The Roundhouse's Last Word festival is counting down to its 10th anniversary with heats for its famous Poetry Slam taking place this week.
Past performers have included Holly McNish, Kae Tempest, Inua Ellams comedian Jack Rooke, US pioneer Saul Williams, The Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, and the current young people's laureate for London Caleb Femi.
This year, senior producer and lead programmer Jack Prideaux is looking forward to an Apples and Snakes poetry takeover on June 3, one of scores of events running at the Chalk Farm venue from June 1-18.
"The 10th year feels like a bit of a milestone, but the poetry slam which is really the jewel in the crown is now in its 18th year," he says.
"It's a special moment in our calendar that was so popular we built a festival around it."
For the Roundhouse, spoken word was an art form that proved popular with the thousands of young people who take part in its outreach programmes each year.
"Spoken word and poetry is an immediate art form that the young creatives we work with could easily engage with as a means of sharing their ideas and using their voices, without needing lots of training and equipment," he said.
Over the decade, the festival has "evolved into a broader offer" taking in poetry, podcasts, theatre, comedy, film screenings and music "anything where words are used to communicate."
Many performers who played the festival earlier in their careers, including Tempest, McNish and Ellams are returning in some capacity this year.
The slam itself has expanded into a national platform for young performers aged 18-25 with heats in Liverpool, Cardiff, and Glasgow before the final on June 1 which is livestreamed to a national online audience "to amplify and grow the reach of the artists".
"It's trying to give a platform to the most exicting voices across the country and bring 10 into our iconic space. It's always a really special night when we meet artists that we go on to have working relationships with."
A "personal highlight" of the 2023 festival is Speakers Corner Quartet on June 2.
"It's a full capacity Roundhouse gig for an outfit who formed as a house band for a spoken word night, and have gone on to collaborate with amazing artists who are on their album. It's a special night that typifies what the festival is all about."
Another highlight is a conversation between rising star poet Sophia Thakur, and Lemara Lindsay-Prince from Stormzy's publisher #Merky Books about getting work into print.
"Every few years there is renewed interest in spoken word when it is used in ads, has gone viral on social media, or caught the imagination," says Prideaux.
"Ten years ago we had a more humble offering, now the fact that we can sell out a main space with musicians and spoken word artists is testament to how the festival has grown, but also how that wider appetite for watching it has grown."
The range of performers is diverse, some drawing on the "identity and lineage" of hip hop culture, and rap battles with all its "competitive celebration." It's a far cry from dusty poetry readings of yore.
"In the past there would have been a sense that poetry was about the people they studied at school, older, largely white, with a narrow range of experiences, but the range of voices that are making work and being given platforms is now so much broader and diverse," says Prideaux.
"Spoken word can lead people in all sorts of directions, so many have started in poetry then written plays, a novel, an album or become a screenwriter. It’s a broad church. Young artists, who don't want to be restricted by genre boundaries or pigeonhole themselves, are able to explore different things."
The Last Word Festival runs at The Roundhouse from June 1-18. https://www.roundhouse.org.uk/series/the-last-word-festival/
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