Nov. 24, 2010 - Issue #788 : Wool On Wolves

Prevue

One man riot

Fringe staple Jem Rolls moves to town

Though he has lived most his life in his native UK, Jem Rolls is no stranger to our fair city: his appearances at the Fringe festival have been as regular as the effusive praise that greets his work, dense and propulsive spoken word performances that might most readily be called slam poetry, but which tend to be too expansive and clever to be reduced to any simple moniker. But though he knew what he was getting into when he set down stakes in our fair city this past fall—yes, even including the winters—not even Rolls himself could have predicted the glut of creativity that has so far been his Edmonton experience.

"I've never been quite so productive," he admits with a twitchy energy befitting his restless stage presence. "I've been starting work at 7:30 in the morning, coffee in hand in front of the computer, and at no point in my life has that ever, ever happened before. It's bizarre for a poet, yeah?"

Rolls will finally get a chance to show off some of his newfound productivity this Friday, when he performs with the Edmonton Slam Poetry Team as part of the first-ever Night of Performance Poetry. Organized by Edmonton Public Library Writer in Residence (and fellow Fringe vet) Chris Craddock, the event is a combination chance to officially welcome one of the world's finest spoken word artists to our city, as well as celebrate the recent success of the inaugural Slam Poetry Team, who recently finished fifth overall at the recent Canadian Festival of Spoken Word in Ottawa.

Rolls admits he's humbled by the reception—"I normally have to organize these events myself," he points out dryly, having set up regular poetry jams in nearly every city he's lived in, most notably London and Edinburgh—but mostly he's just "gagging" for the chance to finally get up on stage after months of solitary work. Increased productivity or no, the real thrill for Rolls is getting in front of an audience and experiencing the visceral reaction that only it can bring.

"Crucial doesn't quite say it strongly enough, really," he effuses. "Performance is a very no-bullshit thing, because you're in front of an audience—poetry is legendary for being jam-packed full of bullshit, but not with performance, because audiences can smell it, so you can't get away with it.

"Obviously you want any poem to work, yeah, but here you can tell it's working," he continues. "You could write a fantastic poem, and it could take 500 years before anyone realizes how good it is. And basically none of us have got 500 years. There's an immediacy to this that forces you to edit, to clarify your ideas, because you really can't be that arcane with an audience that has to get it right now. The audience is a fantastic discipline, and a discipline that's unusual to the medium of poetry." V

Fri, Nov 26 (7 pm)
A Night of Performance Poetry
Featuring Jem Rolls, Edmonton Slam Poetry Team
Latitude 53, Free
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