The Outgoing Daughter of Poetry

Looking for a breakaway from movies and comic books? Try spoken word poems, a type of poem designated for public performance for various meanings instead of just being printed in collections and newspapers.

This week, my Public Speaking class was challenged to perform a spoken poem of our choices, and we had quite a fun time experimenting this new type of performing art.

Nadya put up a smooth performance accompanied by a suitable background music. She made a good use of her low tone and created a good, slow enough rhythm, though she could use more body language.

Drew, as usual, performed a meaningful poem with a variety of tone and body languages, especially hand gestures. His chosen music also adds up a gentle, sad tone to the overall piece.

Jade, while seemed nervous, managed to pull off his poem with change in tone and expression when needed and the sad music made the poem more intense. Sometimes his voice was not loud enough to overcome the music and his emphasis on the shouting could be more emphatic, but generally it was a nice performance.

Sophia gave one of the best performance with the right music and the rap style. Her variation in postures, body languages, emotion and tone that went with the music made the piece compelling. It sounded almost like a real rap song instead of just a simple poem.

Christina was really brave when she chose to redo a poem that the class had already seen. By cutting down certain part, choosing a slower rhythm and different tone, she succeeded in bringing her own version of the poem.

Caroline was another person who did a really wonderful job in spoken word poem. Her motions and movement as well as the music added up to the attractiveness of the performance. The tone and the pacing were also appropriate with the piece.

Donaven made a remarkable performance by turning a part of a song into a spoken poem. The music choice, the rhythm and body languages all helped create a appealing piece, though sometimes the extra hand gestures were a bit distracting.

From the beginning of the project, I struggled mainly with two things: my music choice and my pacing. I don't have keen ears for music, and I found it hard to find a music piece that fit the tone and the rhythm of my poem. In the middle of the project, I changed my poem because I found another one that I liked better. Again, I had trouble with pacing the piece because I tended to make it too fast, which was both hard for my audience to hear and for myself to pronounce each word correctly. However, with feedback from my classmates and teacher, I was able to pace myself more slowly. Though I had good emphasis, I still need to work on coming up with more creative body language to accompany my performance.

What about you? Do you want to try create your own spoken word poetry or maybe even perform one? Trust me, it is more interesting that you may think!