I went into Anthropoetry not sure what to expect. Poetry read aloud can be thrilling or deathly dull. But Ben Mellor’s verse was a surprise delight. A well-structured thoughtfully created series of works vitally affirmed poetry as a spoken medium. Mellor, looking a little like Jack Whitehall’s older, less annoying brother, engaged a busy crowd at Finger’s Piano Bar with an ease and humour that never failed to impress. His dealing with one particularly odious heckler, with barely a raise of tone, was something established comedians dream of doing.
The idea of Anthropoetry, comes from Anthropometrics, the measurement of human body parts to validate dodgy racial theories. Mellor instead uses parts of the body to provide a framework for his poetic musings. ‘Peak Love’ imagines a world where the commodity of affection is in sharp decline. The digestive system provides a trampoline from which to examine how law and order is formed and - like the Pasty Budget fiasco - abused by those in power to the detriment of those down below. Other body parts similarly follow, each with their own distinctive character and use of non-verbal noises. On a musing about the respiratory system, the various noises made run over each other, like a drum loop. On the digestive, musical backer Dan Steele’s stomach rumbling became a disturbing backdrop. Steele’s musical arrangements were impressive throughout, always understated yet contributing greatly to the overall mood.
Mellor did overextend himself at points. When his verses turned to polemic, they became a bit more like a New Statesman editorial. In particular I found one peace on the breast, where he mocked The Sun for using Page 3 girls to promote Rupert Murdoch’s ‘neoliberal cockbile’ slightly hypocritical as the whole poem’s purpose seemed designed to level an assault against Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks. Mellor worked much better when his poems, like his piece on the brain, retained a polemical aspect but remained a bit more aloof. However his poetry is a joy to listen to, and very much benefits from being spoken aloud and at the cost of precisely nothing, is worth a punt by poetry enthusiasts and newcomers alike.
