Performing Contemporary Poetics: The Art of SuAndi and Patience Agbabi

Abstract

This article discusses the work of two of Britain's leading poets and performers—SuAndi and Patience Agbabi. Although their practices contain many similar features, critics rarely discuss these poets comparatively. The work here seeks to redress this situation in order to expand the boundaries of the delimiting categories applied by some audiences and critics. In an era in which there still can be distinct and disconnected audiences for ‘literary poetry’ and ‘live art’, the work of Agbabi and SuAndi has crossed formal and cultural boundaries in ways that have invited new definitions and challenged arbitrary categorisations. Their work has made noteworthy and meaningful contributions to contemporary British poetry by creating spaces where page and performance, freedom and form, and tradition and innovation can be rejoined. Through their teaching, literary activism, live performances and printed texts—and by refusing to view these milieus as separate or in conflict—both poets have succeeded in bringing audiences together to generate dialogue, which arguably is the true purpose of all literature that has a lasting influence.

Keywords:

• herstory
• live art
• performance
• performance poetry
• poetics
• slam
• spoken word

Notes

¹This prestigious list names those likely to have the most profound impact on British poetry over the next decade.

²Interview with Lauri Ramey, December 2003.