Tempest’s work as a rapper is clear, and I think Brand New Ancients works best read aloud to really appreciate the work that has gone into crafting this poem. It tells the story of normal people the reader could easily identify with, their stories contrasted against the idea that they have the importance of Gods and are more than the roles they’ve been given by society. It fits in well with the rest of her poetry in her other collections like Hold Your Own, where she covers contemporary topics that many people wouldn’t typically associate with poetry and finding references to mythology in everyday situations. She enrolled at the Brit school and then took a part-time evening community education course at Goldsmiths. "There were introduction courses to politics and anthropology and in my group there was a postman from New Cross, lots of mothers with kids, real people, and the seminars would be great with everybody talking." After two years she sat in on a course about the Oedipus myth from Sophocles to the present day – "Jean Anouilh, Freud, Tiresias was in there obviously" – before transferring to a daytime degree. "It was very different. It was full of kids with their haircuts who didn't really want to contribute to the sessions. I think everyone thought I was a nightmare."

Since receiving the 2013 Ted Hughes Award for Brand New Ancients, Kate Tempest’s been busy, securing a Mercury Music Award nomination for the energetic, socially engaged hip-hop album, Everybody Down and publishing Hold Your Own, a reworking of the Tiresias myth. With its cross-over appeal, her performance poetry has found new audiences and has been selling out music venues. Another facet to the narrative is that of the dangers of fame. Not a new concern, by any means, but Tempest takes it on well, panning out and tying the Cowell-led hunger for fame and fortune to her theme: “the gods are on their knees in front of false idols”. In almost a plea to return to the gods “among” rather than those “distant”, Tommy follows the convention of getting what he wishes (a job in the city as a graphic artist), to finally realise the unpleasant nature of his colleagues, all “overblown gestures like mime artists” and regret his decisions. I was drawn to this narrative poem by the cover – Ancient Greeks toting briefcases and smart phones. That’s right down my alley. I understand Ms. Tempest is an accomplished musician as well as a poet, and this short book has a lyrical, musical quality. The preface notes that it is to be read aloud. I can see why. The tone and performance elements remind me of the Beat poetry of the 1950s and 60s. “Winged sandals tearing up the pavement” is a line that one can imagine from Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The story within is not a bad one, the female character solves her own problem rather than getting saved. And there's some weird visceral humanity to deal with-which is nice in an upsetting way. In the old days / the myths were the stories we used to explain ourselves. / But how can we explain the way we hate ourselves, / the things we’ve made ourselves into, / the way we break ourselves in two, / the way we overcomplicate ourselves?” (Tempest 1). What Tempest is trying to say here is that although we are gods and we are in control, the reality of it is that we are not completely in control and that knowing that fact leads to irritation. People are just trying to live their lives yet they can’t even fully control. They try to deal with themselves like a god, with their own problems and such, they forget that they are not separate with the rest of the world and their problems. And then they end up breaking ourselves by focusing on their problems instead of themselves. The people are the “brand new ancients” and yet they are not, they are also just the today people, the useless, pathetic, heroic, stressed, stupid people of today. With understanding what Tempest wanted to show with her poem, finding how she expands the topic is simpler and easier to …show more content…Brand new ancient is a poetic epic that is modern, it is perfumed and written by Kate Tempest, which focusses on the lives of some young individuals in their early stage of growth. The book is a must read as it has used different literary poetic techniques and different themes with the critic to develop the central theme of gender in the poem. Gender analysis is the outside framework used to analyze the text on how some characters are oppressed in the within their individual groups under some gender roles that are defined. The poem from brand new is constrained along with the gender role confinement by the characters used. The author has used different literary texts to bring home the theme of the characters used, the figurative language, the imagery, and plot. The author says that there has always been villains and heroes. In many developing countries and nations, gender has been a subject debatable which is brought about by Kate Tempest in the poem of brand new. Kae’s album Let Them Eat Chaos was released in 2016, alongside a volume of poetry of the lyrics (Picador), and was also nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and the Costa Prize for Poetry, respectively. Their third album, The Book of Traps and Lessons, was released in 2019 and nominated for the Ivor Novello.

