Mark Grist is an interesting character – a teacher, a poet laureate, a rap battler, an education advisor and much more. He’s was visiting Belfast as part of the Out To Lunch Arts Festival and I decided last minute to get a ticket and pop along at lunch time and see what it’s all about. For £6 including lunch I didn’t have much to lose. I’ve never been to see a poet before, so this was a first. His bio that caught my eye was this:
This year, millions watched an ex-English teacher defeat a teenage grime artist in a rap battle. But it’s a lot more complicated than that. Mark Grist (Dead Poets) has been walking the fine line between stupidity and bravery.
Mid-recession, he quit his teaching job to embark on a series of challenges, leading him to become ‘an internet sensation’ (Sun) and ‘unlikely heart-throb’ (Guardian). But when teachers expressed concern about having him in to meet the kids, Mark began to wonder if in all the excitement he’d left himself behind.
The show started with Mark taking the stage and telling us that he wasn’t sure how many fo us had been to a spoken word event before and so for the uninitiated he’d talk us through it. Telling us that the reactions to poems range from “that was terrible” silence to “that changed my life” gasp. With whoops and and furious clapping ranking just below and being his preferred method of appreciation. Mark himself has a great presence on stage, he seemed completely at ease and there was an instant bond between him and the audience. He was telling us how he had the best night of drinking around Belfast last night and how everyone had been really nice to him since he arrived, unlike some performers this didn’t seem forced or an attempt to endear himself to the audience, he just seemed to want to share with us, and share he did. He took us through his journey from teacher to poet, to poet laureate of Peterborough, at points the story gave way to poems, poems that rhyme (my favourite kind), that were witty, intelligent and funny. He had the crowd in stitches. “Come to Peterborough” was an ode to a city that perhaps didn’t want an ode in the first place. “You are the hottest of all of the gingers” was a poem he wrote after being told that he had to write Poems that didn’t rhyme to get his Masters. He ended up rhyming uncontrollably and wrote a kind of love letter to gingers, with some of (by his own proclamation) the worst rhyming ever. My favourite was the rhyming of Findus with Gingers. The show was about an hour long and finished with his explaining how the rap battle that made him famous came and the repercussions. He finished with a poem he wrote called “Girls who read” (you can see below) and as he took a bow we started to file out to the strains of Pink Floyd “teacher leave those kids alone” as we gave him the whoops and and furious clapping that he so richly deserved!
Out to Lunch Arts Festival is on for the next 2 weeks and there’s till plenty of things to see and do. Check it all out here.
