How Kate Tempest has made literature more accessible

Kate Tempest is a poet of the spoken word and winner of the Ted Hughes Award. She has taken the literary world by storm with her slam and performance poetry collections which are raw and filled with pure emotion. She expresses the feeling of being human in a way relatable to groups who are usually turned away from classical poetry.

Growing up in South London, she is a rejection of the antiquated literature that many working-class young people see as not for them. It can be refreshing for young people from poverty-stricken areas to hear someone with an accent like them, discussing issues important to them instead of the topics they see in their English lessons.

Tempest delivers her poetry in a grungy, raw way which allows the emotion to come through. She also puts her poems to rap beats which once again relates to young audiences. There is often little distinction between her spoken poetry and rap music.

She tackles pressing issues affecting many young, working class and oppressed groups. Her ‘Europe is Lost’ video on YouTube taps into the forms of media which the youth are using. It is much more accessible than a book that a reader living in poverty may not be able to buy. It also reaches a wider audience. ‘Europe is Lost’ uses music and imagery to make her points more powerful, speaking of political problems relevant in the world today such as Trump, massacres, the environment and poverty.

The mere fact she performed at Glastonbury Festival brings her into contact with many people who might not normally be interested in poetry

She is highly critical of the establishment and discusses the hypocrisy of imprisoning people who smoke weed but not those who avoid paying taxes, which aligns her automatically with oppressed groups. It comes across as rap music and lines such as “we are lost” resonate with the listener. She provides a completely different feeling listening to poetry. She uses short, snappy sentences which hit hard with the listener.

The mere fact she performed at Glastonbury Festival brings her into contact with many people who might not normally be interested in poetry, it brings poetry into the Indie music scene and means that it becomes more known among groups like the young who traditionally do not read a lot of poetry.

Her poem ‘Man Down’ challenges gender stereotypes and issues of mental health and body image in men. It is a love poem for all people, arguing that emotion does not make you weak. The pure emotion and passion in her work is moving.

The work in this collection is beautiful, appealing to collective emotions of love and sacrifice

Let Them Eat Chaos is her second studio album and poetry collection, about a group of 7 people who live next to each other but don’t know each other until a storm hits. It’s about modern life and all the characters are set against the backdrop of the political problems of the financial crash and other current topics such as migration. This makes it relevant and relatable to readers, particularly those living in areas of high deprivation.

Brand New Ancients is her latest poetry collection which recasts the Greek gods as two families living in London, struggling as small people to do great things. She brings history into relevance for a modern audience and appeals to the audience in “we are still Godly, that’s what’s made us so monstrous.” The work in this collection is beautiful, appealing to collective emotions of love and sacrifice.

Tempest is an important figure in poetry and literature today because she reaches out to groups who would normally be turned off by traditional forms of poetry and discusses issues that are extremely relevant. The way in which she performs her poems is relatable to these groups and makes her work similar to rap music. The emotion that she expresses in her delivery also makes the poetry beautiful and moving. Tempest is the literary figure of a generation.