Please note that the musician and poet formally named Kate Tempest changed their name to Kae Tempest in 2020, announcing they are non-binary and using they/them pronouns. This video was made prior to 2020.
Anthony Horowitz:Hello, I'm Anthony Horowitz. If you're writing a poem, one thing to always consider is how does it sound?
Anthony Horowitz:You may not be thinking of your poem as something to be read aloud but poetry, more than most other creative writing, has a musical quality to it.
Anthony Horowitz:The rhythm and the sound the words make when you put them together can play a vital part in enhancing the story you're telling or the emotion you may be trying to evoke.
Anthony Horowitz:A perfect demonstration of this can be found in the work and performances of Kate Tempest who's been described as a poet for people who don't read poetry and a rapper for people who don't listen to hip hop.
Kate Tempest:See they learn that respect comes from striking the pose that demands it but I know, respect and fear are not compatible a long way from bat and ball they don't play they let daggers fall from blood soaked fingers while their siblings lie bleeding in hallways dead
Kate Tempest:but like wisdom has always said blood begets blood and keeps spilling so the pavements are stained and our hearts are grief-stricken
Lucy O'Brien:'Kate tempest is so interesting.' She's like a proper performance poet. In that she… Weaves a narrative.
Lucy O'Brien:So she's obviously speaking to her generation. Generation that listened to grime, that listened to rap. She can rap so she moves between rapping and performance poetry.
Lemn Sissay:Poets like Kate Tempest are like flares. They fire up, out of the ground, at night, from nowhere POP up into the sky and then POP light.
Kate Tempest:His arms were bound in the feathers of his–
Narrator:'Inspired by mythology, the South-Londoner's story-telling skills 'have marked her out to both young and older audiences.'
Kate Tempest:He heard the wind speak every time he felt his wings beat. His father flew before him and so the course was set. He said, "Don't fly by the waves 'cause your wings will get wet but don’t fly so high that the sun–
Narrator:'The poem Icarus updates the ancient Greek legend for contemporary life.'
Lucy O'Brien:'Even though you might know that myth and you might know that story,' there's something in the way that she tells it that it's new and you're rethinking and thinking again about what it means. What is that relationship between the father and the son? When the son wants to break out and do something for himself.
Kate Tempest:Wonder what you saw before he fell and if he needed my help, would he have asked for it? Probably he wouldn't. Probably, he thought he was invincible. He weren't. In principle he burnt. He smouldered in those myths so that we who never flew before can learn from what he did.
Lucy O'Brien:You can read it on the page but it's not until she performs it live that you get the full, three-dimensional soundscape of it.
Video summary
Anthony Horowitz introduces the work of Kae Tempest to consider the musical quality of poetry, and the three dimensional soundscape that is created through poetry in performance.
Music journalist Lucy O’Brien shows how Kae Tempest’s performance poetry makes links with contemporary musical genres such as grime and rap, and is therefore able to speak across generations.
Excerpts from Tempest’s poem 'Icarus' are used to demonstrate the poet’s storytelling qualities and explore the way that Tempest has updated the ancient Greek myth for contemporary life.
Teacher Notes
Students might begin by reading the Icarus story and comparing it with the text of Kae Tempest’s poem Icarus to see what new ideas she has brought to the narrative.
They could then use other Greek myths as the inspiration for writing some contemporary performance poetry.
This clip will be relevant for teaching English Language at KS3 and KS4 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and National 4 and 5 in Scotland.
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