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Abstract
At 5 pm on 20 March 2020, venues were ordered to close and the British public sphere was radically altered by Covid-19. Responding to a sudden and enforced global behavioural shift, this microhistory of Nottingham's ‘Blackdrop' collective raises urgent questions for British performance poetry outside of London. Where does the art form now belong; how does it respond to space; and can it be recreated digitally? Ultimately, finding robust answers to these types of questions will be instrumental in mapping a new public sphere for performance poetry - one which is appropriately funded, egalitarian and progressive. The ‘public sphere’ as a bourgeois concept is here broadened to accommodate performance poetry. Building on theoretical work by Jürgen Habermas, Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Kamau Brathwaite, John Frow, and Cornelia Gräbner, this article deploys interviews and field research conducted between 2013 and 2020 to give an account of the lived experience of those working within the performance poetry scene in Nottingham. While the ecosystem in which performance poetry once thrived is cordoned off until further notice, an opportunity arises for the creation of a new infrastructure that is independent of the bourgeois public sphere from which the genre has historically been excluded.
FUNDING, AUSTERITY AND DEVOLUTION
For literary practitioners in the Midlands, the opportunities of London are out of reach, and the redistributing effects of devolution – derived from the Latin ‘to roll down’ – have not yet arrived (Mitchell 187). In interrogating the genesis of this situation through austerity, gatekeepers, and the decline of physical performance spaces, it is conceivable to sketch the blueprint of how performance poetry might mobilise its diverse talent pool and carve a new ‘public sphere’ fit for purpose in the 2020s.
With its nimble adaptivity and DIY ethos, performance poetry survived the 2010s — a decade defined by austerity. This is no small achievement for an art form once devalued as ‘comedy and cabaret’ or simply the ‘repetition of a right on black statement’ (Breeze et al 43). While artistic independence is vital, sustainable projects require development and funding if they are to reach their intended audience(s). Devolution from London and towards more autonomous economic regions may, in the long term, prove beneficial to local cultural identity; attracting outside investment, touring performances and literary tourism. However, the process is incomplete, and austerity has muted the articulation of devolution in arts programming. Unlike the West Midlands, the East Midlands have not yet attained devolved status (see Torrance). Internecine conflict over the disparate needs of urban and rural constituents of a proposed tri-county coalition of Nottingham, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire have thus far halted progress. For example, the cabinet member for Ashfield District Council, Matthew Relf, stated in opposition to a proposed union: ‘we are unapologetically parochial’ (qtd. in Sandeman np). Such parochialism feels incompatible with the cosmopolitan values of creative groups in Midlands cities. While devolution has the potential to empower regional voices and liberate the ‘public sphere’ from Whitehall bureaucracy, at present this is only manifest in cultural, rather than economic and administrative terms. ‘Arm’s length’ is the terminology attributed to funding bodies such as Arts Council England, signalling that while they receive government monies, they retain the autonomy to distribute them according to their own principles of eligibility. There has been a rebalancing which now sees two-thirds of Arts Council funds spent outside of London, funding projects such as the invaluable development agency Writing East Midlands (Henley np). Despite this welcome move, cuts across all sectors of local government have put immense pressure on regional arts. For example, between 2010 and 2016 there was a 37 per cent reduction in budget available to local authorities, projected to accelerate to a reduction of more than 50 per cent by the end of 2020 (Henley np). The manifestation of a new public sphere for the arts appears not only desirable in terms of creative freedom, but vital on a practical level as traditional revenue streams dry up.
The onus is increasingly on regional bodies to self-finance. To some extent, this has been facilitated via government directives such as the 2019 legislation allowing local authorities to retain 100 per cent of their business-rates income, or a 2 per cent tax increase to cover social care (Harvey np). However, such gestures deflect responsibility away from central government to fund the arts. Indeed, they can be read as part of a wider laissez-faire neoliberal ethos which asserts that arts organisations must become ‘good businesses’ in order to survive. In 2018, 14 per cent of Conservative MPs surveyed – in contrast with 0 per cent of Labour MPs – ranked this as the single most important arts and culture policy issue facing the nation (Arts Council England np). If self-financing initiatives do initially ease the crisis austerity has presented to the UK arts economy, longer term they will have to contend with the unpredictable impact of Brexit and Covid-19.
