Jess Green: Burning Books

Komedia, Gardner Street, Brighton, Sunday, September 27

WHEN The Guide speaks to poet Jess Green she’s just finished watching Jeremy Corbyn’s first tangle with David Cameron in Prime Minister’s Questions.

“I was a volunteer on his campaign,” she reveals. “I think he did brilliantly in PMQs, there was a real change in atmosphere in the way he left the questions up to the people.

“I think for a positive change to happen the Labour Party has to get behind him. The worst thing would be if it were to split and work against him.

“You can’t argue with 59% of the vote. He won so impressively despite every media outlet, including The Guardian and The Independent, trying their best to make sure he didn’t win.

“It shows that social media is having more of an impact on politics. It’s the first time a lot of young people have engaged with politics and felt excited about something.”

It was internet exposure on YouTube which helped Green build her profile as a poet.

Having worked in a library in a Leicester secondary school, and led poetry workshops in establishments across the country, she penned a poem taking the form of an open letter to then education secretary Michael Gove from the perspective of a striking teacher.

When she performed the five-minute poem for the first time at a 2014 open mic night it was videoed by one of the audience members, and put on YouTube.

To Green’s surprise it became a minor hit attracting a few thousand views largely among teachers.

Dissatisfied by the recording she made a professional video a couple of weeks later which took her into the viral stratosphere – reaching more than 300,000 viewers to date.

“I come from a family of teachers,” she says.

“The piece came from sitting in staff rooms in secondary schools talking to teachers about their reasons for striking and their frustrations with the job.

“They are being set impossible tasks and targets. On one side they have children from middle class families with open access to books, and on the other side they have a kid in the same class who is from a Syrian refugee camp. And they have all got to make the same level of progress for the teacher to meet their performance targets, because if they don’t the teachers are branded as lazy.

“It must be difficult to go to work every day when you are being constantly vilified.”

The attacks on education and the NHS are something Green feels passionate about – especially as she feels those who would benefit from them most are effectively being brainwashed by the rightwing media.

“Often it’s the poorest people in society who would benefit from a thriving NHS and education system,” she says.

“But they are reading rightwing tabloids that feed the ideas that the public sector is useless and dying, and that more immigrants are coming into the country meaning there is less for them here.”

The touring show Burning Books is her response – although she was keen to ensure it didn’t turn into a hectoring polemic.

Dear Mr Gove is there, as is an attack on Gove’s successor Nicky Morgan who claimed anyone studying arts and the humanities were going to be held back for the rest of their lives.

But at the same time Green tells the story of a school librarian who hates children so much she deliberately throws the books away, and a newly qualified graduate trying to support Movember.

“I wanted to write something accessible for people who are put off engaging with politics,” she says. “I didn’t want it to be an hour-long rant.”

Added to the mix are the Mischief Thieves, accompanying her words with guitar and percussion.

“You can do a lot with the music to create an atmosphere,” she says, having taken the show to two Edinburgh Fringes before its first national tour.

As well as receiving positive reviews, her work has also been noticed by one of her main subjects, with Gove sending representatives from the Department Of Education while he was still secretary of the department.

“One came to speak to me afterwards,” says Green. “Apparently Gove had asked this guy to type out my poem for him as he couldn’t understand what I was saying on the YouTube video.”

Green plans to shelve Burning Books after the tour, and turn her focus onto another major problem in modern society.

“I’m looking at themes of the Bullingdon Club and class divides,” she says. “I’ve started writing already.

“There has always been a link between art and politics – and now poetry and spoken word is becoming more mainstream.

“I like being able to write something which is fairly current about something I saw on the news that morning, and put it on the internet in the afternoon.

“It’s better than waiting for six months for it to go in a magazine or book.”

Starts 8pm, tickets £5. Call 0845 2938480.