We are all familiar with famous poets like Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Shel Silverstien. It is also fair to say that most everyone knows the difference between a Haiku and a free verse poem. What may be unclear to some younger students however, is that poetry does not have to be written down, and published in a book to be called a poem. In early elementary school, and even into middle school this is the only form of poetry we learn about. For me this was not something I enjoyed, I did not appreciate the message the poet was trying to get across. I guess it is fair to say that it was boring and did not entertain me. What I learned later on was that there are a variety of ways of expressing poetry aside from writing down lines on a piece of paper. One form of poetry that is different from your standard forms of poetry is slam poetry. Video of slam poetry. Having talked to a lot of my friends their view on slam poetry is that the person on stage is being over dramatic and trying to be a rapper. To me slam poetry is almost the same as formal written poetry, only the listener is able to understand the true emotion the poet is trying to express. When you are just reading a poem it is hard to feel the same emotion the poet is trying to express. When you are able to see slam poetry in person, you are able to tell from his expressions, and body language how he/she really feels. Another form of poetry I was introduced to, and actually enjoyed is a mix between music and spoken poetry. Take a look for yourself. This is another style of poetry that allows you to feel the emotion of the poet. When an instrument is involved it brings on a whole new concept, and lets you get into the poetry a little more. Now you are no longer reading a poem, you are watching a performance. You still have all the aspects of poetry only now you get to hear and watch someone recite it rather then read it out of a book. Now to some the more formal ways of poetry may be very interesting, and that is fine. But for me I need some type of entertainment, because the famous poems are not doing it for me.
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I have to admit that I've never before heard of Slam poetry. After watching a few videos, I began to understand what you meant when you said that the listener was able to understand the true emotion of the poet. I agree completely with this statement because along with hearing a poem, you are now able to experience the emotions and meanings the creator of the poem felt when the poem was written. It is definitely more entertaining than simply reading a piece of paper and trying to figure out the authors emotion for yourself.
I disagree however, that slam poetry is the same as formal written poetry. I cannot picture Maya Angelou up on stage "slamming" her poems like that (or whatever you would call it). Although slam poetry is still considered poetry, it's definitely less formal than a published or written form of expression.
It's really cool to see the energy of the performer and be able to listen to what they say instead of reading it. I can't believe I've never heard of this before. I completely understand where you're coming from when you say you need some form or entertainment to relate to poems. I guess I agree that some poems are dry or boring. But doesn't it make you wonder that the boring poems are the famous ones?
Growing up, I never had an interest in poetry except one time in elementary school I remember having to read poetry for an assignment. It was never really enforced in school for me so I never even thought of beginning to understand what it really was. I knew the differences between haiku's and other sorts of poetry but didn't understand what set them apart from each other.
I think slam poetry is a great way to get the reader/watcher to interact more with the poetry. It is one thing to sit down and read a poem and attempt to interpret what is being read but for people like me who have a hard time digging deep into a reading slam poetry does that work for me. Seeing and hearing the emotion from the person speaking really pulls the watcher into the poem and you get a sense of what the poem really means to the writer.
Although I think slam poetry is quite affective and entertaining, there needs to be more poetry taught in school and how to affectively interpret what the poem is about. If a child can interpret a poem they can most likely interpret any book. If that were the case with me I believe it would be easier for me to pick out the details in most books I read today.
I would have to say that I am more of a visual learner. I could read something over and over again and try to make sense out of it, or I could view a video or a photograph and grasp an understanding instantly. I do feel this way about poetry, and up until reading this post I had never heard of SLAM poetry before. I do agree with you when you wrote about the benefit of being able to see someone's emotion as they recite something compared to individually reading it out of a book. I feel that in the video clips that you attached with your post I felt their emotions and understood the messages that these performers were trying to convey better than I would understand a three line poem that seems more abstract. Just because some things are shorter and look simpler to the eye does not always mean that it is so. Poetry is a great way to convey many emotions, and like the book says that you are able to express emotions in a poem that you did not originally know that you felt. I used to write poetry when I was younger and it was a great escape for me to vent my emotions and feelings. Though the poems were not hardly complex at all, my heart was in them. With most poems, I feel, that it is important to put in a fair amount of emotion in them because its hard for readers to feel an emotional connection with someones work if the one who has written it has not put their emotions and feelings into it.
I agree with Ryan’s friends when they said that they thought slam poetry was when a person got up on stage reading their poetry in an over dramatic way, well, I used to. In high school is when I was first introduced to slam poetry. They had a poetry club where they would hold monthly poetry slams at local coffee shops. I always had a negative outlook until one day in my communications class a girl brought in one of her poems for show and tell. She performed it in the form that she would do at a poetry slam and I was blown away. I never would have thought that I could feel so much of her emotion right along with her. I now have a completely different outlook on slam poetry. It brings out so much more of the writers feelings and reasons behind writing the poem. Like Mary Comstock says in her article about reading and writing and the poetry process, poetry is able to allow people to make connections between what they write and how it is read. I think this relates to the slam poetry because the way a writer writes a poem and the way their reader reads it could be completely different but if the writer is able to perform what they have written, the audience will be able to hear it exactly how that writer wanted them too. I think, agreeing with Ryan, that poetry can be entertaining and they don’t need to be boring and hard to understand. Poems are filled with messages and emotion that are just waiting to be discovered.
