by RAF KATIGBAK

Forget all you think you know about spoken word. Forget the self-conscious voice, the clichéd posturing and the rhyth-mic e-nun-ci-a-t-ion of ev-e-ry syl-la-ble. Self-styled "literary entertainer" Nathaniel G. Moore is here to change all of that. "Readings are getting boring a bit," admits the 29-year-old writer, performer and wrestling fan. "Why are we existing in this particular voice and style when there is so much more out there? Performers have to outperform the genre." Recently finishing a tour for DC Books' Career Suicide, his work has appeared in a slew of literary mags, and while his year-2000 spoken word CD compilation Unheard Of brought together artists from across Canada, "in the end" Moore admits, "it was just another spoken word CD. I want to get into longer pieces."

His next CD compilation, tentatively called The Most Electrifying Ladies & Gentlemen of Canadian Literary Entertainment!, will feature a more diverse genre-expanding sample of writers and hopes to offer a swerve to staunch spoken word with performances by Andy Brown, Rob McLennan, Catherine Kidd, Alexis O'Hara and Victoria Stanton. "Half the purpose of the CD is to make people aware of what else people can do. The pieces have to be well performed, something that has a bit of life to it."

Moore's inspiration comes less from the smoke filled bars of Montreal's literary performance scene and more from the smoke-filled stadiums of televised wrestling. "Wrestling to me is the perfect promotion vehicle for character development. They vent, go through a story and ultimately are accepted or rejected by an audience. If that's what Vince McMahon has done with Sports Entertainment, then that is what I want to do with what I call Literary Entertainment, the idea of the author becoming a vaudeville circus-ring leader, capable of detaching from the work and really using everything to put the piece in the right people's ears." Look out for the CD in April and Moore's book BOWLBRAWL: The Uncensored Oral History of Professional Bowling & Other Lawsuits in the fall.

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