Portfolios & Slam Poetry

Please complete your portfolio. It is due at the end of class today. Also, please correct and improve your Black History poem and turn in the new version by the end of class.

To IMPROVE your poetry, you all need to use IMAGERY. Imagery is the backbone of contemporary poetry. Without it, a poem often fails.

But what is it?

IMAGERY: Is the careful use of vivid or figurative language (metaphors, similes, personification, allusion, etc.) to represent objects, actions, or ideas that are otherwise abstract (love, death, sorrow, freedom, etc.) This representation is often VISUAL, for it helps create a picture in a listener or reader's mind. The only way to create a visual picture is to be specific with your noun usage.

Imagery can also be auditory (sound) with the use of alliteration, assonance, consonance, and other techniques like rhyme and rhythm.

Please examine some examples of imagery:

• On a starry winter night in Portugal, where the ocean kissed the southern shore...

Descriptive words: starry, winter, southern
Specific NOUNS: night, Portugal, ocean, shore
Personification: ocean kissed the southern shore... 

More examples (similes):

• He fumed and charged like an angry bull.
• He fell like an old tree falling down in a storm.

And another example (metaphor):

• Her blue eyes were the sky in summer.

Examples of figurative language and allusion.

NOTE: YOU MUST USE IMAGERY IN YOUR POETRY! Otherwise it may be terrible as an Egyptian plague. Imagery is a tool. Use it!

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 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."

Please view these examples of slam poems being performed from the Slam Poetry Nationals:
Poem #1
Poem #2
Poem #3
Poem #4

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. 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.)

HOMEWORK: None. Feel free to write a poem a day in your journal. The more you write, the better you'll get at writing poetry. You can also keep writing plays or stories in your journal as well. Enjoy your week off, but take some time to write or read...