheering.
I watch her from the wings with my wife Sally, who is also a big fan. The atmosphere was incredible, and the reading very powerful. So much so that at the end of "Mrs Midas", from her collection The World’s Wife], Sal gave an involuntary shudder, surely the most powerful compliment you could get from an audience member, literally spine-tingling.
It was a fantastic day all round. Caroline Bird was incredible, as was John Osborne, I tell you that guy is going places. I also got to read some of my awful teen poetry in our Teen Angst section, hosted by Teen Angst Queen, Canada's Sara Bynoe. One piece in particular went down to howls of laughter.
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard?
Why isn't it cut and dry?
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard?
Why does she always make me cry?
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard?
Why do I only have the courage for lies?
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard?
When it's just a waiting game until you die.
Now that, that is awful. What made it even worse is that I'd written next to it
"Yup, this is a REAL poem." Uh, yeh.
Aisle16 & Friends was a bit shorter than usual because we'd run out of time. Not that we minded, the run-up to it of singer/songwriter Josh Weller and poet Salena Godden was awesome. Aisle16 & Friends was as drunk, raucous and brilliant as usual - and we all went to bed feeling rather pleased with ourselves.
I hope my voice holds out.
Saturday 19 July
I have lost my voice.
It's 2.30am on Sunday morning and if I had to go on stage now I actually couldn't. Oh woe is me. I did manage to get through the night though so for now that's the most important thing, but I have six hours of filming for BAFTA tomorrow, plus a five-hour compering stint. I'm stone cold sober though and I haven't smoked either today, so hopefully with a bit of rest and some Throat Coat (a miracle licorice tea drink) I'll get through it.
Another great day. Dockers MC kicked things off in great style at 11.20, after 20 minutes from me. And we had a great run up to 5.00pm including Dalgit Nagra, Francesca Beard, Michael Horovitz and Tim Wells. At 5.00pm we had the great Adrian Mitchell, who gave a packed tent 60 minutes of poetry bliss.
Happening simultaneously we had Bespoken Word going on in The Radio 4 Arena. Many of our performers, including Dockers MC and John Berkavitch were recording their bits for the series. Luckily I had already done mine (for transmission 11.00pm Wed 23 June, online till the 30th) - in June, just as well because by then my voice was really cracking.
I managed to hold it together to get through my set at 21.40. It was on of my favorites of the weekend, with a packed-out tent and laughter in all the right places. I feel so at home on the Latitude stage. We rattled on through the night, after last night I was pretty pleased to keep everything on time.
A change of set-up from last night with Attila the Stockbroker doing an hour-long headlining set at midnight. He was great as usual, and we ended the night singing "Maggots one, Maggie nil, hallelujah".The great man was good enough to bring me up on stage at the end and thank me for my contribution to the festival, which nearly brought a tear to my eye.
Aisle16 & Friends went very well but by that time I had to watch from the sidelines as I had no voice left. Ross finished things with "Love Conspiracy" and Chris nearly fell off stage at the end of rousing edition of "The Inconvenience".
Tomorrow is the last day. I hope my voice makes it. Until then.
Monday 21st July, early hours
We made it. We bloody well made it. I really enjoyed my filming today. I got to interview Alan Davies and Gurinda Chaddha during the day and Adrain Sturges and Liam Cunnigham in the evening. Quite an honour really. My voice recovered enough to do my compering and a set that was filmed for ITV 2's coverage of the festival. Highlights today have to be Hugo Williams, Dalgit Nagra, and Kevin Eldon's poetic alter-ego Paul Hamilton. Though all of us have to agree that Simon Armitage stole the day with an amazing 30-minute set. Hugo Williams and I sat backstage quite out of breath afterwards, even Hugo, who has won every major poetry prize going had to admit: "we've got some catching up to do!"
By 21.30, with my filming finished, I had been at it for 12 hours solid, and I just collapsed back at my caravan whilst John and Paddy fed me rum. Mmmm lovely rum. We headed back to the tent for 23.00 to do Aisle16 & Friends, glorious fun it was too. Ross and Chris finished things up with their Freud vs Jung rap battle (it's called shrink rap!) I have to mention Ross, Chris and Tim here. They have co-compered the tent with me this weekend and done an exceptional job. My love and respect to them all.
And so Latitude came to an end. 62 poets. 50 hours. The largest poetry gig in Europe and I'd venture as far as to say the best. After shrink rap I finished things off with the poem I wrote first thing this morning, I hope you like it. I'm off to drink champagne now:
Rainbow sheep on the Sunrise Coast An orchestra tunes by a lake Gondola rides, champagne toasts The Gods have kissed this summer fete. City kids in silly hats stumble with their Baccus grins poets croon, actors act vinyl crackles, Fenders sing. From woodland raves to Adrian Mitchell Sigur Ros to Moulin Rouge let's observe this summer ritual it's time, my friends, for Latitude.
Luke Wright Biography
A 2007 4Talent Award winner, Luke is the founder of Aisle16, is the host of Glastonbury’s Cabaret stage and has two five star solo Edinburgh shows under his belt. His first book, Who Writes This Crap? was published by Hamish Hamilton/Penguin in November 2007. Co-authored with long time collaborator Joel Stickley, it's a compendium of everyday texts like mobile bills, newspaper articles, health warnings and cereal packets.
Wright also curates and hosts the Latitude Festival’s Poetry Arena as well as taking his finely-tuned events elsewhere such as The Soho Theatre, The Whitechapel Gallery, Port Eliot Lit Fest and Luke Wright’s Poetry Party - his own two-day poetry festival in Edinburgh
"A very good poet indeed." The Guardian
"The best young performance poet around." The Observer
From humble beginnings as a Hip-Hop DJ, Mister Gee honed his spoken word skills as the host of the renowned performance poetry club Brix-tongue and is now one of the stars of the UK poetry scene. He has performed at the New York Nuyorican Poets Café and the Black Lily night in Philadelphia (home to Jill Scott and the Roots), as well as at the Edinburgh Festival. He runs workshops in schools and his album Poetry in the Key of Gee was released to critical acclaim.
Mister Gee is a co-winner of a Sony Gold Award for Radio as the resident poet on the Russell Brand Show on BBC Radio 2, and is the resident poet of the hit West-End musical Into The Hoods.
From humble beginnings as a Hip-Hop DJ, Mister Gee honed his spoken word skills as the host of the renowned performance poetry club Brix-tongue and is now one of the stars of the UK poetry scene. He has performed at the New York Nuyorican Poets Café and the Black Lily night in Philadelphia (home to Jill Scott and the Roots), as well as at the Edinburgh Festival. He runs workshops in schools and his album Poetry in the Key of Gee was released to critical acclaim.