Spoken Word in the UK

Celebrated performance poets Rose Condo, Kate Fox and Sundra Lawrence discuss a new comprehensive anthology exploring the vast array of different styles and characteristics that make spoken word performance in the UK unique.

Spoken Word in the UK draws together a wide range of scholars, critics and practitioners to give a new perspective on performance poetics. It’s a crucial and ground-breaking companion for those teaching and studying spoken word, theatre, performance, literature and culture.

Rose Condo is an award-winning Canadian poet based in Salford. She studied Theatre & Drama at the University of Winnipeg and earned her MA in Theatre & Development Studies at the University of Leeds. Rose has been writing, performing and teaching for over 20 years, and she is the Mentoring Manager (North) for Arts Emergency. Her debut poetry collection After the Storm was published in 2020 and she has won awards for her projects and shows, which include, The Empathy Experiment, The Geography of Me and How to Starve an Artist.

Kate Fox is a stand-up poet, writer, broadcaster and speaker. She has been a performer on and contributor to many programmes on BBC TV and radio, and Poet in Residence for the Great North Run, Glastonbury Festival and R4’s Saturday Live. She has supported acts including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Hollie McNish, John Cooper Clarke and John Hegley and is a headline act in her own right. She has written two comedy series called The Price of Happiness for Radio 4 and her current touring show Where There’s Muck There’s Bras about notable northern women. Kate also a campaigner for the voices of Northerners, the working class, women and the neurodiverse to be heard.

Sundra Lawrence is a UK-based poet and writer of Tamil heritage. Her work visits themes of migration, religion and home. She is an experienced creative writing tutor and has performed her work across the UK and internationally. Sundra’s work has been broadcast on BBC TV and radio and is published in numerous anthologies. She is a Malika’s Poetry Kitchen Alumni and is the founder and director of Write Lines. In 2021, she won the Aryamati Poetry Prize.

Age guidance: 14+ (Under 16s should be accompanied by an adult)

For more information visit https://www.huddlitfest.org.uk/event/spoken-word/