There are two ways to approach an event like Occupoets (a poetry reading and open mic night hosted by the Café Project on Jesus Lane on the 23rd of January) if you haven’t participated in the Cambridge Defend Education protests: to either immerse yourself in its discourse or to be aloof from and critical of it. However, the reading resisted the latter approach: it was, fundamentally, a reunion for those who occupied the Old Schools last term, thus stemming from a collective experience, and therefore making no demands of its performers except passion. The poems, songs, and lone acoustic guitar, although not formally remarkable, were heavy with an emotional intensity which is uncommon at the typical reading. And to submit to their discourse was not without its rewards. Several comic pieces touched on myriad social issues, for instance the sarcastic poem, 'A Pitch for Starbucks in Ghana' ("I wrote this in Starbuck's") and Faith Taylor’s ironic plea to be “misunderstood more thoroughly”. Occupoets succeeded in doing what most poetry readings don't - it focused on the performative aspect of poetry rather than appealing to refined literary taste.

As the evening wore on, the broad, vanilla politics of dissidence became more overt and more specific, but also somewhat alienating. The opinions of the group were both tacit and ubiquitous, applying uniformly to everything from the education protests to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to gender issues, and breaking down into explicitly proletariat song only once: "I'm a fat man a very fat man who waters the workers' beer". This is largely based on the context from which the works arose; many of the songs and poems were written not during the occupation, but were reactions to being kettled at the London protest in December of last year. The result is art out of sheer necessity, and at moments “solidarity forever” exploded into fierce resentment with lines like, “Infidels! Why did you fuck us?”

The Café Project is a volunteer-run cafe with a ‘free shop’ inside and 50p coffee and tea, and it plans to hold open mic nights roughly bi-weekly. It remains to be seen whether poets will use the venue to express themselves or the venue will use the poets to propagate a very particular ideology – will it be cathartic or edifying? But either way, despite any qualms with the politics, I’ve never been to an open mic event where people gave each reader that level of respect or sustained so much mutual interest. The audience was constantly not merely patient but rapt, and people frequently displayed smiles of pride for their fellow Occupoets.