What We Do
Poejazzi is a five year old organisation that specialises in promoting and supporting forward thinking poetry and music through multimedia platforms. We curate events and we blog a lot. We also interview our favourite artists and digitally publish poetry in the form of apps, creating visuals for both. Spoken word and contemporary poetry is on the ascend and its relationship with music and with visual art and social media is strengthening in a natural way. Of course, as far as we are concerned it has always been there, unacknowledged or hiding in popular music for instance: from Blur’s Parklife to The Streets. Now it is coming to the forefront of pop culture in sub genres such as Poetronica from the likes of Jamie xx with Gil Scott-Heron, LV with Joshua Idehen, and Brian Eno with Rick Holland. Poejazzi are of the mind that spoken word and its relationship with multimedia is not a transient moment but rather an ongoing affinity that we have been championing with a lot of passion.
Who We Are
We love to make great excuses for you to go out and have an amazing time. We are committed to publishing keepsakes that you can take everywhere. We faciliate dialogues. We link communities. We like to save you the trouble of finding new things to love. We welcome collaborations and we love a good concept. Essentially Poejazzi aims to reflect the changing role of the spoken word in the modern world, to challenge boundaries between art forms and to bridge any perceived gap between art and everyday life. We like to think we heeded the damning words of Lou Reed on the state of contemporary poetry. Here is his response on being told his album (which kind of flopped) was spoken word: ‘It’s not spoken word. Spoken word sounds like a biography of Winston Churchill read to you by Ian McKellen – People want spoken word like they want an amputated foot.’ Damn skippy. Especially if it sounds like that album.
Why We Do It
We think art should tell us something and its audience should get the opportunity to talk back: that is why we are always trying to think up new ways to offer you creativity that you can actively participate in through unexpected formats. Poejazzi is inherently concerned with anticipating change and responding to it. We like a challenge and we like to challenge your expectations, which is why we are always seeking out new creative talent by working with recent graduates and promoting original voices. Our hope for Poejazzi is that it will constanly evolve through our blogging network, artists’ guest input and the interactive nature of our publishing output. Performative arts have always opened up a dialogue between artist and audience: we want to enhance this form of communication by emphasizing experience over product, and by engaging all of our senses rather than limiting ourselves to fernickety (oh how we love that word) and outdated definitions of art.
