"Poet Yourself!" at Oxford Open Mic

Six or seven years ago, I went to a Poetry Slam in Oxford with the poet and novelist Mark Haddon, around the time he started getting his poems published in magazines. Neither of us was quite sure what to expect. It turned out to be an odd sort of night, peopled by characters out of a bad comedy sketch show, and I was a little put off by what I considered then to be 'performance poetry'. Wrong again, of course. But I was a performance virgin in those days and a Poetry Slam was still enough of a novelty outside London for me to regard it with suspicion - especially in a city like Oxford, long associated with academia and traditional poetry. With hindsight, it was simply one of those fringe events with too many novices like ourselves on board and a couple of bizarre stand-ups who were more interested in getting audience laughs than writing good poetry.

Today, the open mic scene has changed. Not in its entirety - you're always going to find novices and flash types at any open mic event, Slams in particular - but there's been an air of professionalism about stand-up poetry in recent years. And it's continuing to change and grow and improve, mutating every time a new event surfaces.

In Oxford, the Back Room Poets have been meeting for open mic poetry every month since 2000; the longest-running open mic event in town. And this week it's changing venue.

From this Monday, January 16th, the Back Room Poets will be hosting their monthly Open Mic Poetry event at Far From the Madding Crowd, a pub at Friars Entry - just round the corner from their former venue, downstairs at Borders Books. If you're in Oxford and would like to read some of your own work in front of an audience, the evening kicks off at 8pm, though I imagine you might want to turn up a little earlier to sign in.

If you've never been to an Open Mic event before, I can highly recommend it. It's far more relaxing than a Slam - where you're reading against the clock in fierce competition with other poets - and if you go to one event regularly, the social aspect can soon become almost as important as the poetry itself. (As if that were possible!)

For more details, and to discover more about the Back Room Poets, click here.