I feel like I'm being more direct, and hopefully more delicate," she explains. "There are things I haven't talked about in my poetry before. I am kind of nervous about that and it does feel like the taking off of a layer. Female sexuality has always been quite alienating in the way it appears in mainstream culture. So for me to be able to articulate my own version of what that is has been quite scary. But this is the stuff I want to talk about right now: my childhood, sex. And I think it's important that the love poems in the book exist with more outward-looking poems about the state of the world and education. I also have this great tenderness for the Tiresias character" – who first emerges in the very Tempestian guise of a disenchanted 15-year-old schoolboy – "for all the things that he, and she, has been, the duty that is thrust upon them and what they have to deal with." Yeah sure, there must be more to life but they don't know what it is. These gods have got no Oracles to translate their requests. I first came across Kate Tempest’s poetry in 2018, when I bought her collection Running Upon the Wires on a whim. I think I never reviewed that collection; suffice it to say that I enjoyed it, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this review. In short, this one doesn't really do a good job of living up to the whole Ancient/Modern mash-up because it really just uses the idea of the gods as a mask. There's no real depth to it. There were gods in ancient times, now we are the gods in modern times. The fact that it didn't deliver on this pretty much turned me off of the whole thing. However, it does have some qualities worth praising: Overall, I consider Brand New Ancients a fascinating poem that is best consumed as a performance, but one that impresses more with its style and linguistic competence than its deep insights.

Work cited

The band, whose music is similar to The Cinematic Orchestra, is illuminated on their stepped stage by light streaming in through small windows. They work well both as support for Tempest’s words and in their instrumentals. Only in the show’s refrains did they become a bit too loud for the vocal. Distress, frustration and hope were all straining through the instruments, with each character given their own clear musical voice that enhanced the storytelling. This the paper looks at how feminism, gender, and queer theories have contributed to the oppression of the specific individual groups. While feminism is linked to the concept of gender with reference to the female sex, most feminist theories urged that a greater inequality exists between men and women (Potter et al., 100). The benefit of the production process goes to the ruling class who then pays the workers based on the proceeds. Since in a small economy labor is, in conclusion, the paper has looked at how the female gender has been affected due to the oppression that comes along with the conditions they are subjected to. The literacy language has been used to come up with the theme of gender in the poem starting from the characters to the plot of the analysis. The analysis shows that men are regarded as the prodigal father due to the time they take while in the battle as women remain to nurse and even eating raw food from their children Work cited Unfortunately I just don't care. I didn't want to read a story/poem about the intertwining fates of people trying to people and people trying to be monsters. But then to have that put in my face with an ancient Greek mask on it? Maybe you can see my point now. Kae Tempest's touring show 'Brand New Ancients' was produced in partnership with Battersea Arts Centre, with a score composed by Nell Catchpole in collaboration with and performed by Kwake Bass, Raven Bush, Natasha Zielazinski and Jo Gibson.

Their latest collection of poems, Running Upon the Wires, was published in September 2018 to critical acclaim (Picador). Their new play Paradise, a retelling of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, is due to be staged at the National Theatre in 2021, having been postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Its play text will be published by Picador.Kae Tempest was the winner of the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2012 with Brand New Ancients. They started out when they were 16, rapping at strangers on night buses and pestering MCs to let them on the mic at raves. Their theatre writing credits include Wasted for Paines Plough, Brand New Ancients for the BAC, and Glasshouse for Cardboard Citizens. They have written poetry for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Barnado’s, Channel 4 and the BBC, and worked with Amnesty International to help secondary school children write their own protest songs. Tempest is obviously a very talented rapper/poet. The book itself suggests it is best read out loud and it definitely has a strong performative lean.

Potter, John, and Julian McDougall. ‘Porous Expertise and Powerful Knowledge.’ Digital Media, Culture, and Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2017. 83-106. Queer and feminist are common terms are terms that are commonly used to refer to gender differences. For instance, individuals would relate “queer” to homosexual. In the current situation, people use the term to refer to the individuals whose body connotations does not comply with the societal expectations and thus it can be concluded that queer explores the difference the gender identity with reference to the feminism. The section of the paper looks at how feminism, gender, and queer theories have contributed to the oppression of the specific individual groups.In October 2020, Faber published Kae’s first work of non-fiction, On Connection, a “sonorous, humane polemic, advocating the values of sharing, authenticity and creativity over the heightened individualism, competitiveness and consumerism that dominate our society today… a powerful remedy and an urgent call for change.’ The relationship between feminism and queer challenges the gender superiority by analyzing the relationship existing between sexual orientation, anatomical sex, and gender identity. While feminism is linked to the gender concept with reference to the female sex, most feminist theories urged that a greater inequality exists between men and women. This is demonstrated by the fact that women are considered to be a lesser or a weaker species as compared to men hence their oppression. The fine man further reiterated that the reason for such discrimination is not stated by these theorists but the intensity is so great that women would even be laid out of their workplaces due to the belief that they are a weaker species (Schiebinger et al., 2840).