Turning now to the Nottingham creative communities who are navigating these uncertain times, Michelle ‘Mother’ Hubbard’s poem ‘Birth of Blackdrop’ chronicles the inception of a movement and articulates a set of guiding principles:
The waters of a foreign ocean were broken
And 500 years of long painful collective labour began
Now, a strong community of midwives
Stand by with positive encouragement
And a hearty round of applause
As we finally give birth to our voices
Michelle ‘Mother’ Hubbard is a spoken-word artist, educator and a founding member of Blackdrop. She is also a published author in her own right, but refuses to favour one side of the ‘stage or page’ divide.Footnote1 Hubbard’s own volumes include The Tapestry of a Black Woman and The Irish-Jamaican, and she has also appeared in anthologies such as Celebrate Wha?: Ten Black British Poets from the Midlands (Doumerc and McFarlane) and Out of Bounds: British Black and Asian Poets (Kay, Procter and Robinson). Such collections assert the strength of richly varied Midlands voices by compiling them with a coherence that champions their shared tonal and textural qualities. A £75 grant during Black History Month 2003 was to be the full extent of the financial aid which the Blackdrop collective would receive. In spite of this, they continue to host successful monthly events, showcasing local and international poets in small Nottingham venues and, since lockdown, online. In Nottingham, performance poetry is marginalised and under-funded, forced to achieve its aims through local networks of supportive performers and programmers. Hubbard offers her own interpretation as to why numerous funding applications were turned down:
It’s because the application isn’t worded properly — not because we’re not doing what we say we’re doing. We are reaching audiences that other people can’t reach. We are attracting artists that other people can’t programme. That frustration makes me think ‘stuff it — keep your money’. There is a pride in being independent and still surviving. We’ve been running for eleven years without funding, and we will be running for another eleven years without funding. (Interview np)
the lack of a literature infrastructure in the East Midlands also means there are few opportunities for future promoters, publishers, producers and the kind of people who set up literature projects within community groups, to gain experience. (34)
ACCENT, GATEKEEPERS, AND POETIC FORM
One of the obstacles to attracting funding for performance poetry may lie in the ways in which this has been (mis)interpreted as an exclusively black, or so-called ‘urban’ art form. As Patience Agbabi stipulates,
I do think there’s often an assumption, with performance poetry, that the person’s got to be black, or of colour, or certainly not white English. There’s this perception that we do it better, because we’re more ‘natural performers’. (Breeze et al 42)
The racist assumptions which Agbabi highlights may be deeply engrained, but against this there is evidence to suggest that the genre is becoming increasingly heterogenous. The Poetry Society identified the white British poet Kae Tempest as a major figure for the future of British poetry. Tempest has published poetry, prose and recordings while touring extensively as a spoken-word artist. They frequently appear at major festivals and have successfully bridged the literary and music industries. I would argue, however, that part of Tempest’s commercial appeal is the multiracial associations of their South London accent. On record, one notices many similarities between Tempest’s intonation and that of contemporary black spoken-word artists such as George the Poet. This is not to suggest that Tempest is in any way ‘putting it on’ – they were born and raised in South-east London and so speak with the local inflection – but rather to say that London dialects function as a quickly recognisable marker of cosmopolitan identity for poets who event programmers and publishers might problematically describe as ‘urban’ (see Rampton). The Midlands accent has a different brand altogether, more frequently associated with the rural, the domestic, and the mundane than the edginess of London. The London-centric dimension of the bourgeois public sphere does arguably give voice to a select few working-class writers who are able to ‘make it’ and are selected for elevation onto national and international platforms. However, this same sphere simultaneously houses the nerve centres of the UK’s cultural elite: parliament, mainstream publishing houses and the BBC. The cultural infrastructure is already in place to empower marginalised voices in a way not currently possible in the Midlands. The accent barrier to wider recognition is just one part of a complex problem which limits the reach and funding potential of Nottingham’s performance-poetry culture.
