Poetry is the new cool (honestly)

September 29, 2014 by Ray Morgan

I'm a poet. I'm really sorry.

The word 'poetry' is enough to make a lot of people stop reading; in fact, I may have lost some of you already. It's okay, it goes with the territory.

Over the past few years someone - I'm not sure who - coined a new term, 'spoken word', which confuses people and allows them to listen just long enough to realise - oh god! It's POETRY! Aaaarrrrggghhhh

Let's face it: nobody enjoyed studying poetry all that much at school. I certainly didn't. It was all war, and dusty romance, and inspired me very little. However I did write my own poems - something I kept very well hidden from all my pals.

They were all watching Cruel Intentions and lusting after Ryan Philippe whilst I was diligently writing poems about Cornish landscapes. Not cool, Ray! Not cool! Or was it?

Now, in 2014, some fifteen years later, we have a swathe of inspiring young poets getting kids interested in the genre. Because I co-run arts events that always involve poetry, I am exposed to a lot of great stuff. We filter it into our events along with music and comedy, like when you hide vegetables in mashed potato to get kids to eat their greens.

Kate Tempest is one of the new poets that springs to mind - a spoken word artist who has won awards, written plays, slaved away on the poetry scene* and has recently released a critically acclaimed album. CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED POETRY ALBUM. I never thought I would type those words.

If you think you don't like poetry, think again. Do you like music? As in, music that has lyrics? Do you love hip hop? Do you like words in general? Then you MAY like poetry. Just saying. Give it a try...

Here are my top 5 things about poetry
1. It's a brave medium: no music to hide behind as a performer!
2. It's short and sweet - you can dip in and out of a poetry collection on your lunchbreak
3. It can be funny and heartbreaking - sometimes simultaneously
4. It breaks boundaries: think it's all about rhyming? No way!
5. It's also brought a lot of great performers into my life from running spoken word gigs.

Fun fact: Kate Tempest once won a coffee machine in a raffle at one of my gigs during her early days. Yeah, our gigs are ROCK AND ROLL. I will be performing my poems at Essex Poetry Festival on Thursday 9 October at The Forum, Southend - free entry. Pop along!