Speaking of Spoken Word

 I picked up Seventh Octave a couple weeks ago because I missed Saul Williams and our only copy of SLAM is on VHS.  So I skimmed and read, first silently and then aloud.  Then, when I went to the bird feeders blog, she’d posted this great performance by Rives, and it was like sweet confirmation from the universe that I should speak to spoken word.  So, I will.  I’m circling back around to the oral tradition of poetry.  In the beginning, it was what pulled me in – I loved it, and I couldn’t wait to write something to share with anyone who would listen to me.  Then, a lot of people started listening, and def poetry jam happened and open mics and poetry slams were as frequent and far as the eye could see.  It was competitive and inauthentic, and I wanted no more parts of it, so I silenced myself.  I wanted to get stronger on the page; that’s where I focused.


In recent years, I’ve been to only a few events (as a spectator).  I’ve listened to various poets and writers belittle spoken poetry, like it’s fake – their very western sensibilities making light of words that fly up from mouths.  Is it because they cannot hold these words in their hands?  Is it because they cannot follow them? I don’t know.  What I do know is that when oral poetry is successful, when the likes of a Rives or Saul Williams or Talaam Acey or Suheir Hammad recites a poem, it is otherworldly.  What the written word does not give you is that third experience/interpretation – that thing in between the words and spaces and breaths and pauses and the clever use of a homonym and various forms of wordplay.  I am not diminishing the importance or impact of the written word, but it is, essentially, only two dimensions.  When oral poetry is done well, there is more than the transmission and reception of common communication.  The speaker and audience commune – you’re in a relationship from the opening line to the closing phrase.  And it is beautiful.