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.

TAKING THE MIC by Kate O'Shea

Performance poetry, poetry slams, open mic nights. What’s it all about? Sitting through any number of poetry readings (with or without a microphone) is a good way to grasp a healthy loathing of the form. Yet in recent years, technology has led to a resurgence of interest in poesia. Indeed, on a bad day, the Internet is almost sluggish with poets and poetasters.

And while it’s not quite celebrity, many have made their way out of the closet to find ever-more-youthful devotees who not only read poetry but write and perform it as well.

What of it? We must have our fancies – for some it’s a microphone, others may prefer a pen no larger than their sense of humour. Aristotle observed that the poet is concerned with the universal rather than the particular. Would the rhyming world be a better place without open mic nights? I seriously doubt it. Microphones are not easy to come by or affordable in comparison to pens, available in most newsagents. Newsagents are not fussy and will furnish any die-hard scribblers with the necessary tools.

Should we gather up all the pens in order to stop the collapse of poetry, or to guard against shoddy penmanship? The idea is ludicrous. While almost any experience might create a poem, it does not follow that every successful utterance of experience is poetry. Verse alone does not make a poem.  Lines may scan and rhyme yet be quite unpoetic:

"I put a hat upon my head
And walked into the StrandAnd there I met another man
Whose hat was in his hand.”
- Dr. Johnson

A poem is self-transcending but, while the microphone may amplify sounds so that you seem louder (and more important), it cannot make you a poet. The nature of poetry is too mysterious to examine, and there is no yardstick by which you can measure technical proficiency.

A poem is or isn’t. Emotion, no matter how strong and genuine, is not poetry. I, for one, am very amused by the paradox of poetry’s obstinate continuance in the present phase of civilisation. As for open mic nights – poetry is reinventing itself and finding new audiences.

It’s hard enough for a young person to admit to writing poetry and then have to go out there (without a parachute) and read it to a roomful of giddy strangers. Yeats would call that reckless courage.

Who knows: in that vast cosmos of poeticules, perhaps there’s a John Betjemen or an Anne Sexton bumping in the crowd? I would ban boring verse, the type that’s mannered and literary in the old-fashioned sense. Personally I cannot stand the trained actor method of reading poetry. It’s sonorous and empty.

A poetry reading/open mic night is an odd creature. However, it shouldn’t be reduced to therapy. Each reading has its own character; it affects and reflects the audience. There is no correct or exact formula, but it is important to have good poets who know their craft. Each individual poet offers a contribution to the whole. Even with the microphone you cannot make a poem better than it really is.

The most experience and dynamic poets run the risk of boring an audience if they are unaware of the listeners’ capacity for absorption. Enough of poeticalness. Open mic nights have got a bad press and are a fairly recent phenomenon on this island. However, they should not translate to complete laissez faire on the part of the poet, a licence to metrical anarchy.

I hope it won’t become a dead movement – doing the poetry thing and seeking novelty for its own sake. The purpose of poetry readings, with or without the microphone, is to interest and entertain.

It’s not poetry wars. Really.

Yours truly, Kate O’Shea.

Kate O’Shea ran a very successful multi-media group Chocolate Sundaes at La Cave for four years in the nineties with William Kennedy and the late Christopher Daybell. They did not have a microphone.

http://www.poetryireland.ie/resources/feature-articles/taking-the-mic.html

Tips for performing at poetry and spoken word open mic nights

Reading your own poems out loud to a room full of strangers might sound terrifying. Having done it a few times myself, I can confirm that it is. But with the number of poetry open mic nights in Scotland increasing, sometimes eclipsing their musical cousins, there must be a reason why so many people put themselves through it. So if you’ve penned a few verses and are considering taking the plunge, what should you look out for?

How to set up your first poetry event

Whether you’re going away to university in a new town, you want to discover fresh talent or you have a fantastic new idea you feel should be explored further, starting up your own poetry night can be a great way of generating interest in the art of spoken word.

So we’ve drawn up a step-by-step guide to help you to organise your first poetry event.

1. The first thing you should do is crowdsource. Ask friends and those in the industry what they think of your idea. There’s no point going through all the trouble of organising an event if there is no interest in it. You need to build a close network, so that people will attend your event. It’s important to remember that if you’re passionate about your idea, you’ll have much more of a chance of selling it to others.

2. Draw up detailed plan of what the event will involve. Is it solely a poetry night, or will you have other creative acts also? Is it for all ages or just adults? These specifications will help you decide what kind of venue is best for you. A bar would be completely unsuitable, for example, if your target demographic is 14-18 year olds!

3. Approach a venue you think would be open to poetry nights. This could be an exhibition hall, a gallery, a theatre or a bar. Remember, the settings must be appropriate for the performance. Is there a stage or an area the artist could perform from? Is there sufficient space for the audience to see and hear the act? Will they be comfortable?

4. Set up a professional email address so that the venue, fans and performers can contact you directly. You don’t want to miss important information because you thought it was just another Groupon spam mail!

5. Ask relevant poets to perform at your event. At this stage, you probably can’t pay them. Most poets enjoy performing, they’re not in it for the money. So stress that it would be a great platform for them to get their work out there. If you’re having an open-mic segment to the night, make sure you advertise your new email address so artists can sign up to perform.