The accent of the East Midlands has a further stigma attached to it by more prestigious literary circles. Its flattened vowel sounds and clipped consonants are far removed from Received Pronunciation and from popular perception of how poetry should sound. Terry Eagleton offers an explanation as to how early twentieth-century spoken poetry reacted against the ‘anaemic’ language of commercial society:
true English literature was verbally rich, complex, sensuous and particular, and the best poem, to caricature the case a little, was one which read aloud sounded rather like chewing an apple. (32)
Hubbard states in her poetry, ‘Nottingham flows through my veins and through my accent/Like water down the murky blood of the River Trent’ (Kay, Procter and Robinson 178). Her connection to the region is presented as ancestral and biological. The murkiness of the waters eschews an idealised representation in favour of honest realism. When the dialect of the Midlands combines in the inner cities with transnational dialects such as Jamaican Patois, the result is unique, distinct and expressive. While Hubbard’s poetry is not written in dialect per se, the poetic voice is distinctly Midlands. The best way to experience her poetry is live on stage, the Irish-Jamaican’s Nottingham accent bringing a playful warmth to the delivery. On account of its associations with working-class areas, however, the local hybrid dialect has caused Hubbard to feel excluded from literary events:
There were some poetry events, which were called poetry readings, where it was about the way they were spoken … you felt that if your voice wasn’t clear enough, wasn’t ‘proper’ enough then you didn’t fit. You find yourself slipping into that [mentality] because you want to get yourself out there, but it feels a bit fake, like this wasn’t how it was supposed to sound. (Interview np)
In her role as programmer, as in her writing, Hubbard is cautious about the restrictions of form. It is a term the poet uses to describe both the formal elements of poetry itself, and the formal procedures (eg funding applications) associated with the literary economy. Hubbard believes that in the long term her refusal to adhere to form has benefitted the collective: ‘Blackdrop has never had a formal structure, but we believe that’s our success’ (Interview np). Hubbard’s poetry has often caught the attention of prestigious poetry organisations, yet her refusal to label her craft has in turn come to exclude her. She recalls one particular encounter with a literary ‘gatekeeper’:
Once upon a time in Nottingham, somebody asked me to perform at an event as he’d heard a particular piece that I’d done at the time, and I said ‘Yeah, I’ll do that, OK’ … He’d asked me because he liked this piece, but then got on this high poetry horse. He said to me ‘Is it a ballad? Is it a sonnet? Is it … ’, so I said ‘It’s this,’ and I recited it to him. He replied ‘Yes, but would you call it … ’, so I told him ‘I wouldn’t call it anything, it’s a poem.’ It was written for Brendon Lawrence that got killed at the time, and I’d been asked to perform it and have it published in a lot of things. It was that sort of, playing games with it, and thinking that it must be called something. He [the promoter] said, ‘Well, I’m afraid if you can’t tell me what it is, then I won’t be able to feature it’, so I said ‘Well that’s fine … if you are struggling with what to call it, and you don’t want me because of that, then I’m happy not to turn up.’ And he never got back to me because of that. (Interview np)
Gatekeepers such as this promote an agenda where work which does not fit within a narrowly defined framework will not receive exposure, regardless of its profound cultural and personal significance. Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste is here instructive as it traces this exclusion back to uneven distribution of cultural capital:
there are relationships between groups maintaining different, even antagonistic, relations to culture, depending on the conditions in which they acquired their cultural capital and the markets in which they can derive most profit from it. (11)
While a straightforward Marxist reading emphasises class as the single most important structural discord between the poet and programmer cited above, there are nuances at play which are specific to debates around perceived quality, or lack thereof, within performance poetry. This is a problematic issue, which Corinne Fowler calls the ‘vexed issue of quality’, as traditional channels of literary validation – book sales, press reviews, critical attention – have little or no relevance within performance poetry (Pearce, Fowler and Crawshaw 83). Social media arguably exacerbates this by creating an almost infinite number of micro-audiences for every possible niche interest; however, it only does so in a virtual context. Humans still crave contact and tangibility, especially since Covid-19 threatened these fundamental pleasures. Theoretically, the advance of regional distribution of funding in the UK could assist in achieving parity between the size of ‘valuing communities’ and the extent to which development for the arts is funded. If local authorities had access to sufficient funding, they could develop rich cultural programmes in consultation with the creators, curators and audiences who give life to the causes they advocate for.
PERFORMANCE SPACE AND THE DIGITAL PUBLIC SPHERE
While Apples and Snakes’ definition of performance poetry recognises the important connection between performer and audience, it can also be useful to broaden this out to foreground the importance of the communal performance space. In the wake of Covid-19, this element will be crucial to an understanding of how to redevelop the art form, which, Gräbner asserts, ‘does not impose poetry and poetic language on a social or spatial environment but explores them – and sometimes, creates them – within an environment’ (79). It is this symbiosis with place which has historically empowered performance poetry to reach where its published counterpart cannot, and which must now inform the negotiation of a new digital public sphere.
The Australian poet Geoff Goodfellow performed at construction sites and prisons throughout his working life, not as backdrops for his poetry but as access points to those working-class audiences he wanted to reach: people who might only have one book in the house (Morrison 77). Goodfellow showed that poetry need not be bound by traditional spatial conventions and that it can effect real change, for example, when an abusive prison guard resigned after Goodfellow helped inmates communicate their abuse via poetry (Morrison 85). These workshops became so popular with inmates that Goodfellow was banned by some prisons whose wardens feared his visit would incite revolt: ‘we didn’t want him here — would you have him in your house?’ (qtd. in Morrison 86). Despite inevitable institutional pushback, there is immense untapped potential here in the UK to further deploy creative practitioners in active, social, creative work such as this. Part of the job of the performance poet engaged in this kind of literary missionary work is to break down archaic assumptions about poetry and instead allow the performance to imbue a discursive or reflective mood which facilitates active audience engagement, participation – often in the form of workshops – and critical discussion.
