New York Times Considers Kate Tempest

We've introduced Kate Tempest before, here as one of twenty "next generation poets" recognized by the UK's Poetry Book Society. Now, word of Tempest's talent hits stateside with this review by Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times.

A wunderkind rapper and spoken word performer equally influenced by Wu-Tang Clan and Joyce, Bukowski and Blake; an English poet whose musical sense of language bridges the worlds of rap and traditional lyric verse; a fan favorite at the Glastonbury music festival who became the youngest winner of the Ted Hughes poetry prize. Such dichotomies not only attest to the 29-year-old Kate Tempest’s gift for shattering — and transcending — convention and conventional genres, but they also underscore the tensions and contradictions that fuel her dynamic art.

Tiresias, the blind seer in Greek mythology who lived as a man and a woman, is the presiding figure in her collection “Hold Your Own,” and the contemporary characters in her dazzling story-poem “Brand New Ancients” are also conflicted beings in search of a self. They are torn between confidence and self-loathing, between aching loneliness and the tumult of love, between ambition and a revulsion for the phony accouterments of fame. Ms. Tempest describes these ordinary people as gods, and their quarrels — so reminiscent of the squabbling among the Greek gods on Mount Olympus — are both petty and profound. [...]

Learn more about Tempest at The New York Times.