NEW BEAT POETRY

These poems are selected from a modern-day version of Beat poetry – a stripped-down take on the Beat Generation’s poetry and jazz of the 1950’s, with the bass alone coloring the rhythms behind the spoken words. The rhythms themselves change and mutate as the patterns of words may switch from formally-structured rhymed sections to free verse and then back again – making each poem sometimes feel like a mini-symphony of words and phrases. While the poems were initially written for live performance, they do stand by themselves, and are intended to be both accessible and entertaining!

Roderick Deacey had his first poem published at the age of sixteen. Since then he has intermittently written poetry, but for many years focused more on songwriting and playing music. Eventually, poetry called him again, and he has recently become known for performing his re-invented Beat poetry. “Think of story ballads, with a touch of hip-hop, filtered through contemporary poetic styles, under-pinned by an intuitive, improvising rhythm section that likes to change time signatures, and you have it,” he explains. “Constantly risking absurdity/ and death/ whenever he performs/…/ the poet like an acrobat/ climbs on rime/ to a high wire of his own making …” Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind (1958)