6. Advertise and promote! Use Twitter and Facebook to spread the word and generate interest. Message blogs (such as this one) to inform them your event is coming up. Post on forums and society groups. Make posters and flyers and staple them around town.

7. Finally, don’t forget to have fun. You’ve worked hard to make this night a success, so stop stressing and enjoy it!

We look forward to being invited to your first poetry event.

by Nadia Khomami

http://www.spokenwordldn.com/2012/05/07/setting-up-your-first-poetry-event/

Standards in Spoken Word Poetry By Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre

What makes effective spoken-word or slam poetry?

One of my favorite activities to do in a workshop or class is just brainstorming around what makes effective spoken-word or slam poetry. We all have different standards, and since spoken-word is so new for so many people, sometimes those standards vary wildly. Obviously, there’s a lot of room for debate, and I think that that debate is a very healthy, necessary thing in our community. Here are the standards that I use, forged in those discussions and hardened by my experiences in the slam scene, in the arts education scene and elsewhere.

1. Context matters. Just because you scored a 30 in a slam doesn't mean that your poem will succeed at a rally, in a high school classroom or even at a different slam. Spoken-word doesn't have to be able to work in a vacuum—it’s okay to write with a specific performance venue in mind. Know your audience. A good poet uses this knowledge to hit as hard as he or she can in a particular scenario.

2. Substance over style. For me, spoken-word is more than pretty art—it’s an opportunity to say something to an audience. Too many poets waste that opportunity. I’m not saying that every poem has to be a grand political manifesto, but the best spoken-word is powerful and ultimately transformative because of what it says, not how it says it. Of course, form brings content to life, and good writing will give a poem’s message longer legs, but at the end of the day, pretty words with no meaningful foundation ring hollow.

3. Challenge the audience. The best art doesn't tell people what they want to hear—it pushes them out of their comfort zones. It doesn't repeat the slogans and platitudes that the audience already believes in; it helps them to see things in a new way. At the same time, remember point #1. A poem that is cliche for one audience might be revelatory for another.

4. Do not manipulate your audience; do not exploit your subject. A poem can be sad, a poem can be angry and a poem can deal with heavy subjects. But if there isn't some kind of deeper point to all of that raw energy, you run the risk of simply toying with people’s emotions in order to get them to cheer for you. So if a poem is going to be about dead babies or domestic violence or genocide or whatever, it damn well better have a message that goes beyond “wow war is sad” or “murder isn't good.” I like calls to action. I like poems that toy with the relationship between personal and political.

5. Being original and memorable is more important than being “good.” What new perspective do you have? From what new angle can you attack a given target? If you’re going to cover well-trod territory, how are you going to make your work stand out? Remember, any idiot can write good poetry. Creative Writing programs around the world churn out would-be masters every semester. Your challenge is not to “write well;” it is to slap your audience in the face with something meaningful, powerful and memorable. Again, good writing can help you do that, but it should never be your only goal.

7. Be specific. A poet is like an archaeologist. You don’t walk for miles with a metal detector, picking up bottle-caps  you find a little three-foot by three-foot space and dig as deep as you can. Less-effective poets often want to write a single poem that addresses everything that’s wrong with the world—“war is bad, racism is bad, poetry is good, we should save the environment,” etc.—and the result is a watered-down laundry list of social ills that doesn't really say anything. Instead, turn abstract concepts into concrete images. Don’t write about “war,” write about a specific person in a specific war dealing with a specific problem. Don’t write about “love,” tell a detailed story about a specific moment in your life when you felt loved.

8. Study the art of poetry. I know a lot of these points have forced “good writing” into the background, but it’s important to note that while I believe you can write a brilliant slam poem that isn't a brilliant capital-P Poem, good writing is generally a very important tool for bringing a message to life and making a spoken-word piece more palatable and interesting. So don’t just get up on stage and rant and rave. Understand dynamics, structure, metaphor, imagery, assonance & consonance, rhythm, concrete vs. abstract language and all of the little things that go into making what is traditionally considered good poetry. Even if you want to break rules, you should be able to do so intentionally.

9. Perform to the audience, not at the audience. This is a subtle point, but one that’s been very important for my growth as an artist. A good spoken-word poet doesn't beat the audience over their heads with words and ideas; instead, he or she attempts to create a real connection between speaker and listener. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how this is done, but good poets use everything—not just words and voice; it’s in the approach to the mic, the posture, body language, eye contact, use of negative space and more. It’s about manipulating the energy that exists in a room to draw the listener into the piece.

10. Poetry—especially spoken-word—is about communication. At the end of the day, you’re not up on stage to celebrate how brilliant you are; you’re up there to open up lanes of communication, to say something that might get someone else to think or feel something, to build community—artistically, intellectually and physically. We are all extremely privileged to be a part of this movement, and as artists, we are regularly given platforms that most people don’t have access to. Make it count. Be extraordinary. Do not ever settle for a first draft. Be tireless in your pursuit of the truth that can only be spoken through poetry.

11. Be clear. After hearing your poem once, virtually every audience member should be able to walk away and describe or explain your poem in one simple sentence. Your poem can be complex and layered and detailed (and should be), but it should leave one dominant taste in your audience’s mouths.

By Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre

http://minnesotamicrophone.com/articles/standards-in-spoken-word/index.html