“Poetry Off the Page” is a five-year project directed by Dr. Julia Lajta-Novak from the University of Vienna and supported by an ERC Consolidator Grant and the START-Prize of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Open Submission

Following the two-day academic conference, ‘All Borders Blur: Mapping Intersections and Genre-Crossings in UK Spoken-Word Poetries since 1965’ at Queen Mary University of London in partnership with the University of Vienna (11-12 November 2023), Poetry Off the Page is pleased to announce the launch of a ‘Call for Submissions’ for a special collection of articles on ‘Poetry off the Page: Intersecting Practices and Traditions in British Poetry Performance“.

The collection will be published by the open access, peer-reviewed, Open Library of the Humanities Journal. Under the editorship of Prof. Andrea Brady (Queen Mary London), Prof. Peter Howarth (Queen Mary London) and Dr. Helen Thomas (University of Vienna), this special collection focuses upon the ways in which spoken word practices have intersected with, crossed genres and transformed established forms of British performance practice and traditions.

Here you can find the Call for Submissions.
Closes 10 May 2024

About Poetry Off the Page

Spoken word poetry has been going through a noticeable boom for more than half a century. Movements such as Beat poetry, jazz poetry, and poetry slam have given rise to extensive performance scenes in the English-speaking poetry world and beyond. 

Drawing from the Spoken Word Archive and other sources, the Poetry Off the Page project investigates the impact of poetry performance on contemporary British and Irish literary history. Taking account of the aesthetic and semantic potential of spoken word, the project will examine the alternative institutional structures, publication channels, career pathways, presentational formats, styles, and poetic genres that have emerged from the performance scene. 

A core aim of the project is to articulate multifaceted theoretical and methodological approaches to poetry performance analysis. By revealing the vital role of oral performance in the history of Anglophone British poetry, providing new sources, and cultivating spaces for its study, this project seeks to establish poetry performance research as a recognised branch of historico-literary enquiry.

Follow the project: www.poetryoffthepage.net
Check out the Spoken Word Archive.

A silhouette of a hand holding a mic with Poetry off the Page overlaying it

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European
Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 101002816) and from the Austrian Science Fund (START grant No Y 1263).

With thanks to :

Participating Universities: