The Art of Spoken Word Poetry


Book Description

Helpful tools, tips, and techniques that can improve your spoken word poetry performance.The goal of this book is to provide a "How to" guide with principles that can be used to improve content and stage performance. This book doesn't come with the promise of making you a great spoken word artist or the experience of a world famous poet. Instead it provides tools, examples of techniques and it offers tips, which if practiced correctly, can improve your confidence, focus and execution. Every artist comes equipped with their own amount of creativity, imagination and inspiration. Storytelling is a big part of spoken word poetry as well, but if you are not able to tell that story or relay a message clearly to people then there might as well be no one listening. By utilizing examples from the P-Arts (Performing Arts) program and workshop courses that have been implemented in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles and San Diego area of Southern California through DM Ink Publishing. You will be able to apply the same techniques which have helped many spoken word artist and poets to develop and improve their skill. I've spent years performing, writing, reading, listening and publishing spoken word poetry. With three published spoken word poetry paper back and E-Books as well as two spoken word albums available internationally it has been a great learning experience. As a fan, an artist and facilitator of workshops I can relate to the frustration of having a good performance piece and not being able to get the message through to the audience. Or being nervous and not having any prior training or years of experience that would assist with speaking in a small or large venue. By incorporating a few tips used by spoken word poet professionals, readers will find this book will-Provide helpful tips of structuring the content to your piece so that it flows. -Go over various spoken word techniques.-Provide tools to improve your delivery. The areas of focus covered are just a few pieces to a larger puzzle in the areas of communication and writing that could benefit an aspiring spoken word artist. This book has been used in performing arts workshops and the tools have been successfully applied during performances and network writing sessions. Principles are universal and I'm not saying that every artist needs to adapt these tips in order to be considered great, because in the spoken word poetry market everyone is unique, or at least they should be. Each person has a story to tell and it can have a powerful effect depending on how the writer delivers it.




Take the Mic


Book Description

Get on Stage and Perfect Your Performance Have you ever enjoyed a slam or two and thought, "I could do this," but felt apprehensive staring at that empty mic—or worse, you climbed up on stage and struggled? Let Marc Kelly Smith, the founder of Slam Poetry, teach you everything you need to be a confident performer, from writing a powerful poem, to stage techniques, to going on tour (if that's where your muse leads you). Take the Mic is filled with insider tips, backstage advice, and tons of examples of slam poems that wake up an audience. With this book, you'll also be able to link to the PoetrySpeaks.com community to listen to samples, meet poets, and unearth inspirations for your next performance. The Ultimate Guide to Writing and Performing with Power Take the Mic is an essential guide for lifting your poetry from the page to the stage. Marc Kelly Smith (So What!), grand founder of the Slam movement, serves as you personal coach, showing you how to craft stage-worthy verse and deliver a poetry performance that shakes the rafters and sparks thunderous applause. In Take the Mic, you discover how to... Pen poetry that's conducive to on-stage performance Overcome stage fright Practice powerful performance techniques Rehearse like a pro Shape a loose collection of poems into a killer set Connect with your audience — heart and soul Master the art of self-promotion Schedule your own slam poetry tour Transform your hobby into paying gigs Act professional to establish a solid reputation in the Slam community Take the Mic is packed with practical exercises you can do alone or in class to hone your skills and transform your body, mind, voice, verse, and spirit into an engaging stage presence. You'll also find a brief history of slam, the rules and regulations that govern official slam competitions, and a list of PSI (Poetry Slam, Inc.) Certified Slams, so no matter where you are, you always have a place to Take the Mic!




No Matter the Wreckage


Book Description

Top selling poet Sarah Kay releases her debut collection of work from the first decade of her career. Following the success of her breakout poem, "B," No Matter the Wreckage presents readers with new and beloved work that showcases Kay's skill for celebrating family, love, travel, history, and unlikely love affairs between inanimate objects ("Toothbrush to the Bicycle Tire"). Both fresh and wise, Kay's poetry allows readers to join in on her journey of discovering herself and the world around her. - 2011 TED speaker (recording has been viewed 3 million times online) - First book, "B" was ranked #1 Bestselling Poetry Book on Amazon - Featured on HBO, American Public Radio, Huffington Post, CNN.com, etc. - Founder and Co-Director of Project VOICE




The Type


Book Description

Sarah Kay's powerful spoken word poetry performances have gone viral, with more than 10 million online views and thousands more in global live audiences. In her second single-poem volume, Kay takes readers along a lyrical road toward empowerment, exploring the promise and complicated reality of being a woman. During her spoken word poetry performances, audiences around the world have responded strongly to Sarah Kay's poem The Type. As Kay wrote in The Huffington Post: "Much media attention has been paid to what it means to 'be a woman,' but often the conversation focuses on what it means to be a woman in relation to others. I believe these relationships are important. I also think it is possible to define ourselves solely as individuals... We have the power to define ourselves: by telling our own stories, in our own words, with our own voices." Never-before-published in book form, The Type is illustrated throughout and perfect for gift-giving.




