I’m at the Old Stone Butter Factory in Whangarei, in the Far North district of New Zealand. Craft beer and gourmet burgers feature on the menu, and the clientele is scattered over several battered sofas indoors and out (it’s early summer here). The MC encourages all potential performers (the stage is a slightly raised, black-painted, spotlit corner of the pub) to put their name down for a slot; pen and paper lie on one of the tables. By the time the evening begins, the place is neither full nor empty, but the audience is enthusiastic, clicking fingers to show when they are enjoying phrases and words, as well as whooping and cheering as each piece ends. The atmosphere is encouraging, relaxed, accepting.

The MC breaks the ice by performing first. The amplified words ebb and flow, packed with rhyme, alliteration, extended syllables and high-tempo, rapid-fire delivery into the hand-held microphone. The poet refers on and off to handwritten lines in his battered, folded-over notebook, reciting most of the piece from memory — he may even be adding or rephrasing as he goes — and keeping eye contact with audience members, speaking directly to them. Hand gestures punctuate his expressive delivery, and he is enjoying himself, flicking the mic cord, lunging across the stage. As he finishes the piece, an audience member yells out, ‘Tell it like it is, bruv!’ and they slap hands before he introduces the next poet.

A softly spoken woman shuffles in front of the microphone stand, juggling to extract a single typed sheet of paper from a file balanced in her hand. This is her first time on stage; she is a biologist and has never read out her poetry to an audience before, confesses to being horribly nervous but reads her poem nevertheless. It is a brief and elegant piece in blank verse, and her eyes never leave the page as she reads exactly what is written, her voice neutral. She gets her share of whoops and applause, and leaves the stage smiling.

The flyer for this regular Wednesday-night Dirty Word gig has the byline ‘Poetry and Spoken Word’. Just as well, because although the foregoing two poets could be judged to represent extreme examples of two different genres, most performers, performances and poems are harder to categorise, mixing aspects of both. My own work and style is a case in point. I have participated four times now, performing old and new work each time, including works in progress. No one has asked me whether I am a poet who reads, or a spoken word artist, and I doubt it matters, although my university tutors might disagree.

I graduated from the OU last year. For the first assignment of my Advanced Creative Writing course, I wrote my first poem and submitted it with anticipation. I was astonished when my tutor deemed it a ‘performance poem’ and therefore outside the scope of the course; it was marked low. Although all my subsequent poems satisfied the esoteric criteria of the course, I have gone on to perform those poems and dozens of new ones without considering which genre they belong to, and I am both more carefree and more productive as a result.

Soon after arriving in NZ, I saw the Dirty Word flyer and simply decided it was aimed at me, even though I’d never performed a poem in my life. Those evenings are now a firm commitment and I’m writing more and more to perform. It’s a huge buzz, even if initially terrifying, so I strongly recommend performing (you’ll be amazed how an audience can sharpen up your work and boost your confidence). And to develop your written work, consider creating or joining a poetry crit group where you more actively discuss and critique each others’ pieces. And remember, all poetry is performance poetry, because all poetry is meant for the human voice.