Quick Thoughts on Sub Genres of Poetry
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#posts #poetryI hadn't been to a poetry event in a little while, so when I saw Milk Poetry were doing a special horror themed slam I signed up immediately. My work has often traded in the bizarre and surreal, mixing elements of horror in with poetry so it seemed a good fit. I performed G-Man which has become a favourite of mine. I didn't win, but that's not really the point of slams for me. It was exciting to see so many horror poets perform.
What was great about the night is that it explored poetry outside of the typical spoken word realm. The prevailing genre for performance poetry is lyrical, personal experience turned into verse. I love this type of poetry and it is necessary and important to have spaces for these poems, especially those of marginalised voices or experiences outside the mainstream. But often it is seen as the only genre of poetry that can or should be performed by casual audiences, and I don't think that is necessarily the case.
I think people struggle to talk about genre in poetry because it is not that popular compared to fiction. It tends to occupy a small section of the bookshop. Spoken word nights and slams tend to lean on the 'authentic' voice, something Dr Katie Ailes has investigated. So there is a narrowing in perception of what poetry can be, and that excludes fictional or speculative genres. There's a gap in understanding around performed horror poetry, or sci-fi poetry or fantasy poetry, because these do not fit in the popular understanding of poetry as a genre. Nights like the one ran by Milk Poetry go someway to fixing that. Books like Harry Josephine Giles' beautiful Deep Wheel Orcadia or Olga Ravn's The Employees: A Workplace Novel of the 22nd Century also are changing this perception.
I believe performance poetry can be anything you want it to be- fictional, nonsense, political, absurd, funny or anything else. There's a certain alchemy that exists with a stage, a microphone and someone reading verse. It's a rare kind of magic that has infinite possibilities. It doesn't always have to be confessional or emotionally raw if that isn't where you are at.
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