Big Mouth Masterclasses in Performance Poetry 2006-2007
Welcome
The professionals say:
Performance skills can clearly be taught
Rosie Lugosi
You can't teach talent, but you can teach the best way to use it.
Attila The Stockbroker
Can performance poetry be taught? Why on earth not? If any poetry can be taught, it can.
Philip Gross
It's been a pleasure to be part of the project
Matt Harvey
Poetry for the stage, slam poetry, or standup poetry is all part of an emergent art form and this is a chance for participants to learn from successful poets – whether on the page, stage, or both. There has been criticism that performance poetry is a form of 'poetry-lite' or standup comedy with a script. Although performance poetry is essentially accessible, this doesn't mean it can't be good poetry. These master classes will help increase the body of knowledge about performance poetry and performance poetry skills, as well as helping selected poets strive for excellence in their art form.
The aims of these poetry master classes are:
- to develop the performance poetry understandings and skills of poets
- to raise artistic standards in performance poetry
- to contribute to poetry development in general.
10 poets will be selected. The criteria for selection will be that these poets are new or up-and-coming, and have shown that their poetry at least shows promise, and that they are either already performing at open mikes or slams or have satisfied the panel that they have a commitment to performing their poetry in public.