Our co-editor, Josiane Smith, sat down with Tyrone Lewis, the UK’s Poetry Slam Champion and Founder of Process Productions, to talk about his latest documentary on the open mic scene in London, eight years after he produced his first documentary film on the same subject, ‘New Shit’, and seven years after ‘Scores, Please?’, which documents the poetry slam scene.

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I saw you perform the other night at the Poetry Lounge in Highgate. Your style is very nostalgic for me – it has got a kind of tumbling electricity to it, and reminds me of the spoken word poets I came up with back in Bristol and London over a decade ago. What makes a poem come alive for you? If you start speaking out loud to a crowd, what are you doing to make it different to just reading it?

Some poems only work when they are being performed out loud – because of the sound, or how the body is used, the use of the space, props, theatricality. I think of Birmingham’s Poet Laureate, Jasmine Gardosi, and the way they use beatboxing to punctuate syllables. I don’t know how that could be translated to the page and achieve the same feeling as when it’s live.

I remember another poet at the Poetry Lounge kneeling precariously on a stool to show what his cramped London flat feels like. Using his body helped me to feel something in my body that reached beyond his words.

Yes, that was great to watch. I was getting footage for my second documentary that night and I have to say that I was a bit relieved because the filmmaker in me is always looking out for things that are visually interesting. I want a cutaway – I want that performer moving around the stage. But then again, not every poet needs that. Sometimes them being static can be good and powerful, too.

What would you say makes a performance good and powerful, whether it’s static or in motion, read from written text or recited by heart?

Presence. It’s hard to properly put it into words though, because there’s no one way of doing it. What I like about spoken word and performing this stuff is that each night the poem will change, my delivery changes. The style of performing is just about being as present as I can be with whatever is happening in the room, the audience, myself, and being able to have that live interaction. When a poem is published on a page and read that way, it stays largely the same.

Being able to read the room is also very important. So other poets’ performances will affect my choice of what I perform. I watch what other poets do and I figure out what I can do that’s similar but not the same. The poem that has gone before me will also change how my poem is delivered, because the energy is different or I’m feeling different.

There’s that presence you were talking about. It seems that performance also has a level of embodiment to it and the ability to flex on the fly according to a certain resonance that’s happening in the body or in the room.

Exactly. Again, going back to that night, I had prepared two poems to read but because the host had brought her mother to co-host with her that evening, I adjusted what I brought and started off with a poem about my mother who I had lost earlier this year. I shared that with the audience too and linked it with the co-hosts, which really created the space for the poem to be received I think.

I’m sorry to hear that about your mum. It was a brilliant poem; generous and keenly observational to the love you’ve been shown by her. To what extent (if at all) do you think about how a poem will be performed as you write it?

I’m always trying to be a performer; to give the audience their money’s worth and making sure that people have a good time! People have paid money, given up an evening, so I want to entertain them. But traumatic things do come up, and it’s good to use your platform to talk about your mental health and other life’s challenges. And of course sometimes it’s important to make people think – even if people have been doing funnier stuff all evening, performing ‘hard stuff’ can be key to a memorable night because it’s got depth and variety. But I try to ask myself what is the entertaining part of this? Why am I going to share this with an audience? How am I looking after them? That can come down to the edit as much as the choice of what to perform on the night.

That’s a very caring attitude towards an audience of mostly strangers. But the audience are of course a large part of the performance, too. I’m curious then, what’s your relationship to the audience as you write, edit or perform your poetry?

As I’m writing, I’m rarely thinking about the audience. I’m just writing. I don’t even think about if it’s a poem I’m going to perform or not. I’m doing it as a hobby – for fun, or as fun as it can be. I’m just following whatever comes naturally. But sometimes I look at a poem and recognise that this feels like a really well written thing that I won’t be able to give the energy to on stage. That’s probably when the audience comes in, as I begin to edit what’s too unrecognisable for the audience to see themselves in.

That said, credit to audiences – especially in a spoken world realm, they are good at processing stuff. It’s just about making sure there’s enough in the poem that people can understand on first hearing. If there’s stuff I do for myself, I know what liberties I can take, I can do things that make sense to just me. But when it’s for other people, with both my filming and my poetry, it becomes important to check that something is understood beyond me.

This reminds me of a line in Harper Walton’s poem called, ‘Yeah, I’m in the Scene. Are You in the Scene?’, which reads, “On nights like these, I see that the poet holds the audience and the audience holds the poet.’

That’s totally true. Some poets take a while to realise that it’s a two way thing. You can’t do it without the audience and they can’t do it without you. It’s an exchange.

