Luke Wright is a rather rare creature, a poet who has transcended the circuit which winds betwixt literary festivals and small urban theatres, and into popular culture. A familiar presence on BBC Radio, curator of The Poetry at the Latitude Festival, and a regular tour support for John Cooper Clarke, he’s been delighting #EdFringe crowds since 2006! He will soon celebrate 25 years at the literary coal-face in Silver Jubilee, his Fringe show for 2023! He was kind enough to take a call from theQR on what turned out to be a very special day…(Featured Image: Emily Fae)
Good morning Luke Wright! How are you today?
Good! It’s actually my wedding anniversary.
Oh, congratulations! Is it your first wedding anniversary?
Yes, it is. Fabulous, isn’t it? We’re actually going away this weekend. I have a couple of gigs tonight and tomorrow, but then we’re taking a couple of days off.
That sounds nice. Well done on finding the time to celebrate. It’s not always easy to do so.
You’re right. It can be challenging, my job can be quite antisocial, so getting away for the weekend is good going for me.
Absolutely. Anyway, this is a big year for you. Your Silver Jubilee is coming up in August in Edinburgh. It’s a weighty show!
It’s a significant milestone. My wife, who happens to be a social worker, inspired me to write a poem called “Later Life Letters” about her work with adopted children. When these children grow older and gain more understanding, they receive information and pictures about their birth families. I have personal experience with this, I have a later life letter, and my adoption has been more on my mind since I came across birth mother on Facebook.The basic premise of the show is using my “jubilee” year as a place to take a deep dive into myself, who I am and where I came from. In that sense, it’s the most personal poetry I’ve ever written.
“Starting young has its drawbacks, as people have a fixed idea of who you are, and it can be challenging to break out of that box.”
Luke Wright
I believe it’s true for poetry and much of art that when the risks are significant, the payoff for the audience is equally substantial. That said, some of the pieces are fragile and small, and I wasn’t sure if I could make them work on stage. However, I have had some practice. In recent years, I’ve been writing increasingly personal material about my children, my divorce, and love. I’ve discovered that if you frame a poem correctly and bring the audience along, these pieces can work on stage.
I’ve seen other artists use incredibly difficult and emotional poems as weapons to shock the audience, and it can be uncomfortable. It’s important to bring the audience with you. I’ve been practicing that in my last two shows. With this one, we’ve raised the stakes even higher. I wasn’t sure how it would be received, but the response has been really good so far. I’ve done three previews, and they have all resonated with the audiences in a way I haven’t experienced before. I’m really excited to continue refining it and discussing it further over the two weeks in Edinburgh.
Absolutely. Now, you have achieved a rare position as one of the few who have transcended the performance poetry circuit and reached the ranks of a rockstar poet, so to speak. How do you think your approach to your work has contributed to gaining a wider audience?
That’s a good question. I’m not sure. I never consciously pursued being high profile when I started out.I was inspired by poets like John Cooper Clarke and Martin Newell. They wrote about modern subjects but used rhyme and meter like pre-modernist poets, victorian poets.
People like rhyme, perhaps it’s because that’s what they were exposed to as children. It was like nursery rhyme poetry, but about contemporary and edgy subjects. That’s where I found my place. It felt like a no-brainer to me. I still find delight in rhyming and often write one or two rhyme poems myself, although I don’t rely on rhyming as much now. It can sometimes hold me back. However, through extensive rhyming and learning the rules of traditional poetry, I’ve gained an understanding of the musicality of poetry.
I don’t know if I would find an audience if I wrote that kind of poetry. I do think I am a natural communicator on stage. I’ve improved over time, and performance comes fairly naturally to me. I think that’s important too. I don’t think I get much attention from the poetry world. Starting young has its drawbacks, as people have a fixed idea of who you are, and it can be challenging to break out of that box.
I’m not sure if I really care about that anymore. I’ve somewhat given up on the poetry world.
When I first saw you, Luke, it was at a book festival. Do you find yourself adjusting your performance for different audiences? Do they give you different energy?
Different audiences do bring different energies. Some audiences feel more thoughtful, and that encourages me to explore a wider range of material. However, there’s a lot of work that I enjoy that may not be the most commercially accessible. So, depending on the context, I may save certain pieces for specific shows or festivals.
I’m not sure which book festival you saw me at. Was it Edinburgh?
Yes, it was the Edinburgh Book Festival around the late 2010’s.
Last year, for example, I did a show at Cheltenham Book Festival where I basically did a medley of loads of different poems join together, with a breath, rather and appaluse break between each one. It felt quite experimental and exciting. However, I probably wouldn’t attempt that kind of performance at Glastonbury or the Latitude Festival. The level of confidence an audience gives you plays a role. Sometimes you just go with the mood and do what feels right.
