Aberystwyth Poetry Festival Voice Lessons from Poets

Poetry can very much still be seen as prose’s dreamy second-cousin, full of cloud-wandering and lyrical lake-gazing. It doesn’t relate much to this gritty business of living life amid an environmental-cost-of-living crisis.

Or does it?

At Aberystwyth’s first Poetry Festival, an outspoken atmosphere developed, placing women and politics centre stage.

Read on for 5 lessons from poets in raising your voice. 

Lesson 1 – Addressing Sexism Live

Poetry is maybe not the first thing that springs to mind when thinking of practical tips to combat sexism, but one thing poets do very well is communicate, and they often read poetry in front of a crowd. 

Audiences can have strong views on poetry and what it is, or isn’t, and who is allowed to say what and when. Navigating these spaces is risky. Its hard to speak if people don’t want to listen. 

In poet Kim Moore’s book, ‘Are You Judging Me Yet?’ (Seren, 2023) based on performing poems from her collection ‘All the Men I Never Married’ (Seren, 2021), she describes everyday sexism. Energy-sapping encounters from day-to-day life that feed into stereotypes of women. She explores both the risks and ways she speaks up in these situations.

When asked by an audience member for more details about a subject she didn’t want to discuss she said no. When asked by a ticket inspector to smile in front of a packed train she pointed to another passenger and said – ‘You didn’t ask him to smile!’ When performing her poetry, she asked for the Q&A not to be filmed, and when she experiences sexism, she doesn’t just ignore it, she bases her PhD on it. Kim Moore shows us that even in public, people can ask for privacy, decide not to answer probing questions, and can be in control of how much information an audience is given. 

Lesson 2 – Slow Down Everyone

In life and in politics we often want immediate results. We want people to see us, hear us, agree with us now. Poetry is brief, but not fast, not instant. Like conversation, like change, creating poetry is a slow, convoluted process, sometimes looping backward, searching carefully for the right word. This slower process leaves space for contemplation, it rarely condemns.

The words placed in a poem are thoughtful, especially when the subject is controversial. Poems are the opposite of the blundering nature of some social media, where reactions are instant and milk-thin apologies come thick and fast.

Poetry can be seen as a romantic pastime, taking place in an landscape of wistful looks, broken-down word endings, mischievous adjectives, and intense discussions over the use of semi-colons, but it is also a living thing, a new question asked here between people, behind closed doors, on trains, in pubs, bookshops and around the dinner table. A space left open for an answer. In relationships and conversations, poetry teaches nuance, accuracy and restraint.

Lesson 3 – Language is Imperfectly Perfect

The third lesson is something poets know very well, that language is ever growing and changing. There is no perfect, finished language. This adaptation doubles when you speak more than one. In The Bookshop by the Sea, Poet Nerys Williams played Welsh Language post punk and read from her collection ‘Republic’ (Seren, 2023).

Rebellion spilled through the tiny speakers into the bookish atmosphere, prompting a discussion about gatekeeping of the Welsh language, how Welsh can be ‘punk’ and alternative, how speaking the language itself can be common and beautiful and ‘incorrect’ and poetry, all within syllables of each other. She brought some of that Punk DIY aesthetic with her, have a go anyway, even if you are no expert, even if you think you aren’t good enough to try. 

An audience member spoke up, admitting that he felt like his Welsh was not the right kind of Welsh, not literary enough, not Welsh enough, not fluent enough, too much slang, not correct, not enough. His face full of sadness. He wanted to use his language, use his voice, but fear of judgement was stopping him. A linguistic block inside him was freed up by the acknowledgement that it is okay to be perfectly imperfect. Sometimes people need to hear exactly what it is you have to say. 

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Are you judging us yet?

Good, just checking.

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Lesson 4 – Say What You Want to Say

Sometimes inspiration comes from unexpected places, even for poets. Poet Zoe Brigley spoke about her experience of motherhood. Mothers, like poets, can also be seen as politically passive. Stereotypically nurturing, with their sleep-deprived attention singularly placed on home. Zoe’s experience was different. She felt enraged, empowered. She saw the world as her home, as her future children’s home and wanted to ‘fix everything that is wrong in the world right now.’

While pregnant, she edited a collection of poems about the environmental crisis called, ‘100 Poems to Save the Earth.’ Her experience of motherhood fed into her creative voice and the resulting collection showed us the damage we are doing to the earth, our collective home. The creative voice is individual, original and can be followed it as it takes us to new places. 

Lesson 5 – Small acts of Bravery

On the last festival evening, there was an open mic night. A sweaty nerve-jammed Sunday night, reaching the end of a long weekend, containing strange and fabulous poems about bears and the compost bin.

Each poet shows the room a glimpse of who they are and what they are responding to in the world. Each reading a small act of bravery. A poets voice can both hold an audience in their thrall and hold them to account.

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The poets leave, they catch their trains, start their long drives home. But the lessons they left remain. A voice can refuse to smile on demand. A voice can speak up, although afraid of its own imperfections. This voice we all have can find creativity and political action in unexpected places, creating clarity and form from the confused stream of moments that constitute a life. 

Using voice lessons from poetry could hold public bodies and big business to account and aid discussion, rhetoric, and protest.

And failing that, you can still always write about daffodils.