Brave New Voices


Book Description

Utilizing student examples from their spoken word poetry workshops, Weiss and Herndon present their methods and outline a practical five-week course that fosters poetic awareness.




Not A Lot of Reasons to Sing, but Enough


Book Description

OF WHAT FUTURE ARE THESE THE WILD, EARLY DAYS? An exploration of the role that artists play in resisting authoritarianism with a sci-fi twist. In poetry, dialogue and visual art the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers. Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe history of Hip Hop, and part “Letters to a Young Poet”-style toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders, it's also a one-of-a-kind practitioners' take on poetry, power, and possibility. NOT A LOT OF REASONS TO SING is a: -post-apocalyptic road journal -alternate universe history of Hip Hop -“Letters to a Young Poet” -toolkit for emerging poets and aspiring movement-builders it's also a one-of-a-kind practitioners' take on poetry, power, and possibility.




The Spoken Word Revolution


Book Description

"A dynamic and clarifying volume chock-full of fresh and informative commentary...and an exciting array of knock-out poems." —Booklist Starred Review "Accompanied by a terrific CD that showcases the great variety of styles performance poetry embraces, from the purest of recitations to seductive musical presentations, this dynamic anthology embodies the thrilling and mutually beneficial rapprochement between the traditionalists and the slammers, something that seemed about as likely 10 years ago as that proverbial cold day in hell." —Chicago Tribune The Spoken Word Revolution brings to life the written and performed works of more than 40 of the most influential slam, hip hop, performance art and contemporary poets in the world today. This defining collection of spoken word poetry captures today's electrifying words and voices, in text and immediately live on one audio CD.




Killing Poetry


Book Description

Winner of the 2019 Lilla A. Heston Award Co-winner of the 2018 Ethnography Division’s Best Book from the NCA In recent decades, poetry slams and the spoken word artists who compete in them have sparked a resurgent fascination with the world of poetry. However, there is little critical dialogue that fully engages with the cultural complexities present in slam and spoken word poetry communities, as well as their ramifications. In Killing Poetry, renowned slam poet, Javon Johnson unpacks some of the complicated issues that comprise performance poetry spaces. He argues that the truly radical potential in slam and spoken word communities lies not just in proving literary worth, speaking back to power, or even in altering power structures, but instead in imagining and working towards altogether different social relationships. His illuminating ethnography provides a critical history of the slam, contextualizes contemporary black poets in larger black literary traditions, and does away with the notion that poetry slams are inherently radically democratic and utopic. Killing Poetry—at times autobiographical, poetic, and journalistic—analyzes the masculine posturing in the Southern California community in particular, the sexual assault in the national community, and the ways in which related social media inadvertently replicate many of the same white supremacist, patriarchal, and mainstream logics so many spoken word poets seem to be working against. Throughout, Johnson examines the promises and problems within slam and spoken word, while illustrating how community is made and remade in hopes of eventually creating the radical spaces so many of these poets strive to achieve.




B


Book Description

A whimsical love letter, a shared promise, a thank you note, and a whispered secret to mothers and daughters everywhere. The perfect gift, B celebrates the bond that exists between a parent and a child. Short, touching, and lovingly illustrated, it is a family tradition waiting to begin.




The Spoken Word Revolution Redux


Book Description

From its earliest days to today, poetry has always been a spoken art. On the page and out loud, poetry is the home for the brilliant, the rebellious, the artists and performers who are changing the world. Today's spoken word revolution is the literary equivalent to grabbing a culture by the collar and shaking it...hard. In the tradition of The Spoken Word Revolution, Redux brings more of the gripping, moving, innovative, often hilarious poetry in the oral tradition. This redefining collection gathers multiple forms of "spoken word" under the same motley tent—slam, hip-hop, musical interpretations, and youth movements among them. The resulting brew is both satisfying and world-expanding. One audio CD features some of the best poems and poets, immediately live in their own electrifying words and voices. The Spoken Word Revolution Redux includes: Singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley Slam Poetry founder Marc Smith Ethan Hawke reading Beat Poet Gregory Corso Jazz pianist Patricia Barber adapting ee cummings Former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, Bill Collins and Mark Strand Four-time national poetry slam champion Patricia Smith Jeff Tweedy of Wilco Hip-Hop founder Gil Scott-Heron Indy National Poetry Slam Champions, including Mayda da Ville Viggo Mortensen and Hank Mortensen Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins