What fun we had in class last week, playing around with slam poetry. For me and I think for many others in the class, slam poetry gets away from the formality of traditional poetry. Because it’s half poetry and half performance, it helped us to get out of ourselves and relate to our audience directly. When we read a line of traditional poetry, we cut words out and dropped lines and concepts that didn’t talk to people.
Slam poetry is things we’re passionate about.
One woman watched some slam poetry on Youtube such as Taylor Mali. When
Taylor Mali
she presented her poetry to the class, everyone thought it was great.
It seems we’ve come full circle with poetry. This is how it used to be, before there was printing, before there were books. People stood in front of an audience and recited poetry. I have a feeling their poetry was alive, passionate, and personal. They related to their audience.
Give me slam poetry any day over a dry poetry reading.
Your opinion? I admit I’m biased since I’m part ham actor.
Images courtesy of:
- wordsandtoons.com
- spikednation.com
- blog.pshares.org
You had fun! Taylor M. rocks!
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