Kate Tempest, Southbank Centre

Kate Tempest  certainly lives up to her stormy name. The poet, playwright and rapper is famous not just for her writing, but the gusts of energy with which she performs. This autumn she will storm the Southbank Centre's stage with a brand new show.
Her hotly anticipated latest collection of poetry, entitled Hold Your Own, is inspired by the mythical figure of Tiresias . The blind prophet of Greek legend lived as both man and woman and, though unable to see the world around him, he could see into the future. Tiresias has influenced literature thereafter. He lurks in T.S Eliot's The Waste Land as the voice that though ' blind, throbbing between two lives ' can see the whole city.
In a contemporary echo of The Waste Land, Tempest builds a vivid portrayal of the urban world around her from a multitude of voices. Divided into four parts, the anthology spans Tiresias's transformations: from child to man to woman finally to blind soothsayer. And again, like Eliot, Tempest uses both this structure and the symbolism imbued in the classical legend to reflect the world around her and form it build her uniquely animated and urgent brand of poetry. 
The Background...
Brockley-born Tempest spent her adolescence rapping ‘at strangers on night buses’ Her combined loves of literature and hip hop inspired a unique form of 'urban poetry', which has catapulted her to fame. Brand New Ancients, Tempest’s genre-busting masterpiece blew a breath of fresh air through the literary establishment with a combination of spoken word and theatre set over a live orchestral score. Tempest deservedly became the youngest ever winner of the prestigious Ted Hughes Poetry Award for New Work in Poetry 
This collections follows Tempest's acclaimed debut hip hop album, Eveybody Down, a concept album that depicts a diverse and dynamic cast of South Londoners. Each track acts as a chapter, and builds an absorbing narrative. The tracks are due to be transformed from performance to prose in Tempest’s hotly-anticipated debut novel (to be published by Bloomsbury next year).
Comfortable in her battered blue jeans and Nikes, Tempest is a far cry from the stuffy image of a tortured bard locked in an ivory tower. Yet like her poetic forebears, she is not afraid to tackle Greek mythology and apply ancient tales to her own modern backdrop.