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.

For Beginner Poets: How to Know If Your Poetry Sucks.

Written by Ami Mattison 

Poets at all levels of experience worry about whether or not our poetry sucks. Often, as we contemplate our poetry, we experience gnawing doubts about our abilities as poets and about the quality of our work. However, the question of “how to figure out if your poetry sucks” tends to be a beginner’s question.

Experienced poets, whether we acknowledge it or not, usually know when our poetry sucks. But as a beginner, it’s natural to be confused by what makes a “good” poem.

Distinguishing Good Poetry from Sucky Poetry

There are so many types of poetry in culture—good, bad, and ugly. Through experience, poets come to recognize what’s weak about a poem, what’s clichéd, and what simply isn’t working. But when you’re first starting out, writing a strong, successful poem can seem elusive, mysterious, or maybe even impossible.

Lacking experience, it can be difficult to tell whether or not your poetry is any good.

You know what they say about beauty being in the eye of the beholder? Well, poetry is like that. If you think a poem is beautiful, if it moves you, if it makes you think and seems to speak some truth to you, then that’s a “good” poem.

However, if you’re looking to publish your poems, then you’ll need to develop a sense of what critics and poets agree makes for good poetry.

Luckily for the beginner, there are some simple indicators that distinguish good poetry from weaker versions.

One Sucky Poem and One Not-So-Sucky Poem

As an exercise in determining what makes for a good poem versus a weak poem, take a look at this excerpt of one of my poems:

The light reflects your skin.
Impossibilities recede.
I trace where I have been,
find the knots and knead.
Run my fingers through your curls,
twisting and bereaved.
Pulling me into your world,
from your mouth the air I breathe.
You are not alone,
as you walk away.
I am here with you right now,
praying that you will stay.
I’m steady on this ground,
holding on with all my might.
You are not alone,
your fears eclipsing light

Umm…can you guess the title of this uninspired poem? That’s right: “You are not alone.” If you like this poem, then great. But trust me, it’s a real stinker. The premise is terrible, the rhyme is laughable, clichés abound, and some of it is so vague as to be nonsensical.

Now, consider this excerpt from another poem I wrote:

Stories sculpt figures,
construct apartment buildings
plant fields and wield iron, forge
whole countries of strangers
we come to believe we know.
Stories create things.
Poetry takes them apart.
Unstitching the unseemly seam, breaking
open rocks, chiseling crystal composites,
uprooting forest ferns just to smell
the fertile musk of soil and finger
the tangled, threaded flesh.

This poem is entitled “Poetry, say it.” This isn’t the greatest poem, but it is a stronger poem than the first. It manages to use relatively original descriptions, its premise is more interesting, its language is active, and its images are concrete.

Ways to Know If Your Poem Sucks

I Don't Want to Write a Poem.

I don't want to write a poem

Since poems aren't meant for MEN.

Men drink their pain away in whiskey every night

And smoke their sadness pretending to be all right.

You ask what brings this pain and sadness.

What instance was it? What madness?

Well just guess and I bet with the first try you'll find it.

Yes, of course! What else. My woman, not anymore, was it.

And I am trying to avoid all my friends

But stuck I am with all their clichés.

You'll forget her. She doesn't deserve you or even worst

Don't worry. It's ok. She will regret it and it's her loss.

That's why the whiskey I love.

Lost I am in this dark bar.

To the always nice songs from the 80s listening.

They don't really help. Who am I kidding?

My chest, my lungs is squeezing.

It hurts so much, even the breathing.

And at the end I know that I myself became the cliché.

My feelings for her so stupidly in this trap led.

I didn't want to write a poem

Since poems aren't meant for MEN

And this unbearable pain in a poem I ended up writing

Until I wake up one day and go back on leaving.

by

Geopapas

Source:

http://voices.yahoo.com/i-dont-want-write-poem-3944218.html?cat=42