What does it feel like to be behind the camera of a performance? An observer?

I enjoy being behind the camera. It’s very rewarding! The photos I have taken have been used by other people and that’s a wonderful feeling. I guess because I’ve helped this person do something they want to do. I have helped their life in some way, shape or form. I have helped them to be seen… being able to see the effect I’m having on people and on the scene is kind of cool.

But as a documentarian of this stuff, this is not about me. I’m trying to capture a person and the whole scene that they’re a part of as authentically and as best I can without interfering.

So tell us about the documentary you are currently working on. What is its message?

It’s a sequel to a documentary I made about seven years ago where I spoke to about 18 poets from the open mic scene about the scene itself – where they go, what can be improved, exploring what an open mic means to them. There’s about 40-50 poetry nights in London every month – they may not all be the best, highest quality, but these open mics have become such an important part of people’s lives and I wanted to capture that, in order that people can see this thing that their friends are talking about and why it matters to them. I’ve interviewed 27 poets so far for this next one.

How does your second documentary differ from your first? What’s changed or stayed the same?

Community was always important but it’s manifesting in different ways now and has definitely become more of a focal point. People will always want to make a career out of writing, but open mics are where community is built, where new friendship groups have been built, where people get to explore different parts of London and it’s been good for them. Other creative spaces (theatres, music gigs) don’t create community as much because there’s less interaction. Open mics are basically a hang out space.

There’s also lots more actively and openly queer friendly spaces and nights. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not like we weren’t queer friendly before, but it’s branded now and there’s an active thought process behind it – doing something specifically for the community.

And of course, there’s the rise of social media and instagram poetry. Poets nowadays will ask their friends to film them performing for their social media. None of my friends used to be filming each other! People are now performing for people beyond the room and beyond the time that this is in.

Instagram poetry has definitely become more of a thing, which is, as you say, performing for a different type of audience entirely, one that exists purely in the digital realm. What is your opinion on that?

I think it’s a good thing overall, because people are sharing poetry as part of their identities and how they show up in spaces online. Maybe because of that, poetry has become more accepted as an artform. Look at the Poet’s Revival recently. It was a sold out night in the Royal Albert Hall! There were bits of poetry in the world beforehand, but it’s now become much more of a thing. Not quite where it could be – the majority of poets still can’t make a living out of just poetry, but people are tapping into it more.

The style hasn’t changed that much, but poets like Kae Tempest and others seem to be asking much more intentionally, “what more can we do with this?” There’s more fusion of theatre, music and poetry and there’s more longer form shows.

What have you learned through this documentary about performance and about the performance poetry scene?

It’s always about the people involved, and I see more and more the purpose and need to get out of London for it. There are so many different voices that need to be heard – not all poets are in London (shout out Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow poetry scenes). Given that they don’t have the resources and funding that London has, seeing what they are playing around with, and doing, is amazing. It’s almost like it’s pushed them to be more creative. Some of the best artists in the UK right now are not from London.

My final question to you is about how performance in poetry can extend beyond the poem, i.e. in advancing social justice or enhancing our spiritual lives?

Almost everything is political. As a Black man, almost all of my poetry will reference that; it will always be a part of that as the thing that I’m dealing with. So much of the poetry scene belongs to minority groups – social issues will get talked about. Finding community and finding spaces to feel comfortable in this country is key.

That said, I don’t like the idea that everything in my life is political, and that something has to be active, rather than passive, in order to be political. Two of my books of poetry are about Blackness, and if I do a feature set, there’ll be an element of Blackness that will come into it. I have to accept that, and know that I have used my position to talk about a thing that matters in the world. And hopefully we’ve got a good enough connection that I can share something about me with you, and you can learn something from it. It’s almost like performance poetry is about saying, “here is my experience, let’s go from there.”

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Tyrone Lewis (He/him), UK Poetry Slam Champion, Roundhouse Poetry Slam Champion, Axis Poetry Slam Champion and Author of his debut collection ‘Blackish’ and its sequel, ‘2 Black 2 Furious’.

Tyrone is the Founder of Process Production as well as its monthly Spoken Word Night; Process. He was also one of the inaugural Albany Associate Artists as well as hosting, producing, and featuring at many Spoken Word nights across the UK.

Tyrone has also been involved with a number of major national poetry events over the years including 2010’s Word Cup, 2012’s Shake The Dust and 2015’s Shot From The Lip, as well as helping out with UniSlam in from 2016 – present.

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From Magma 89, Performance

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