Taking poetry directly to sites of community activism, dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson was able to transcend proscribed notions of context and perform at the front lines of political resistance in 1980s London. The iconic black-and-white photograph which adorns the cover of Dread Beat An’ Blood shows Johnson using a loud hailer to address crowds with police officers standing by, illustrating the raw connective power which poetry can achieve when removed from the bourgeois public sphere of sites such as bookshops and universities. The performance is not only an incitement to start a ‘Great Insohreckshan’, it is in itself a revolutionary act, blurring the poem and its context (Johnson 61). In the lines ‘di plastic bullit an di waatah cannan/will bring a blam-blam … nevah mine Scarman’ (Johnson 61), the poet suggests direct action to be a more urgent and effective response to oppression than the bureaucratic lip service offered by Government enquiries such as that conducted by Lord Scarman into the Brixton Riots of 1981. The dynamic, experiential qualities of the performance align with the street-level activism of working-class communities, inspired by and giving voice to people’s frustrations.
Live poetry performance has been variously described as ‘transient’ (Breeze et al 39), ‘communal’, ‘intimate’ (Harrison in Breeze et al 40), ‘evanescent’, ‘deliberative’ (Morrison 84) and ‘communitarian’ (Gräbner 70). These adjectives conjure a range of human experience which is physical, intellectual, temporal or social — ‘Communitarian processes refer to the ways in which the poetry performance embeds the poem and the author within a community’ (Gräbner 70). The performance creates meaning through the communal experience of a unique ritual, as Breeze states, ‘I love the fact that whatever happened tonight, could not possibly happen tomorrow night. And why should I think that it should?’. She positions herself as a conduit in a process just outside of her immediate control, going on to describe the experience of performance as ‘melting in a situation’ (Breeze et al 39). In doing so, Breeze tacitly aligns the poetry performance with Turner’s conceptualisation of public ritual as catalyst for ‘communitas’. This intangible sense of togetherness, of empathy and, ultimately, of shared joy, underpins the art form of performance poetry. It is this visceral, experiential quality which differentiates performance from published poetry, the latter enforcing ‘the dominant perception of poetry … of the poet as isolated, and the reader is isolated’ (Breeze et al 40). Print still has immense value, but in breaking this isolation, the ritual of performance elevates the words as written on the page, and reframes them in a dynamic, interpersonal context with genuine social benefit.
Within an understanding of ritual informed by religious gatherings, the African-Caribbean influence on contemporary performance poetry cannot be overlooked. Indeed, Jean Breeze’s mentor, Linton Kwesi Johnson, was himself inspired by Kamau Brathwaite, the Barbadian writer and activist whom Johnson dubs a ‘tap-natch Poet’ (95). Brathwaite coined the term ‘congregational kinesis’ (46) applying the concept of ‘kinesis’, meaning ‘a movement that lacks directional orientation and depends upon the intensity of stimulation’, to the connections, the chatter and buzz of human gatherings (Merriam-Webster np). In a scientific context, such a stimulus might be a change in light or temperature; however, in Brathwaite’s rendition, the audience become one entity, responding to the performance. This image of communion is analogous with religious ritual, although religiosity inevitably imposes a ‘directional orientation’ on the congregation, often following a predetermined agenda. While a sermon might expound ideas derived from a static, ancient religious text, performance poetry is unique in its real-time construction of a shared text, responding to space and audience. The stimulus, and the ensuing ‘congregational kinesis’, are co-authored by the performer and the audience.
It is not just ‘stimulation’ that poet and crowd might derive from such an experience. As Nottingham performance poet Bridie Squires states, ‘poetry events are really loving, supportive places’ (Interview np). They offer company, community, togetherness but also constructive criticism and the opportunity to develop. Gräbner explains how, ‘during collective events poets listen to other poets, and good performers are attentive to the inarticulate, intangible shifts of energy among their listeners’ (77). In this function, and simultaneously in the rich vein of African Caribbean influence on the work of the Blackdrop collective, the poetry performance space is comparable to the Jamaican dancehall space. It is a nurturing environment which Niaah calls a ‘geography of refuge’ for followers (48). Note how, within this spatial imagination, there is a sense of separation and protection from an external force; the dancehall community seeking ‘refuge’ from the harsh realities of an authoritarian public sphere which does not value their cultural expression. From Kingston, Jamaica to the Midlands of the UK, there is commonality in the ways in which community is enacted in counter-public spheres. Whether dancehall music or performance poetry, the performers and audience collaboratively enact an exchange which validates the participants while expressing resistance to mainstream ideologies which seek to exclude them.
