I love spoken word poetry. It conveys messages in a way that simple speech doesn't. I just wanted to share a few of my favorites and see if anyone else has any favorites of their own. Start with some Anis Mojgani. Oh And a WARNING, THIS DOES HAVE A HANDFUL OF CURSE WORDS IN IT, you can skip this one if you'd like. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znIXyFh6dsI[/YOUTUBE] This one is clean, and always leaves me feeling loved. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATC5OGh3adg&feature=related[/YOUTUBE] Sarah Key, she has a calming voice that you just get lost in. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMoppfNoh1I[/YOUTUBE] Short, simple but incredibly true. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tld-0orobw[/YOUTUBE] And I'll end with some Kit Yan, an amazing man. If you are transgender or questioning I would very much recommend looking into more of his stuff. My favorite poem of his is on myspace only so I decided to post this one. Which is a beautiful moment he's shared with the world. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAcwJOzicAY[/YOUTUBE] There is tons more that I love but I'll leave it at that for now, I hope you enjoy.
Hell yes! Jellyfish by Sarah Kay [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6OAWaxPHQo[/YOUTUBE] Peacocks by Sarah Kay [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCSCK7W7oU0[/YOUTUBE] Sarah's second TED talk, including some poetry and a very intriguing speech. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Iv2nZnZOrM[/YOUTUBE] Hip Hop Lullaby by Phil Kaye [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xclq1_3UlYc[/YOUTUBE] To Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair by Jeanann Verlee [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYZkLy0GHZ0[/YOUTUBE] Boy by Jeanann Verlee [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DOKJ4vPbiM[/YOUTUBE] Constituion by Sarah Kay, Jeanann Verlee, Akua and a guy whose name I can't find [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq29Mn-X4CM[/YOUTUBE]
I LOVE spoken word. Sarah and Phil Kay(e) are AMAZING Sarah Kay - Hands [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuAbGJBvIVY[/YOUTUBE] Phil Kaye - Suburbia [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-spXvscU80[/YOUTUBE]
As spoken word aficionados, probably most of you have seen this, but it's always worth re-posting: Kate Makkai - Pretty Also, Shane Koyczan who performed at the Vancouver Olympics is from where I live, and I've seen him live. Pretty awesome.
one of my favorite spoken poems is the poem McCavity: The Mystery Cat, by TS Elliot. if that doesn't ring a bell, it's a part of the musical Cats. it sounds so wonderful rolling off the tongue Cats - Macavity - The mystery Cat [with lyrics]‏ - YouTube the good stuff starts at 1:08
All excellent poetry will sound wonderful when spoken aloud, because poetry is supposed to have a music about it, separating it from prose along with meter and rhyme. What is commonly called spoken word poetry (including many of the poems by the poets mentioned in this thread) is actually wonderfully written descriptive prose.
Once again, WARNING, there is some cursing in this. Amazing though. [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEUAlm7Rn5o[/YOUTUBE]
Not all poetry rhymes or has traditional meter - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that most modern poetry has rejected these two qualities as outdated. For a lot of modern poetry, what separates it from prose has more to do with things like focus, non-traditional grammatical structure, and physical appearance on the page than rhyme or meter. Spoken word poetry, on the other hand, is often (though not always) heavily based on rhyme and meter, comes from an oral tradition closely related to rap and hip hop music, and is usually characterized by a focus on controversial social or political issues.
You'll have to excuse me. I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to poetry. :lol: I find some of the modern gobbledegook free style poetry really hard to read. It's almost as if some poets think that meter and rhyme are to be avoided rather than exploited and that their poem will be more expressive if they fit fifty different adjectives into one line. This satirical free verse poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery ( called "Vers Libre") basically sums up my opinion: I feel Very much Like taking Its unholy perpetrators By the hair Of their heads (If they have any hair) And dragging them around A few times, And then cutting them Into small, irregular pieces And burying them In the depths of the blue sea. They are without form And void, Or at least The stuff they produce Is. They are too lazy To hunt up rhymes; And that Is all That is the matter with them Now, if you were to read this poem (properly, using the punctuation as stops rather than the lines), it would sound exactly as if she were giving an interview about the critics of her more traditional style of poetry. That's prose. If you read a poem and it sounds like it was an excerpt from a particularly emotional journal entry, then it isn't really a poem. That said, I have written free verse poetry free of rhyme or a steady meter (though I always incorporate meter and manipulate syllables to some degree). I think that you have to be very careful with how you do it to pull it off, just like poetry in an established form. Everything you do must serve some purpose more so than in an established form precisely because there are no rules, thus no guidelines on how to do it well. A writer of free verse must have a very good reason for cutting off their stanzas and lines where they do (most don't seem to) and must be very careful with vocabulary to ensure that the words they choose convey exactly the emotion they want. Although they aren't following a template for structure and form, they must nevertheless ensure that there is structure and form. Essentially what I'm saying is that free verse is infinitely harder to pull off convincingly than established forms. I think that people who are just starting to delve into poetry should use form genres or a variation of a pre-existing form genre to learn exactly how meter and rhyme influence each other and other literary devices such as alliteration, imagery and metaphor. Unfortunately, I find that a lot of people start writing free verse right away because they find it less intimidating, probably because there are no rules. Their poetry improves so much more slowly that way. TL;DR version: you have to learn the rules well before you can convincingly break them.
Here are some of my favourites~ "Hir" Poem, by Alysia Harris & Aysha El Shamayleh [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IRLSgPQG0c4[/YOUTUBE] Suheir Hammad on 9/11 [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNfec7Fa2Cc&feature=player_detailpage[/YOUTUBE] Kavindu "Kavi" Ade performing IT (I think there is some language in this one) [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=o6tsXdfrGXQ[/YOUTUBE] Andrea Gibson - Walmart (Lots of language in this one) [YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVGD19VvpSA&feature=player_detailpage[/YOUTUBE]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVGD19VvpSA&feature=youtube_gdata_player Andrea Gibson 's Walmart - language warning. Katie Makkai 's 'pretty'is a favourite. Taylor Mali is amazing as is Ross Gay - check out 'coming out duet '
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FlennZ0X00&feature=youtube_gdata_player Coming out duet ... Taylor mali and Ross gay I love andrea Gibson, Katie Makkai, Taylor mali.
