How to Get Started with Spoken Word Poetry.

Some Background Information

People spoke poetry long before they began to write it. Audiences have judged the poet’s performance for just as long. Spoken word poetry competitions have taken many forms in many places across the world for thousands of years. Today spoken word poetry is most commonly experienced in competitions call Poetry Slams. The first Poetry Slamwas held in 1986 in Chicago. Since then these competitions have spread throughout the world. Although spoken word poetry is performed and enjoyed in noncompetitive venues, the Slams have had a large effect on the way spoken word poetry is written and performed.

Slam poems must be performed in 3 minutes or less and the performer must read a poem he or she has written. Today, most spoken word poetry conforms to these standards. The other Slam rule is that no props or costumes may be used. This rule is not always followed outside of Slams. While some poets feel costumes and props distract from the poetry others feel they enhance the poetry and use them in performances that are strictly for entertainment purposes. Likewise, outside of Poetry Slams background music and sound effects are sometimes employed.

Do Your Research

If you haven’t experienced much spoken word poetry, you should begin with some research. Watch YouTube videos of spoken word performances, read published spoken word poems, and most importantly find spoken word performances in your area and attend them. The National Poetry Slam website (www.PoetrySlam.com) has a search feature for finding poetry slams but Google works just as well for finding poetry events in your area. Many universities host spoken word performances and spoken word poets often perform in local bars and coffee houses on open mic nights. Watch the poets. Meet the poets. Talk to the poets. The best way to learn about spoken word is to experience it.

Practice! Practice! Practice!

Think of spoken word poetry as a two part project: the writing and the performance. These parts are equally important and although you might be more drawn to one than the other neither should be ignored. There is no limit on the number of poems you can write or the number of times you can perform them, so get started early and practice regularly. Information can only take you so far, skill must be built through practice. The following sections consist of tips for beginning spoken word poets to keep in mind as they start practicing.

WORD UP Volume 6...coming soon!!!!!!

PARTNER WITH US FOR WORD UP VOLUME 6 ON NOVEMBER 23, 2013 IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

We request that you partner with us through sponsorship to showcase your products and services and portray your brand as one with a passion for the development of the art of Spoken Word Poetry and the youths in Nigeria. 

Our event, Word Up Volume 6 is scheduled for November 23, 2013 at Terra Kulture, V/Island, Lagos, with the theme, "Stop the violence." The event theme is centered around the United Nation’s “International day for the elimination of violence against women.” 

i2X Media Company Limited is the organizer of WORD UP (the biggest Spoken Word Poetry Event in Nigeria). We are passionate about Spoken Word Poetry as a genre of entertainment, a tool to increase literacy level, and  a means of communication among people across the globe. Our dream is to promote poets so we can create a means of employment where they can earn a decent living from their amazing performances.

WHAT IS IN IT FOR YOU.

We understand that the current economic situation requires granular analysis of your marketing spend. This is why working with our partners, we have designed special sponsorship plans to drive your marketing efforts. Sponsorship of WORD UP provides you the under listed which can be further explained at our initial meeting.

·         Brand exposure on stage 

.         Branding Opportunity across all touch points

·         Advert placements in our DVDs and Audio CDs sold across the country

·         Media exposure

·         Product/ Services Experience and Sampling

·         Speaking Opportunity

·         Database Acquisition and so much more.

WHERE YOU CAN FIND OUT MORE

Don’t take our words for it, please visit http://wordup411.blogspot.com/, and http://www.i2xmedia.com/ where pictures, videos and information about our events and the organization can be accessed. 

While you are at it please feel free to check out our YOUTUBE channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/olulu4eva?feature=mhee and http://www.youtube.com/user/WordUpNigeria for video clips of some of our events.

For inquiries,  please contact us via 

+2348025070892

+2348038315055

wordup4one1@gmail.com

olulu4ever@gmail.com

i2xmedia@gmail.com

@wordup411

@olulu4ever

4 Reasons Why You Should Perform Your Poetry.

by Ami Mattison 

I shared my poetry with an audience for the first time at an old-fashioned “poetry reading.”

Me, performing in 2003. Photo courtesy of Sir Jesse of Decatur

It was 1991, and there were four of us. We took turns standing behind a music stand where our poems were laid out, and we proceeded to read in our best “serious poet” voices. You know the voice I’m talking about—the one where every line ends in an upward tone and sounds almost like a question?

