You Promised Me Poetry

Overview

On Thursday 22 January, spoken word - an Ancient Greek Olympic sport - will be gracing the stage of the Wine Cellar. Well, sort of.

Spoken word's rudimentary roots can be traced back to Greek lyric, which back in the day was an actual Olympic sport. Spoken word in its more recognisable state only emerged with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, and becoming popular with the underground Last Poets group, which was formed out of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. The Last Poets imagined that they would be the last generation of poets,writers and speakers to exist, that after them weapons would completely overpower words. They have also been cited as one of the earliest influences on hip hop. Later in the 1970s spoken word broke out into the mainstream due to Gil Scott-Heron's 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' (you may recognise Scott-Heron's work from Kanye West's track 'Who Will Survive in America?').

Joining this long tradition of spoken word are Tourettes, Romy Hooper and Mohamed Hussan. Tourettes (Dominic Hoey) has put out four studios albums, released a book of poetry titled Party Tricks and Boring Secrets, finished his first novel, and toured around the world. Hooper toured the UK with a one-woman show and was invited to be an international headliner at Bristols Boomtown Festival. Journalist, poet and co-founder of Waxed Poetic Revival, Hussan has performed across Australasia and spoken at TEDxAuckland.

Tickets are $5 at the door, with performances starting at 8:30pm.