Let Them Eat Chaos

Have you heard of Kate Tempest (left)? 

The performance poet whose spoken-word theater show Brand New Ancients won her the Ted Hughes award for innovation in poetry in 2013. 

And named a Next Generation Poet – one of twenty – by the Poetry Book Society (which was founded by TS Eliot in 1953), a once-a-decade accolade. 

The Londoner is equally at home within the genres of theater, performance, poetry and music, her name now appears on album covers, poetry books, and billboard hoardings. 

It is fitting then, that her individual works blend elements of oral, sonic, visual and written culture – a fully satisfying spread of scintillating sensations. 

As one commentator in UK’s The Guardian wrote in 2013: “Her spoken-word performances have the metre and craft of traditional poetry, the kinetic agitation of hip-hop and the intimacy of a whispered heart-to-heart… drawing on ancient mythology and sermonic cadence to tell stories of the everyday”. 

Indeed, Kate Tempest has shaken up the world of poetry by taking it out of the bookshops and on to the big stage – check out this masterpiece Let Them Eat Chaos:

(Note: Includes three guest poets – Deanna Rodgers, Isaiah Hull and David J Pugilist).

Kate Tempest’s refusal to recognise genre boundaries – the above material nimbly regenerates itself into performance poetry, rap-style narratives that takes place at 4.18 AM, when insomnia gnaws at her characters’ brains. 

Let Them Eat Chaos by Tempest includes a note at the beginning: “This poem was written to be read aloud.” And you think, “Well, aren’t most poems meant to be read aloud?” 

Perhaps, but Tempest is making at least three points with that statement. 

First, reading a poem aloud is not a given; most poems are read silently today, as opposed to being read aloud. Reading aloud assumes (or presumes) an audience. 

Second, this single collection-length poem was written specifically with the idea of being read aloud. 

And third, reading aloud is a performance, which is exactly what you would expect from a poet who is also a playwright, and also a recorder of CDs (including rap). In fact, Let Them Eat Chaos is paired with an audio CD of the same name. 

I agree when someone said that Tempest doesn’t blur the lines between artistic forms; she blows them up. 

“Wake up and love more”, she intones as she comes to the end. For sure, I can also agree to this!

This is somebody I can relate to. Not just her works, but as a person too. In one interview, she told Dorian Lynskey: “…that’s not the kind of person I am. If I’m going to engage with somebody I engage with all of myself, which is why it’s dangerous. Do you understand? I don’t exist on the surface” (The Guardian, April 30, 2017).

I understand this very well.