Wow, have things changed since those days!

Now, in addition to the mainstay of the literary poetry reading, there are raucous open mics and poetry slams all over the country, where people don’t simply read, they “perform.”

They spit, they slam, they rap, they rant. In other words, they use their bodies and voices to give life to their words beyond the written page.

Now, almost twenty years after my first poetry reading, I earn a modest income from touring and performing my poetry to live audiences. No more serious poet voice for me.

Instead, I give expression to my poetry through dramatic and (what I hope are) well-crafted performances.

It’s All Poetry

There’s long been a rift between the “academic,” or literary poetry scene and the spoken word scene. Academic poets often dismiss the quality of spoken word poetry, while spoken word aficionados think academic poetry is boring. But, in the final instance, it’s all poetry.

Regardless of what a poem is about or how it’s written, it can be performed in a way that entertains, inspires, or moves audiences.

What I Mean by “Performance”

When I say “perform,” I don’t mean memorizing your poem and then screaming it at audiences, though there are certainly enough spoken word performers who do that. Rather, when I say “perform,” I mean finding creative ways to emote through language in order to engage one’s listener.

Performance is an emotional interpretation of your poem.

It is simply using your voice, your body, and your breath to convey not only your words but the layered emotions beneath them.

In other articles, I’ve suggested that memorizing your poetry offers an excellent way to experience it, either alone or in front of audiences. 

But you don’t need to memorize your poetry in order to offer a great performance. Reading your poetry can also provide an opportunity to convey it in your own personal and unique way.

And ultimately, the key to a great poetry performance is finding your own voice and your own style of sharing your poetry.

After all, it’s your poetry. And who better to perform it than you?

Why You Should Perform

Many poets who have published works read their poetry as a way to sell and promote their books, and that’s a great reason to perform or read. But you don’t need something to sell in order to perform your poetry. All you need are some poems you want to share and a venue to share them in.

Besides selling your books, there are several reasons to perform your poetry. Here a few of the reasons why I perform:

How to Develop a Poem for Spoken Word Performance.

Written by Ami Mattison

Developing and rehearsing a poem for spoken word performance can be as rewarding as performing it in front of live audiences. For me, the development of a performance is an ever-evolving process through which I come to understand and appreciate my poetry better. Performance is a kind of bonding experience with a poem—with the experiences and sentiments it expresses. This bonding is a creative process for me, in which I lift the words from the page and nurture them into life with my body and breath.

Plus, developing a poem for performance is fun. It gives you an opportunity to experiment with your body and your voice, to find new meanings in your poetry, and to express yourself in new, creative ways.

If you’re just starting out, it’ll take time, patience, and lots of rehearsal to learn to develop your poetry for confident and successful performances on a consistent basis. These tips, however, will give you a head start on some simple practices that work for me.

• Find a rehearsal space. A physical space in which to develop and rehearse your poem, alone and uninterrupted, is ideal. This should be a place where you are free to be yourself and to experiment with your voice and your body movements without worrying about disturbing others or being overheard. However, finding such a space can be challenging, especially if you live with others. If that’s the case, then let them know what you’re doing, ask them not to disturb you, and try to tune them out.

• Memorize your poem. Certainly, you can develop a great performance while reading your poem from a book or the page, but dropping the paper and memorizing your poem frees up your hands for gestures, allows you to make good eye-contact, and creates a “barrier-free” zone between you and your audience. In other words, memorization provides a foundation for developing an intimate interaction with your audience. If you have trouble memorizing, then don’t worry. Instead, check out this article on memorization.

For Closet Poets: How to Claim Your Creative Identity.

Written by Ami Mattison

Do you write poetry but rarely if ever share it with other people? 

Does anyone even know you write poetry? Are you reluctant to call yourself a poet? Do you dream of publishing your poetry, but can’t bring yourself to move forward towards that aspiration?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you’re probably a closet poet, or a poet who hasn’t yet formally and publicly claimed that identity and embraced the full significance of his or her poetry and creative process.

Life in the Poetry Closet

In college, I was a closet poet. When a renowned poet Adrienne Rich visited our school, I was excited and eager to meet her. When I did, she asked me point-blank: “Are you a poet?” While I wrote poetry, and I was indeed a poet, I rarely shared my poetry with others and I had never publicly claimed that identity. So, my reply was: “No, I’m not a poet, but my friends are.”

