Lemn Sissay’s Poetry Rebels

Lemn Sissay's Poetry Rebels

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Lemn Sissay's Poetry Rebels: The Establishment Poets

The Establishment Poets

BBC Radio 4 - Lemn Sissay's Poetry Rebels, The Establishment Poets

How have the rebel poets stormed the establishment? Lemn Sissay charts their rise.

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 BBC Radio 4

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How did performance poetry conquer the poetry world?

How did performance poetry conquer the poetry world? Lemn Sissay tells the incendiary story of how rebels stormed the poetry establishment and transformed poetry

How did performance poetry conquer the poetry world? Lemn Sissay tells the incendiary story of how rebels stormed the poetry establishment, and how they have transformed poetry on both stage and page.

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