For Thursday's class, October 22, read pages 62-78 from The Spoken Word Revolution. You can read on if you like. Listen to the CD tracks 14-16 also. The author is looking at performance poetry. How to the poetry reflect the period discussed? Are their thematic differences or formal ones? Do you have any personal preferences?
What do you like about the poetry you've read so far? How does this poetry expand your taste buds? Are there any poets you've been inspired to seek out?
Respond to the questions.
2 comments:
Actually, last evening I was inspired to seek out Amiri Baraka. I did so because when I think of beat poets I think of him. I think of him when I think of my roots for some reason. So last night, I went on YouTube and listened to his poems and read up on him. After doing so, I learned that he was not a poet primarily but an author. I recognized that he was a teacher. I liked what I heard because I feel like there is less of a melody nowadays. In the beat generation there was a music to it that did not allow us scratch people when we hit them with our work. It was smooth. It was a bomb that exploded in the suburbs whose billowing smoke was...green like a fluid forest; whose fire has slow and dancing, not fast and feverish. I liked it. It reminds me of black people. How we dress so fly as to express our hatred for poverty and those who put us there. So fly, we ride in our cars with the music up and windows down as to scream with the volume of a shotgun blast from a black panther's finger, "I am free now," laughing all the way. I liked it and I hope that it will help me to write more myself.
Itzel Diaz
English 1B
Response to The Spoken Word Revolution pg. 62-78
Poetry is all about performing, the way poets talk, how they move and how they express their emotions is what makes others feel empathy towards their words. A poem could express anything, from an everyday emotion or situation to the most horrible feelings and desires. Poetry is how we feel and express ourselves; the way others feel towards poetry depends on the way the poet performs.
Poems like “Television” by Todd Alcott make me feel like I am part of the poem. When Todd takes something so everyday life, like television everybody can relate to what he is saying. Alcott talks to the public like if he was the television; he basically express what a television would tell us if it could talk. In the beginning it says, “Look at me. Look at me” (70). The same sentence repeats several times, the poem keeps on going and it seems like the words in the poem transform the public into a victim, somebody’s slave. Todd Alcott’s performance helps the public relate to his words, and help them realize that objects like television can be addictive, Todd’s performance in the perfect complement to his poetry.
From the voice tone to the corporal expression, poet’s performance makes poetry entertaining. Reading a poem is not the same as performing it. The performances that poets around the world are part of make a big difference when it comes to the way people are going to interpret it. When someone is just reading a poem without the use of emotion, others have the chance to interpret poet’s words in a different way. But when poets are performing, they are transmitting emotions and not any emotions. Poets are expressing the emotions that they want the public to feel, making poetry’s performances the best way to communicate our feelings and emotions.
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