Kate Tempest's "My Shakespeare"

Kate Tempest is a London-born performance poet, rapper, and playwright. She had developed her 

love of poetry at a young age, while she was attending elementary school. Tempest first performed at age sixteen, and has since then become a global phenomenon in the theatrical industry. She has performed at poetry slams in Europe, Australia, and America, spreading an overall message: "Poetry is not a dead language."

The prime performance of her career was at the World Shakespeare Festival, when she had performed "My Shakespeare". In this poem she expresses her gratefulness of Shakespeare through the epic rap poem.  In "My Shakespeare" she alludes to some of Shakespeares' famous plays, including Romeo and Juliet.

Below there is a video of Tempest's performance at the World Shakespeare Festival.

In Kate Tempest's poem "My Shakespeare" she expressed herself in a way she truly understands Shakespeare, the almighty play writer . She said in her eighth stanza that "His legacy exists in the life that lives in everything he's written" meaning she understands the accomplishments Shakespeare dis and how they are an important part of peoples lives. She says  in her fourth stanza that "He's in every star crossed lover, in every thought that ever set your teeth on edge, in every breathless hero, stopping closer to the ledge, his is the method in our madness, as pure as the driven snow- his is the hair standing on end, he saw that all that glittered was not gold." This is trying to imply that he is a master of the emotions making us think what is going to happen next. Sometimes he makes something bad happen like in the tragic drama Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.

Tempest's poem was eye-opening. Not many people consider the influence of Shakespeare and his works on our daily lives. As Kate Tempest stated, 

"He’s more than something taught in classrooms, in language that’s hard to understand,

He’s more than a feeling of inadequacy when we sit for our exams,
He's in every wise woman, every pitiful villain,
Every great king, every sore loser, every fake tear,
His legacy exists in the life that lives in everything he's ever written,
And me, I see him everywhere."
Kate Tempest makes a good argument by stating how he is more than that- that he is "everywhere" and descrbes the numerous ways that Shakespeare has made an impact on our lives.

Most often the first thing that pops into our heads when we hear "Shakespeare" are age-old literature and an ancient dead language that no one can comprehend. But the work of Shakespeare is not dead; it has survived centuries and is the cornerstone of modern-day literature. You can even find fragments of his vocabulary in our everday speech, using phrases that he had invented. 

Kate Tempest's performance was attention grabbing, too. Her tone and face expressions really helped convey her message clearly, and she had spoken with so much conviction that you could not help but believe every word that she said. She had also organized her poem very well. She first began by talking about how Shakespeare is all around us by listing examples and elaborated on them during the middle part of her poem:
"He’s in every lover who ever stood alone beneath a window,

In every jealous whispered word,
in every ghost that will not rest.
He’s in every father with a favorite."

Even Tempest's ending line was very powerful and moving:
"And me, I see him everywhere, he’s my Shakespeare."
Overall, My Shakespeare was very eye-opening and powerful, while still being entertaining and logical.