Contemporary Chronicling: In Conversation with Ted Hodgkinson Ahead of the London Literature Festival
“We love words.”
When preparing for my interview with Ted Hodgkinson, head of literature and spoken word at the Southbank Centre, I read as many articles as I could about the upcoming London Literature Festival. The festival, held from this Tuesday 22 October to Sunday 3 November, celebrates the communal adoration for literature that is shared by so many people all across not only this city, but the world.
Earlier this summer, it was announced that rapper and songwriter Ghetts was going to be the festival’s co-curator–and I immediately knew I wanted to write an article exploring how this appointment bridged the imaginary gap separating rap and literary audiences. Oftentimes, people have an intensely reductive view of grime and rap artists and the value in their work (a view rooted in racism and classism); and thus the deserved merit of their written word is erased. As someone whose life has been shaped by literature, music has always been inexorably linked to my love for reading–the cultural significance and weight of lyrics goes hand-in-hand with their written counterparts. Many songwriters are poets (if not all), and I believe that rap is a genre that exemplifies this particularly. Childish Gambino’s work, for instance, shifts from parody into wordplay into poignant declarations with a frantic desperation that reminds me of canonical poetry at times. Seeing Ghetts be made co-curator of the upcoming festival was, I felt, a wonderful way of recognising his contribution to the world of literature, which, if you are familiar with his work, you know is humongous.
With this in mind, one singular phrase stood out to me when embarking on my preparation for my conversation with Ted Hodgkinson. In a short interview Ghetts did in anticipation for the festival, he said (with regards to rappers and authors): “It’s like a head nod to the culture; we love words… and that’s just the essence of it, we love words.”
Although it sounds simple, the grime artist expressed it perfectly. When I spoke with Ted last week and brought up that statement, he agreed, saying: “for some people, Ghetts might not be immediately associated with Literature with a capital L. But we wanted to show how actually, the scene he's part of–and is such a talismanic figure within–is in fact a literary scene. It is a scene which is all about your ability to capture the world around you in compelling lines and ciphers. I think of him certainly, as a writer, as a lyricist and a poet.” In fact, a lot of fans of rap and grime are already involved in the literature scene, even if they don't know it, because it's that same shared love that Ghetts speaks of: that fascination with everything related to words. Hodgkinson told me how, in a conversation they shared, Ghetts spoke with him “about a particular English teacher he had who made him realise that what his contemporaries were doing all the time, with their jokes and day to day language, was them essentially being engaged in literature and in expression and in words. Suddenly, he realised that this was actually something he was very much doing, almost without realising he was doing it.” This all leads back to the idea of spoken word, which Hodgkinson says is a “very democratic art form. We all have access to language, and I think that's why quite often a lot of really exciting artists start through poetry and spoken word. It's an accessible entry point.”
“Ghetts is an artist who is an incredible wordsmith. He’s verbally dynamic and engaged in chronicling the moment we find ourselves in,” Hodgkinson explained after I asked what prompted his decision to have the artist be the festival’s co-curator. “I mean, something that I think is often associated with great writers is that they capture the present, and they put it down in language. And I think if you listen to any of Ghetts’ songs, you find very vivid depictions of contemporary culture. He’s a kind of chronicler in that way.” This idea of chronicling the world around us is something that is essential to literature–the driving force behind writing itself is the compelling notion of finding a way to document real life. Speaking of this documentation and how that impulse has persisted across time, Hodgkinson said: “there are some very enduring things about the desire to capture and express in words the complexities of our experience. Literature is something that is constantly piercing the received language and showing us the world afresh.”
Does Hodgkinson think that there's a way for literary tradition–or tradition in general–to coexist with the present art that's being made? In essence: yes. He believes that the drive to change the definition of ‘literature’ (especially within the confines of the traditional precursors) through more pared back authors like Nobel prize winning Han Kang and Sally Rooney is actively changing what it means to read in our modern world. Despite the reduced style of their prose, these authors are very often “engaged in a very deep conversation with the work that's gone before”, he tells me. In a sense, I believe the reconsideration of literary form being undertaken by these authors is similar to the aforementioned chronicling taking place in the work of artists such as Ghetts. Although some perceive it as an unconscious intellectualism, in fact there is careful consideration behind both forms of expression that reflect what contemporary readers are seeking. “I think we're currently so saturated in maximalism and the welter of our online lives that a prose style that is clean stands as a real contrast to all of it,” Hodgkinson observed. “What we come to think of as canonical comes to us in a particular form, but at its core literature is really about how the medium itself changes.”
This imagined ‘literary tradition’ is a construct which usually excludes the inclusion of other forms of expression, but the incorporation of music, art, and dance to the festival somehow reshapes the concept of that same form whilst still retaining the essence of brilliance that makes the written word so powerful. When speaking about the incorporation of different art forms to the festival, Hodgkinson explained how “there are times when we really try to draw on all of the heritage that we have, and the brilliant colleagues we have, through different art forms, and it's not just to add some razzmatazz to the line-up. It's because it's reflective of the way we imbibe these things these days.” It's this same impulse to incorporate different art forms that is a great part of why the literature festival is so welcoming to those who might otherwise feel ostracised from engaging with it. “Southbank Centre is a big multi art site. We celebrate the confluence of different art forms that come through our spaces. At the core of it for myself and the team it is always about spoken and written words, but across the years and across our programming, we always work very closely and alongside other art forms. The festival has always been about trying to broaden access to the arts and culture. It's always tried to make the broadest range of audiences and people feel welcome.”
The Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival, with Ghetts as co-curator, is taking place from this Tuesday 22 October to Sunday 3 November.
Written & edited by Dan Ramos Lay, Literature Editor
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