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The Establishment Poets

Spoken word poets were sidelined and ignored for years. Lemn Sissay finds out how voices outside the mainstream made the establishment sit up and take notice.

The poetry establishment belittled and dismissed performance poetry right from the start. But as audiences swelled in the 1990s, spoken word poets became impossible to ignore.

Lemn Sissay returns to his first ever paid gig, and charts how voices outside the mainstream made themselves heard. Joelle Taylor recalls the rising tide of live poetry, while Simon Armitage explains how it became possible to straddle the divide between stage and page.

Written and presented by Lemn Sissay
Sound design by Charlie Brandon-King
Produced by Richard Lea and Joe Hallam

A Bafflegab production for 麻豆官网首页入口 Radio 4

Available now

14 minutes

Last on

Thu 10 Feb 2022 13:45

Broadcasts

  • Christmas Eve 2021 19:00
  • Thu 10 Feb 2022 13:45