Poetic care: the orientations and relations of spoken word performance at three venues in East London

ABSTRACT This paper explores the performance of spoken word poetry at three venues in East London through an attention to the ways in which participants experience and conceptualize these expressive events. Drawing from observation at events and interviews with performers, this paper illuminates the most commonly reported motivations behind the uptake of this genre of performance: achieving emotional healing and providing coping tools to others. By investigating these motivations, this paper considers how spoken word performance can become a personal and collective process of care, where performers overcome individual struggle through shifting bodily orientations and attitudes, while attuning affectively with others through pedagogical caretaking relations.