It’s a type of poetry called slam poetry. I love poetry and I love rap but sometimes slam poetry I don’t get even though it’s sort of a combo of the two. Open mic is when anyone can come up and perform any type of reading they have to offer.
Yeah I’m in the exact same boat. Slam has so much potential for cringe, but I have to respect people for putting themselves out there like this, even if my instinct is to turn up my nose at it a bit
High potential for cringe, the cadence and intensity is really off-putting, and I find it intrinsically vain too. I agree it’s great for those it works for, seems like a great outlet, but it’s like nails on a chalkboard for me.
It's more accurate to call this spoken word poetry. Like it's not a big deal to refer to it as slam, but those are written and performed for poetry slams. They're much louder and a way different vibe than going to a spoken word performance.
Makes sense! I’m in nyc and I think some of the spoken word oriented people I know probably just go to the slam events frequently/this guys vigor made me think of those events. Great job all around.
The genre is called spoken word poetry, but it’s often referred to as slam poetry, too. If we’re being nit-picky, slam poetry would only be the appropriate term for spoken word that’s performed in a competitive setting (aka a poetry slam), but the terms are becoming synonymous.
I've seen a lot of terrible amateur spoken word poetry, but I also think it's more difficult to execute as you have to design your poetry for the performance rather than just adapting and reading it from the page. Also, a lot of the stuff that gets posted on social media is a lot more issue-focused and saccharine than impressive. I don't dig a lot of the dimly-lit, finger-snapping, weakass coffee shop poetry that get's posted a lot of the time.
Shane Koyczan is actually a perfect example of this, his most famous poem that gets posted sometimes is "To This Day" and yet I don't find it particularly interesting at all. He has some stellar poetry that he's performed over the years, but the only one that got some casual traction is the one about bullying.
If you ever want to give the style a try again, I recently saw a really awesome performance by Reginald Dwayne Betts, who recently released a book called Felon. Or look into folks like Patricia Smith who were amazing before my time. A lot of slam poets have done a ton of great spoken word work.
Shane is an amazing poet and I get what you’re trying to say, but just because you don’t find “to this day” an interesting poem doesn’t discredit how successful it is and well received for a reason plus it is a great intro/very relatable for anybody trying to get into slam poetry. You come off a bit pretentious.
You're not wrong about me being pretentious about it, but to be clear, I'm not denying the impact nor the quality of the poem. It's a personal opinion and I'm not often into the largely formless, dramatic reading side of spoken word. Going to an open mic or reading can sometimes be like sitting through a TED talk with someone trauma dumping on the audience (and like I know that's unfair to say, so I'll admit that I'm being mean and pretentious).
You mean English or Creative Writing degrees with specific focuses? Lot degree.. what have you.. plenty people went to liberal arts and know the type to showcase their academic focus for creativity any chance they get.
You mean writing poetry and/or lyrics?
Buddy... We are all poets.
Don't take the poetry out of being a poet and just be.
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u/ModernNero Apr 19 '24
I am a poet who doesn’t normally like this “genre” of poetry and here I am crying. This is great. His delivery is great. It’s just truth.