‘It’s beautiful to have experienced the journey’: 10 years of Out-Spoken

To this day Out-Spoken’s live nights remain a not-to-be-missed experience, where established artists, Poet Laureates and award-winners rub shoulders and share microphones with emerging talents. As Karim Kamar, one of Out-Spoken’s co-producers, deftly describes, ‘It’s all about allowing different styles of performance to exist within the same space. It’s about giving the same artistic respect to performance poetry as is given to traditional page poetry, and most importantly it’s about allowing the work and the art to be viewed, heard and appreciated in a great room with great sound.’

But first, let’s go back to the very beginning and London in its pre-Olympic state of early 2012. On most nights back then you’d have found Anaxagorou criss-crossing the capital, making his way to or from gigging at one of its plentiful open mic nights. But as he himself explains, the democracies of such nights meant that attending and performing at them often became feats of endurance. ‘As anyone will tell you, sometimes these things can get quite difficult to sit through, especially if you have 25 open mic performers on before your set at 10.30pm. By that time the audience is either knackered or they’ve gone home. So I began to think about ways to stop that from happening.’

Artists and audiences deserved something on top of that, something more tailored. What Anaxagorou hit on, was the idea for a poetry night that didn’t need an open mic aspect to secure an audience; an undisrupted showcase of the best in contemporary British poetry; top performers, writers and musicians, appreciated by an audience that was given room to be attentive from start to finish. And so began Out-Spoken

When anything independent becomes successful, maintaining the ethos that first led to its creation can be difficult but – perhaps because it started with such aspirational beliefs – Out-Spoken’s growth has never come at the expense of its raison d’etre. As Anaxagorou confirms, ‘For poetry, the mission has been pretty consistent throughout the years. We’ve always aspired to bridge the gap between stage and page, between what gets labelled performance poetry and perhaps what’s considered more literary. The show concerns itself with highlighting all the ways poems can exist, the world’s they’re born out of and what poets can do with the English language’.

‘Out-Spoken really is about wanting to bring the most exciting and dynamic poetry and music to a regular monthly audience. For poets to come and find a space where 300 people will leave their homes to hear them read, then queue to buy books says something about the much needed value we put on an art form that’s made to feel peripheral or in contention. To see the night become what it is now; what it means to poets and audiences feels (to me at least) like all the years of planning, thinking and working on ways to grow the show are finally paying off – it’s beautiful to have experienced that journey.’

So, how exactly do you go about curating such an appealing, inclusive and broad line-up for a monthly spoken word and live music night? ‘It’s actually a very democratic and open process,’ explains Anaxagorou, ‘[Compere] Joelle Taylor and I usually start by putting several names forward of poets whose work we like then others add to the list. We try to work around themes, styles, voice and subject. We take into account where a writer might be in their career and shape the nights around those factors. Joelle, [producer] Tom MacAndrew and myself are very much entrenched in all aspects of poetry. For us a key feature of the night is how to pair newer writers with perhaps more high-profile poets and have the work feel congealed and complementary. For music Karim is usually in constant conversation with musicians and bands. We very much trust his judgement and taste so leave him to curate the months as he sees fit.’

But did Anaxagorou ever envisage that it would still be thriving after a decade? ‘I really didn’t. I was only ever thinking firstly about how we could sustain the night for another year, and secondly how to grow and incorporate elements we felt were important to the poetry landscape. I’ve always wanted an outfit that offered people that chance to engage and benefit from all aspects of poetry – from the learning and development of craft, which the masterclass covers, to the publishing and performing which the live night and Out-Spoken Press offer. For me, it’s a community project and always has been, run by artists and practitioners who’ve been working in the sector for years and who remain invested in its future.’

How about Anaxagorou? ‘There are too many to mention. I remember the way the late rapper Ty got the entire Forge in Camden up and dancing. Ilya Kaminsky incanting his beautiful poems while the text appeared behind him on a projector. The inward stoicism of Simon Armitage’s readings. The humour, wit and fury of Salena Godden. Hearing burgeoning poets who only recently came onto the scene confess in the green room ‘this is my first ever proper reading and I’m so nervous I might die.’ The conversations we have backstage, the drinks we share after the shows, watching poets rehearse their lines, trying to shake off the nerves, reading over their notes and poems – it’s a whole process, a method, one I’m lucky enough to witness’.

So, having made it to the decade mark, having added a publishing wing, an awards night and poetry masterclasses to the Out-Spoken name, where does it go from here? ‘It’s the hardest question to answer,’ says Anaxagorou frankly, ‘because we often say it’s like we’re at the summit with it now. It can either go terribly wrong and we land flat on our arses and go back to where we started, or we sustain the platform and keep bringing the acts we do in the way we do it. I guess that’s what people come to experience and now we’ve hit the ten-year mark, I’m hoping we’ll be around for another ten’.