Literature is on the rise in the capital – but it’s all off the page. London’s nightclubs, cafes and bookstores are being taken over by the spoken word: literature brought to you live by the authors and poets themselves.
Poetry lends itself to performance and poetry slams have been around for years, but the new craze is slams of other kinds: short stories, prose readings and rap. Even Ken Livingston is in on the act, with the mayor of London’s free Rise festival and its poetry slam which encourages young Londoners to challenge racism through poetry and rap.
The Poetry Café in Covent Garden hosts Aromapoetry, which was recently relaunched in a new format with three separate spoken word programmes. It now features a mix of traditional open mic with poets, as well as prose readings, and SHOT where two prose writers read for 15 minutes each and answer questions.
Across town, Book Slam is mixing the words up with DJs, singer songwriters, and an intimate nightclub scene. As the capitals self proclaimed “best literary nightclub” – well, let’s be honest, the only literary nightclub – Book Slam has occasional regional tours and has become so popular it has outgrown its old venue, Cherry Jam and moved down the road to Neighbourhood. The brainchild of Ben Watt, from music group Everything But The Girl, and Patrick Neate, author and poet, its success is a tribute to the unique blend of styles, genres, and performers. Their mission was to create a regular literary event in London that didn’t “make sane people want to stab themselves with rusty cutlery” and it certainly bucks the traditional boring “reading” format.
The pull of big name authors certainly helps. Writers like Nick Hornby, Monica Ali and DBC Pierre are thrown together with new writers, DJs, songwriters, poets and performance artists making for a dynamic combination. It’s a fresh and fun take on writing, that will keep you up late on a school night, and remains achingly cool, without the “we’re making it fun” condescension you often get when literature is made “accessible”. On a recent visit the queue stretched out the door onto a rainy Porchester Road from 7pm (rather early for a nightclub), and a surprise appearance from Zadie Smith reading from On Beauty even managed to silence the rowdy 20-something crowd and momentarily distract them from their beers, cocktails and chips.
Back in the more traditional surrounds of Foyles Bookstore, Tales of the Decongested is bringing the much-ignored short story to life. With publishers and agents arguing there is no market for short fiction, creative writing teachers Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone and Paul Blaney decided to take matters into their own hands and set up a monthly reading, in order to raise the profile of the short story and discover exciting new talent in London.
Anyone can submit a story, and if selected they will be one of a handful invited to read their story aloud at the bookstore, which rapidly fills up with friends and onlookers while the organisers hand out plastic glasses of wine. It’s a real skill to read aloud and writers aren’t all born performers, so the rules permit them to delegate to a friend if stage fright gets the better of them. It takes some bravery to get up and read in front of a crowd – even more if this story is your own, your first, and the result of hours of hard labour.
Plot based stories translate better to the spoken word, and the style and standard varies from comedy to tragedy, with the subject matter as diverse as Gypsy funerals, or literary ponderings. Alongside new authors established writers are also featured from time to time, with alumni like Ali Smith, Nicholas Royle and Stella Duffy.
While most authors only read aloud post-publication, Tales of the Decongested starts with the performance, and then goes into print. All the stories read later appear on their website and Tales has been so successful that they have secured Arts Council funding to produce an anthology featuring the best stories from the last two years. The optimistically named Tales of the Decongested: Volume 1 is self-published under their new venture, Apis Books which again aims to promote shorter fiction. And true to their performance roots, recordings of each story in the anthology will soon be available to download on apisbooks.com.
Live literature is certainly nothing new – reading aloud to children is usually their first introduction to the world of books. But perhaps live literature for adults is growing in line with the rise of audio books and the Ipod boom. Maybe it’s partly due to our obsession with celebrity – the lure of seeing authors perform. Maybe we’re just hungry for more writing, in all its forms. Whatever the reason, it’s social, relaxed and entertaining and makes for a good night out.
Book Slam takes place in London on the last Thursday of every month at Neighbourhood. www.bookslam.com
Tales of the Decongested Takes place at Foyles Bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London on the last Friday of every month. www.decongested.com