Organisations such as Blackdrop create safe spaces for creatives who might not feel comfortable in the conditional spaces which constitute the bourgeois public sphere. In this regard, the poetry performance as a ‘geography of refuge’ also stands up as an example of a ‘counter-public sphere’ (Niaah 48; Negt and Kluge xliii). In situating Nottingham’s performance poetry scene within an African-Caribbean critical tradition, it is possible to understand not only how the social–emotional dynamics of the performance space function, but also how this relates to the ‘dominant’ or ‘bourgeois public sphere’. While Gräbner identified the Liverpool poets as pioneers of countercultural performance poetry, a more nuanced historiography might situate contemporary performance poetry in a trajectory with Brathwaite and the Caribbean Artists Movement of the late 1960s. As Fred D’Aguiar attests, ‘I have not attended a single poetry slam without hearing Kamau’s influence’ (Wasafiri Editor np). He is indeed a ‘towering figure’ and his legacy is bigger than his own body of work, demonstrating the power of collaborative, communal working.
Communality is however under threat. Writing in May 2020, Jan Dalley asserts, ‘nothing could be more antithetical to live arts than social distancing’ (np). Through a triumvirate of austerity, gatekeepers and now social distancing measures, the bourgeois public sphere is more inaccessible than ever to proponents of performance poetry in Nottingham. That said, there may be some longer-term benefits arising from a shift towards digital spaces for creativity. Projects such as ‘Gobs Collective’, led by Nottingham spoken-word artist Bridie Squires, were designed to create live event-based outputs for young people, especially from working-class backgrounds. Instead, this particular project was reconfigured so that the young people learned to record and edit poetry films. This enabled them to present the poetry they had developed throughout the project, as well as gaining new digital skills (Squires np). A further potential benefit is the theoretically unlimited reach of digital platforms, which are far more flexible and accessible than a bricks-and-mortar event space. However accessible though, digital channels do become saturated, and in the attention economy, competition is fierce. Audience members may not have positive reactions to the experiential qualities of engaging with performance digitally, as Studemann highlights, ‘swapping the free-flowing experience of rambling around an event, dipping in and out of conversations, with another chance to sit in front of a screen is quite a shift’ (np). The ‘communal kinesis’ of a live event might struggle to make the same impact via digital conferencing software. Perhaps a digital ‘refuge’ for writers developing work is a feasible interim strategy to keep talents sharp while lockdown is in place.
I fear the transition into digital-only, then hybrid ‘clicks-and-mortar’ platforms for the arts, which combine physical and digital spaces to showcase work, will only exacerbate existing issues around class and accessibility. Jonty Claypole, director of arts at the BBC states, ‘we realise how important the live communal experience is and we crave it’ (qtd. in Hemming np). While he strikes a chord with the universal need for ‘communitas’, especially during those ‘historical fissures’ which Negt and Kluge pinpoint (xliii), Claypole has elsewhere portrayed a utopian rendition of how the performing arts have responded to Covid-19:
For me, a precious ray of sunshine has emerged in the clear determination of artists, performers, curators and producers to keep creating and connecting with audiences whatever the circumstances. (qtd. in Spiegler np)
For those who do not have a privileged position of access to arts and culture, it is not always possible to create something ‘whatever the circumstances’, and in Nottingham the long-running Blackdrop events had to take a hiatus of nearly six months in 2019 due to a lack of funding and struggles to find an appropriate venue. As Sarah Brouillette has argued, neoliberal governments’ de-funding of the arts is counterproductive considering the increasingly vital role they play in the economy. Policymakers need to move on from the tired stereotype of those in the arts sector as ‘poor relations who depend on others’ charity in order to survive’ but begin to see that investing in arts brings numerous benefits (Mendes np). If not immediately quantifiable in monetary terms, these enrich the cultural life of the city, increase its ability to attract visitors and enhance the well-being of all of its citizens, not just an elite few (Mendes np). As the Blackdrop collective adapts once again to disruption, it emerged in July 2020 with online ‘Zoomdrop’ sessions, ensuring that the group survives in some form, ready to emerge triumphant and carve out their own space in the new public sphere.
Notes
1 For a discussion of the page/stage divide, see the seminal round-table conversation between Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Patience Agbabi, Jillian Tipene, Ruth Harrison and Vicki Bertram (Breeze et al).