It’s 30years from now, and the thing that replaces TV is showing the Channel 4 equivalent of "TOP 50 GREATEST WHATEVERS", where B & C list celebrities get nostalgic about an era, or movement, or scene (preferably the same few celebs, with varying anecdotes, so that they can shoot several "TOP 50 GREATEST WHATEVERS" in one day, then fill them out with advertisements for compilation IPodettes, with loose musical connections to one of the aforesaid celebs/anecdotes).
It’s what my generation called ‘aural history’.
Well; in this 30years-hence format, a few of my contemporaries discuss the performance poetry zeitgeist that emerged at the end of the last century, having been born in the aftermath of punk, in the fine works of John Cooper Clarke & Attila, and developed to its zenith at rock & pop festivals the length & breadth of the land.
And how the art form crossed over into rap & hip hop, and the music of Lily & Kate.
And how at least two poet laureates found themselves ‘reading’, in a muddy field, in wellies, and with laminated passes around their necks.
And an ageing Phill Jupitus will say
“And of course, there was the Norwich movement, coming out of UEA and putting places like Cambridge, Southwold and Colchester on the pop-lit map”.
And it’ll cut to a photo montage of the early pioneers;
Aisle16 with Clarkey, Polar Bear, Scroobius Pip and Francesca Beard.
Posters will fill the screen with laughable venues & entrance-fees in GBP sterling
Sundown. Express Excess. ShortFuse. Homework.
Mr.Gee will tell the Russell Brand story “one more time” and sun-bronzed John Osborne, sipping gin on a Mediterranean yacht will say
“It was a really exciting time. There so much talent around. You had your Dockers MCs, Rachel Pantechnicons, Molly Naylors and don’t forget Yanny Mac & Pikey Paddy”.
And as the technology of the mid 21st Century cuts to its modern equivalent of an ad break for Tena Lady ‘Freshness All Day’, someone, somewhere, will know that I was once a contender.
