'i grew up in colchester, where very little culture stirs'

Luke Wright, who is a brilliant poet and all-round good chap, and who is solely responsible for all the brilliant poetry at Latitude Festival. 'Laura Brown' is a poem of his that actually made me weep on the first listen, but I am a Stereotypical Girl so am I forgiven? Yes, yes I am. He is also in a very very good poetry collective called Aisle16, and has written a funny book with someone else called 'Who Writes This Crap?' which is like if V*CE was actually good at irony and sarcasm and was witty enough to write a rhyme like;

"Down in the parking lot the queues become unsettled
By the sort of folk who call The Darkness 'Heavy Metal'.
There’s trainee middle managers, the PR media type
Debt consolidating, administrating fans of Michael Stipe."
or
"But teenage girls were easy to impress.
Just paraphrase the Manics and their views on 'otherness'
and you'll get your greasy paw on many a nubile breast,
But alas,
Just like a teenage boy I knew it couldn't last,
And after years of avoiding my fellow man, I arrived at an impass -
University, a casanova's hell
Where all the other girly boys wrote poetry as well."

Other good things in spoken word are Dockers MC, who toured with Kate Nash time ago and probably outshone her in every way, John Hegley who does awesome deadpan beat poetry and is from Luton which is renowned for its stabbings and not its thriving poetry 'scene' (do 4 poets sitting in a bar discussing John Cooper Clarke count as a scene?) and Byron Vincent, a slam poet, who looks like he should be in a rubbish indie band but thankfully decided to be a poet who merely dabbles in Garageband-penned beats. Polar Bear is so, so, so brilliant, it's Quite Unnerving listening to his monotone raps because he spews some of the most fantastic and intelligent poetry ever, greatly introspective but completely unpretentious (unlike me right now) and quiet and shy and just, wow, but he should maybe not stick guitars under his raps because it sounds like The Streets, which is Bad. Seriuz.
In non-spoken word things, Lackthereof (Menomena's frontman's 'side project') is like Lycanthropy-era Patrick Wolf and it gives me great joy to type those words because 'lycanthropy-era patrick wolf' is the best kind of Patrick Wolf, all flighty and innovative and fierce and magical. Estupendo.