Growing up I hated poetry. I loved listening to the teacher get involved and excited about what they were reading, but for the most part I didn't understand what was being said. When I hear something it is not enough for me to focus and pay attention to what is going on. I need some sort of visual to comprehend.
Watching the videos on slam poetry, which I have never heard of before, really connects with listeners. I am a more visual learner and seeing the videos and hearing it together it makes more sense. It is great that with technology we have the option to expand our learning and create new ways to teach poetry. I think these new ways of expressing poetry will engage a lot larger audience and they are more attainable. I know by watching I can understand the meaning a lot more.
I really enjoyed listening to the White House Esperanza Spalding poetry slam. While I was briefly introduced to poetry slamming my senior year of high school, I really enjoyed hearing Spalding's voice in accordance with the poetry. She is very talented. I was reading about Poetry Slamming, and I found that there are many people (academia and other artists) who condemn poetry slamming. However, poetry slamming, much to my surprise, originated in the 1980s, and the first National Poetry Slam Contest took place in 1990. Poetry slamming is fairly new, yet, it has been around for over 20 years. A poetry slamming contest involves judges who evaluate poets' performances on a 10.0 schedule. I found all of this information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_slam. In conclusion, I just found it interesting that this new format of poetry is on the rise, especially with the youth. I think it is more engaging and creative; it takes more talent to be able to sing and play an instrument while incorporating your poems into the performance.
I can completely agree with your post. I also had a hard time with poetry in school. I rarely ever felt the emotions the author was trying to convey and it was hard for me to get much more out of it than a bunch of words. I really liked the slam poetry and I had never heard of it before your post. It gave me goosebumps to hear and feel the emotions behind the performance and I could really be pulled into the poem through the poet's facial expressions and movements. I'm sure if those same words were written on a page I wouldn't have felt the same way about it.
The second link you posted was really interesting to me. It made me wonder where the line is drawn between poetry and a song. To me, this performance was the same thing as an artist performing a song. If it hadn't been for your explanation of it I would have never considered it to be poetry. This made me think about what the difference between song lyrics and a poem is, especially when both are performed with music.
I enjoyed both links and thought that poetry performed in a matter like this was much more appealing to me than reading it out of a book. I wonder if all poetry was read aloud would it have the same effect? If someone read a Langston Hughes poem with emotion on stage would it have the same feelings as slam poetry? What if someone sang that same poem to music? I wasn't sure if the type of poem had an impact on how the emotions came across or if it was just the means by how it was delivered.
Unlike some, I have always had some kind of interest in poetry. From a young age, I loved how it rhymed or had some kind of flow to it. Poems have great meaning behind them, but they don't always jump out at you.
Since poetry has been an interest of mine, I liked how there was different kind of poetry.
I was introduced to Slam Poetry about a year ago, and what can I say, I fell in love with it. The way it can move the audience. It draws you in and you are captivated by the style that the poem is being delivered to you. In response to some of the previous comments I agree, Slam Poetry isn't the typical type of poetry. It doesn't follow the same ways or style of the traditional ways. I think that it was is unique about it. Lets face it, we all learn differently, so I think this would be a great addition to a poetry lesson in schools. For those students who like tradition poems, then great, that will work for them. But for others who need a more visual approach to seeing how a poem can move you, then this can be an outlet for them too.
Poetry has a great deal of emotion and no matter what method is used to teach it, it can have a great impact on a child's exploration into literature.
In one of my classes right now we are actually talking a lot about performance poetry. I have learned that a lot more can be gained from a poem by watching it be performed by the person who actuallly wrote it.Performance/slam poetry allows the voice behind the lines to come to life. I think that by listening to the person who the words are coming from, the audience is more moved and feels more attached to the words and the power they have over the individual who developed them. When a poem is read, the reader attaches their own personal meaning to the words and so the words of written poetry are always up for the individual interpretation of the reader. When a poem is performed however, the speaker acts as the interpreter using emotion (this can come in the form of tears, laughter, screams, singing, etc.) to convey the tone. I think that any poem can be performed if the speaker feels strongly about the words he or she is speaking. I think that in order for a poem to be successfully performed however, the speaker must believe completely in what he or she is saying and have a relationship with the words. Performance poems allow for more emotion to be conveyed and if it was not for the emotionally charged individual expressing his or her thoughts, then the poem would lack a lot of its impact and meaning. Performance poets gain access to a whole new world of power and emotion as they can sing, chant, rap, scream, cry, laugh, repeat, etc., which is inaccessible by simply reading the poem on a piece of paper.
What a great post :) I think slam poetry is awesome and a very emotional artform. I haven't seen very much, admittedly, but even the few slam performances that I have been exposed to really help me understand the true intensity behind poetry. It makes it come alive.
Slam poetry is also great because it can open people's eyes to poetry who originally didn't care about it or have access to it. People who think poetry is mundane can experience slam and realize how incredibly NOT mundane it is. In addition, people who perhaps could not read or comprehend poetry in the written form can see a slam performance and feel the power of poetry.
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