At the time, I thought poets were only those artists who wrote brilliant poetry, not someone who, like me, was a mere beginner and who, like me, wasn’t formally trained to write poetry.

Why Come Out?

If you’re a closet poet and you’re reading this article, then you probably possess a deep desire to own your identity as a poet, to share your poetry with others, and to improve your writing skills.

By sharing your poetry with other poets and supportive friends and family members, you may just receive the necessary ego-boost and inner drive to work harder to improve your writing.

Plus, when done in a thoughtful way, sharing your poetry is fun and deeply rewarding, and you can’t reap the benefits of those rewards until you come out of the poetry closet.

Most significantly, if you’re dreaming of publishing your poetry, you won’t be able to take yourself or your poetry seriously enough to do so, until you come out as a poet.

The craziest and shortest poem I have ever heard!!!

War Of Words (Slam Poetry Competition) Season 1 was fun-filled, exciting and thrilling all the way to the last performance on stage. 

I heard poetic pieces that made me smile, some poems made me sober, some were thrilling and a few were simply marvelous.

But one poem stood out, why, you may ask. Well, it was short and crazy. The poet left everyone in the venue waiting eagerly for the next verse as he walked off the stage. Men, "Me likey likey plenty plenty"!!! 

Watch the video below and tell me what you think.

Seye La Poet performing at War Of Words - Slam Poetry Competition.

 i2X Media, the conveners of Word Up (a quarterly Spoken Word Poetry Event), held the maiden edition of War Of Words (WOW) on June 30, 2013 in Bogobiri, Ikoyi, Lagos. 

WOW is a spoken word poetry competition which was organized with the aim of discovering and showcasing young and up-coming spoken word poets.

War Of Words Season 2 will start off from September 2013.

If you can kiss words and make them dance, then this is your chance.

Guide to memorizing poetry and delivering a spectacular performance.

What are the benefits of memorizing poetry?

How could memorizing your poetry change your spoken word performance?

I sometimes feel that audiences at slam poetry events penalize performers that read their work.

Either way audiences respond better to performers who can look them in the eye and make them feel as though they are talking to them individually.

I have seen the difference that memorizing poetry makes to my performance and wanted to share my tips:

1) Repeat your poetry out loud until you are sick of it

Okay, not so much until you are sick of it but, really, repeat your work to yourself until you remember it. Practice makes perfect, especially when it comes to performing.

My public speaking teacher used to say repetition is the secret to giving a great speech. He would say he wants us to become mumblers, meaning he wanted us to carry our speeches around and read them quietly wherever we were.

Start off by reading the whole poem and finding the rhythm and breaks (pauses) of the poems. See the imagery in your poem and see it unfolding in your mind. I tend to see each verse as pictures and this is how I remember my poetry.

Memorize the first stanza and then add one line at a time. I would encourage you to memorize each stanza on its own.

When you have committed the poem to memory recite it in front of a mirror and observe yourself and your body language.

You can also perform the same spoken word piece a few times at various slam contests and open mic sessions, until you perfect it.

The more you perform the poem the more likely you will be to remember it and the more confident you will become and the better your performance will get.

A word of warning: please do not keep performing the same poem over and over at every event. I have seen many poets do this and even though their performance is great, it does not allow them to show their versatility as poets.

2) Rewrite your poetry until it is embedded in your psyche

Whenever there is a poem I cannot remember (and I have many of these) I make myself sit down and rewrite the poem at least twice. This usually allows me to edit the poem so that it is more true to me.

I then take note of the verses that are difficult for me to remember and I memorize them on their own.

Writing is always a great way to remember anything, that’s why teachers made us all write: “I will not talk in class” 50 times, so we would remember it.

The other thing about rewriting a poem is that you get to see how the poem could have been written in a better way.

3) Visualize your story as you are saying it

It is easy to remember pictures. If you have written a poem about your ex boyfriend, visualize yourself telling him the words you have written.

If you have written a story about an event in your past, relive it and see it as you are reciting the poem or story. This actually allows you to be in the moment and to feel your emotions which makes for a better performance.

Memorizing poetry may seem like a lot of work but it is worth taking a few minutes every day to practice your work and your performance.

by Vangile Makwakwa 

http://www.speak2bfree.com/blog/memorizing-poetry/