Spoken Word Poetry The Oral Tradition Don’t forget that we also have a Power Point titled, “The Visual Tradition in Poetry”

This stuff is really old… Hey, Daddy-o Homer 800 BCHomer 800 BC Old English poetry 400 ADOld English poetry 400 AD The Beats 1950sThe Beats 1950s Slam Poetry 1980s to presentSlam Poetry 1980s to present Ongoing efforts to keep the oral tradition aliveOngoing efforts to keep the oral tradition alive Where do you think rhyme came from? A MEMORY AIDE SINCE POETRY WAS ALWAYS SPOKEN AND MEMORIZED! Well, it also came from our love of sound patterns and verbal music too.

check these out! AND

How do slams work? Poetryslam.com A Brief Guide to Poetry Slams

Listen to Spoken Word selections, plus Beat poems with jazz accompaniment

Blurring the line between poetry and theater; performances are like one-person, one-act plays. Aggressive, clever, sometimes funny rhyme, not in any strict pattern (triple rhymes, internal rhymes, slant rhymes, repeated words, etc. In video, “Lazarus, Lazie, Lazy”). Projection! Loud broadcast. Number of unstressed syllables don’t matter, maybe. Success depends on how cleverly you get the four stresses in (rap). Getting into a groove. Memorizing the material adds interest. Mixing genres: insert singing, use accompanying sound, etc. Ritual presence of performer.

Drawbacks to the Slam Doesn’t the contest format make it into a game of winners and losers, precisely what it SHOULDN’T be, if it’s all about poetry for everyone? The performance can overpower attention to words, language. Sometimes quiet, written poems are insanely powerful as well as completely original. The slam, at worst, just promotes yelling and histrionics. It quickly became as conventional as anything else—readers doing predictable politica l material in a predictable voice and style.