The Art of Slam Poetry

Spoken poetry is a unique way in which speakers express themselves on societal issues by performing in front of an audience on stage. The poems convey issues on social justice, love, anger, and especially pain. Marc Smith, a renowned lyricist, created this genre of poetry in the late 1980s. Since then it has spread nationally and internationally to places like England and parts of Sweden. Spoken poetry is performed in bookstores, universities, on stage, or in cafes like the infamous Nuyorican Poetry Café in New York City.


Even the media has portrayed this phenomenon of urban blackness in different aspects for people that have never witness it (Somers-Willet “Authenticating” 14). Two movies called Slam and Love Jones both displayed spoken poetry, as well as HBO’s television series Def Poetry Jam created by hip hop mogul Russel Simmons (Somers-Willet). However, there are two forms of spoken poetry; which are spoken word and slam poetry. Spoken word is when the poet performs their words aloud for pleasure or entertainment. Slam poetry is when the artist performs their poetry in the form of spoken word for competition. During slam poetry, the poets’ main goal is to make their language translate into sound (Feher). The poem needs to be expressed in a way where the listener is able to understand the meaning of the text (Feher). If the poem was on a page, the reader will be able to observe the line breaks, end rhyme, internal rhyme, punctuation, and capitalization choices of the poet. This would indeed help the reader understand the poem better. In slam poetry, there is no page for the listener to read, so the poet must use elaborate techniques to convey certain technical elements.

Poets must use bodily gestures, vocal variety, and participation from their audience to get them involved and hopefully to better understand the message of the poem. This is why the rhetoric of slam poetry and the rhetoric of page poetry has been a huge controversy. Many critics feel that slam poetry is a disgrace to the art culture and poetic discourse of our society. They feel that it does not qualify to be in the same category as the poetry students read in scholarly situations. Some have even claimed that slam poetry is art’s downfall! (Somers-Willet 10). I, however, think it’s beautiful. According to Felice Belle’s article, “The Poem Performed,” she feels that it is unique to combine art and engaging performance. Art, protest, speech, and literature are all rhetoric of self-proclamation, so why is slam poetry not being accepted when it combines all these things?

Slam poetry is open to all people and all types of poetry (Somers-Willet 11). Academic poetry tends to lack this trait, because it lacks racial, class, gender, and sexual diversity (Somers-Willet 11). Bill Moyers states, “Democracy needs her poets in all their diversity precisely because our hope for survival is in recognizing the reality of one another’s lives.” The art of slam poetry is actually unique because artists “craft their work down to the word,” using allusions and pop culture.

My favorite spoken word poet is Lenelle Moise. She is Haitian-American and uses her struggles, triumphs, and experiences as a black woman in her work. She expresses herself through racism, classicism, and sexism. She uses a smooth jazzy flow of words to show awareness about many issues in society. Moise makes sure she keeps her audiences attention and her work is phenomenal. You can check her out at http://www.lenellemoise.com/ and her writings at www.lenellemoise.blogspot.com!