LINGO programme manager and spoken-word poet, Erin Fornoff, speaks to Melissa Ridge about the LINGO festival which is currently on now in Dublin.
Launched in the autumn of 2014, the Dublin LINGO festival has launched again for its third consecutive year this weekend. It is Ireland’s first and only spoken word festival.
The festival is organized and run by six committee members, five of which are spoken word poets: Erin Fornoff, herself, as well as Kalle Ryan, Colm Keegan, Stephen James Smith and Phil Lynch. The sixth committee member and festival manager, Linda Devlin, attributed to the inspiration behind Lingo.
“It was started by five spoken word poets and then one person who is not a poet but worked in community outreach” Fornoff explains. “[Linda] saw that with, especially young men, spoken word and rap was a way for them to take emotional risks and talk about things that they wouldn’t be able to talk about otherwise. So like if somebody has a terrible situation at home they wouldn’t be able to go to their ‘dude’ friends but if they write it in a rap they can process that stuff and explore it and express themselves.”
Despite the growing popularity surrounding spoken word in Dublin, there is still an unfamiliarity around it as an art form. Fornoff describes how it is a medium where emotions can be expressed and emphasizes the point that it is something incredibly accessible and relevant to people’s everyday lives.
“It is poetry that is performed, memorized and more accessible. Even if people are not familiar with it, they are actually familiar with it.”
In the opening essay of the Lingo 2016 programme brochure she points out that: “When football fans chant at matches, they chant in rhyme… Hip hop is also similar to spoken word poetry, when you’re in a march and you’re protesting and shouting things.”
“[Spoken word] is poetry that is performed, memorized and more accessible. Even if people are not familiar with it, they are actually familiar with it.”
In the likes of pop culture spoken word has appeared without people even realizing it. It has carried across into the music industry which is evident in the works of artists like Beyoncé who has spoken word poetry spoken in between songs. Fornoff uses Lemonade, Beyoncé’s album from earlier this year, as an example of how relevant and versatile it can be. UK Poet Holly McNish’s work has also hit the limelight, being featured on ads that are broadcast nationwide.
“One of our goals was to raise the profile of spoken word and show people how cool it is and how much enthusiasm there is for it and have it not be like this red-headed step-child that is barely featured at literary festivals. You see all these things about how poetry is dead…every four months people start panicking and have to write another article about how poetry is dead or that it is not exciting and then you go to Slam Sunday and there are like a hundred people there on a Sunday night in a place with no alcohol.”
As well as personal issues, social issues are also explored and tackled in this form of poetry.
Fornoff explains how raising your voice and standing up for something is all part of the theme of the Lingo Festival this year.
“If spoken word is all about having a voice, what do you use if for?
“If spoken word is all about having a voice, what do you use if for? What do you want it to say and how do you amplify voices that are calling for change?”
“We wanted to look at how you can use spoken word and art forms in general to do something positive. We’ve seen that a lot this year, poets would have had poems go viral which are about things like the water charges, poets speaking at water protests and having a night of poetry about Repeal the 8th that would sell out or poets opening and closing protests for ‘Black Lives Matter’.
“We wanted to see, how can you use this art form to rally people? You see it at slams where people talking about these personal in-depth issues or talking about their struggles with depression or anything like that and then turning it into art and turning it into something that tells other people they’re not by themselves. So that was just something we wanted to explore throughout the whole weekend.”
The Lingo Festival is still quite a young arts festival, only in its 3rd year and is currently solely based in Dublin. This is the first year that the festival has received financial support from the Art’s Council. Fornoff reveals the hopes and plans for the future of the festival next year and in years to come. “In terms of expansion, if people see what Lingo is doing and copy it, that works the same.”
“We got support from the Art’s Council this year which felt like this huge validation and we hope that they are starting to see that this is a real artistic movement and we were really excited about that.”
The LINGO festival is on this weekend 21st-23rd of October.
You can find more information on the festival and tickets for the events at: http://www.lingofestival.com/
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