Hammer and Tongue, 4 October, The Zodiac: Eddie Izzard told me I should do stand-up”, says Steve Larkin, an Oxford-based performance poet and the first act at the monthly poetry slam held at The Zodiac. Larkin is the first to acknowledge strong links between his brand of spoken word poetry and stand-up: starting his set with what he announces as “a pan-dimensional apocalyptic love-at-first-sight poem”, which relates the efforts of a Greenpeace fundraiser to simultaneously sign up and seduce a woman on the street. By the end of the poem the woman’s rejection of the poet has been comically magnified into a wholesale rejection of ethical concerns in general.The tone of Larkin’s pieces modulates between acerbic and wry. Though his first piece ends with a rueful smile and a tone of ironic self-mockery, often the punch is not pulled. As his set continues, Steve’s acid wit goes to work on subjects ranging from political activism to the contemporary media, building to a frenzied climax as he lambastes women’s magazines: “It’s all about the fat, and sex; and fat, and sex; the fat sex, the fat sex,” he raps, voice sharp with disgust.The Oxford scene has a strong sense of political and social identity and has become something of a centre for performance poetry. Hammer and Tongue was originally set up by two Green activists, The B52 Two, and though the constituted aims of the night are emphatically all-inclusive, with its intention to provide a platform regardless of age, gender, sex, political or religious belief (“I wonder if that’s illegal now?” Steve muses), there is a strongly left wing, anti-capitalist feel to much of the poetry performed there. This is part of its appeal, Steve claims. “It’s not just throwaway pop art,” he remarks. “People go away from the event having been educated or enlightened, having been annoyed by something, challenged by somebody’s views, or inspired.”As Steve warms up, his gestures become increasingly emphatic. Words are manipulated deftly, stretching and twisting, speeding and slowing to create a powerful and absorbing rhythm which engages the audience physically as well as intellectually. Its musical appeal and easy accessibility, the closeness to hip-hop and rap, is part of the power of performance poetry. In contrast to the more staid delivery you might find elsewhere in Oxford, performances, and especially slams, are interactive on a level not even theatre has approached since the agit-prop performances of the 1970s. At a slam, “when you’re listening, you’re actively listening”, Steve comments. “When you’re a judge…or you’re next to a judge, or you’re encouraged by the compere to heckle and tell the judge exactly what you think of the score they’ve given, you’re more alert.”Communication is what poetry is about, after all. Though slam poetry may not be able to support the same level of complexity as page poetry, the percussive force of the spoken word affects its listeners powerfully. All this is nothing new. Poetry has a strong tradition of being not only political but potent: you find it everywhere, Steve says. Only last week he was performing at an event in which his own performance pieces were mixed in with traditional poetry such as Coleridge’s Eolian Harp. “I’m sure that if Coleridge and Shelley and Byron were alive today they’d be going to Hammer & Tongue”, Steve affirms.It’s a scary business nonetheless. Though Steve seems at home moving among the crowd, the pressure is on to deliver. With the normal barriers broken down the poet must be entertaining and relevant all at once, winning the audience over with his words alone. With no dramatic ‘persona’ to hide behind it can get intensely personal: hence perhaps the need for a healthy dose of comedy to lighten the load.Performance poetry is still a fledgling artform here, but its rise is gaining momentum: the first BBC slam was broadcast last October. Steve himself has grand plans to expand north, so catch him while he’s still in town.ARCHIVE: 1st week MT 2005