Though usually I’m booked to perform a particular show so I need to stick to the show because that’s what I’m contractually obligated to do. Plus, the audience is there expecting to see it.
“…personal experiences, especially when they are difficult or scary, gives me a sense of power over them.”
Luke Wright
When it comes to your shows, how do you find the challenge of accessing deep truths about your life and yourself? Being so exposed on stage and sharing things that many people tend to keep to themselves, how does that experience feel?
Yeah, it’s something I stop and think about at times. I ask myself, “What am I doing?” But first and foremost, writing about personal experiences, especially when they are difficult or scary, gives me a sense of power over them. It transforms them from something intimidating to something I possess. These personal things become less personal because they are now under the control of the artist within me. All I care about then is the quality of the work.
I’m not really interested in the shock value or the subject matter itself. For example, when writing about adoption, which carries a lot of emotional weight, my focus is on creating a powerful and impactful poem. If the poem is good, then I want to incorporate it into a show or a book. I don’t give much thought to whether it’s too personal or if I’m sharing too much. I simply don’t care.
What matters to me is the quality of the work and the impact it has on the audience. I want to create something meaningful and powerful.
Certainly. When putting together a fringe show and dealing with the pressures of attracting and retaining an audience, as well as getting them to spread the word, do you find yourself thinking more about the set in advance, or do you still go in and respond to the audience in the moment?
Well, this show, and actually all my shows, have a fixed structure. In the past few years, I would have a set of poems and some ideas on how to link them together, and the jokes and linking material would evolve and develop over time during live performances. So if you were to watch the first performance and then the last, you’d see how ideas and ad-libbing became part of the script. It’s an exciting way of writing and creating content.
However, this year’s show, because it deals with very specific subject matter, I did sit down and write a script for it. Of course, I will deviate from it as time goes on, and the jokes will become sharper. I started with more core material than I usually do. But trying to second-guess the audience is not a good idea. I’ve found that audiences generally tend to enjoy the same kind of material repeatedly. They might not show it at times, and you might think they don’t like funny stuff because they’re not laughing. But sometimes it’s just a quiet group of people, and something about the performance isn’t quite connecting, so you don’t get that spark from the stage. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking, “This is terrible. They hate me.” But in reality, it’s not necessarily the case.
Absolutely. It’s important to remember that even if the audience doesn’t react in the moment, they may still appreciate the performance. I’m sure you’ve received plenty of compliments after shows.
Yes, exactly. People often approach me afterward with kind words. So, trying to change your set based on what you think the audience is thinking is not something I would advise.
That’s interesting. I was speaking with Clifford Samuel, who’s currently in the cast of 2:22, and he mentioned that the audience chooses what they will laugh at, even if it’s not what they expected to find funny. You just have to go with it. The things you think will be funny may not receive the desired response, so you treat everything the same. It’s fascinating to me how people perceive humor.
Yes, it’s always surprising to me as well. For example, with one of my better-known poems, “Essex Lion,” gets laughs in places I never intended.. There are definitely some lines in it that I wrote as jokes, but the line itself, the part about “The fucking LION,” is what people find funny. It’s always been somewhat bewildering to me because I never imagined it would be funny. Even after 25 years, I’m still surprised.
And sometimes I forget that people do also laugh because they’re delighted by the sound of words and the way they come together. That delights me, because what I enjoy is the sound and the rhythm. A great line doesn’t necessarily have to be funny, and I so appreciate when people connect with it.
That makes perfect sense. So, regarding the Fringe, how are your plans to survive your run? It’s not your first time, but how are you preparing?
It may not be my first rodeo, but every year feels like it might be, especially after a couple of weeks. I’ll be up there for two weeks, which seems very manageable and long enough. Normally, I try to get through the first two weeks, take a day off to catch my breath, and then face the challenge of the last two weeks, which are always tougher.
But this time, I think I can approach the entire run as a sprint. Last year, I had all these grand ideas about taking care of myself, but this year I’m just going to focus on what I need to do each day. I’ll be on stage around five to three every afternoon, which is a beautiful time. I’ll try to do all the things I usually do – have a fry-up at City Cafe, climb Arthur’s Seat, go to the Abattoir Bar, see colleagues I don’t see the rest of the year and chat with comedians. Enjoy the whole Edinburgh experience.
I’ll try to have a few nights where I don’t have any specific commitments and just listen to my body. I’ll go with the flow. And before I know it, the two weeks will be over. I’m quite excited about that. Two weeks feels like a joyful experience. Then right after, myself and my family will be off on holiday!
Sounds like a very healthy arrangement!
It’s definitely better than my wife coming up to Edinburgh with me,r having to put up with my complaining and petty jealousies, moaning about tickets sales and reviews!I can be my worst-self on my own!
