Performance Poetry

Today, after our last Spoon River performances, please watch the following clips:

Slam Poetry Nationals
Poem #1

Poem #2

Poem #3

Poem #4


A Brief Guide to Slam Poetry

Taken from Poets.org.

"One of the most vital and energetic movements in poetry during the 1990s, slam has revitalized interest in poetry in performance. Poetry began as part of an oral tradition, and movements like the Beats and the poets of Negritude were devoted to the spoken and performed aspects of their poems. This interest was reborn through the rise of poetry slams across America; while many poets in academia found fault with the movement, slam was well received among young poets and poets of diverse backgrounds as a democratizing force. This generation of spoken word poetry is often highly politicized, drawing upon racial, economic, and gender injustices as well as current events for subject manner.

A slam itself is simply a poetry competition in which poets perform original work alone or in teams before an audience, which serves as judge. The work is judged as much on the manner and enthusiasm of its performance as its content or style, and many slam poems are not intended to be read silently from the page. The structure of the traditional slam was started by construction worker and poet Marc Smith in 1986 at a reading series in a Chicago jazz club. The competition quickly spread across the country, finding a notable home in New York City at the Nuyorican Poets Café."

Slam Poetry often uses topics or themes that are politically or emotionally charged. Slam poets often write with a social comment to make or share with an audience.

How can you be a poet for social change?

Brainstorming: Start with your journal. Make a list of things you believe, things that make you mad, or things that you feel go unnoticed by others, things that are important to you. Write for 5 minutes. Try to fill a page or two.

Now, look over your list and choose the topic that you feel may be the most interesting to an audience. Today, write a poem based on this chosen idea. This will be a first draft.

Finished early? Write a second poem. Go back to your first poem draft and add imagery (metaphor, personification, simile, symbol, figurative language, allusion, etc.)