Ethnicity and poetry

So Book Slam last night was fun and wine-filled(feeling a bit delicate this morning).

Apart from David Simon, a self-described bald lumpy middle-aged Jewish guy, all the other acts were Black. The compere Charlie Dark, a female performance artist with a beautiful voice Zena Edwards , and a female MC Speech Debelle .

It is interesting how many of the Black poets/spoken word artists I have seen at Book Slam seem to be angry, particularly about things to do with being Black. Similarly, a lot of female artists go on endlessly about the unfairness that women experience.

I'm not naive enough to think that the fight for equality and justice has been won. And why shouldn't people talk about their experiences?

The problem is that when people present themselves in a rather uni-dimensional way it makes it harder for me to view them as individuals, rather than as stereotypes. So much of Charlie Dark's material was about Black gun crime and in the end I was desperate to know more about some other aspects of his life. There were a few titbits - he went to private school and teaches kids - but the overall impression from him I thought reinforced stereotypes, as well as being a bit boring after a while.

The last act, Speech Debelle with her brilliant band The Therapists, was much more individual. She spoke about getting sick of your boyfriend, living off the pitiful Job Seeker's Allowance, and a fantastic finale about her absent father.