Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
Glassworks

Stop Publishing the Spoken Word

5/15/2015

1 Comment

 
by Carly Szabo
With its roots clinging to a Chicago jazz club, it’s no wonder that slam poetry holds musicality at its very core. The success of slam poetry is dependent on the performance of the author, the voice of the poet. It’s not enough to have pretty words scribbled on the page. One must know how to perform the piece in a way that makes the words come to life. Oftentimes, slam poetry can look completely dull on the page. It can appear as prose poetry to some, or a stream of consciousness piece with awkward enjambment and nonsensical patterns. Its lack of form on the page is what makes slam poetry terrible, at times impossible, to read. Take the following example from Slam Nuba’s Volume Knob:


“This - is not a heart, it is a volume knob, you turn it this way when you wish to scream, you turn it this way when you wish to whisper”


Even this small excerpt from the poem’s very beginning is lackluster on the page. You can see the places where performance is necessary to the piece’s success. Which way are we turning the volume knob? Why is this a good analogy? What images are we not seeing on the page that we would see in the performance piece edition? All of these questions are answered in the following video:
 
Picture"Words Per Minute" by TheArches
So what makes Smith’s approach to poetry so appealing? What differentiates it from traditional poetry? Slam poetry is different in that there is a performance quality to it that is not always present in traditional poetry. Slam poetry deals more with cadence and musicality, relying on wordplay, rhyme, and alliteration more so than traditional poetry. Poems that appear on the page contain these elements as well, but slam poetry works to synthesize these elements in a way that is more audibly appealing. The result is a strong and distinct authorial voice that can be heard rather than guessed at through silent readings. The poet knows which words to emphasize, which moments to speed up and slow down, where to whisper and where to scream. All of these elements go beyond the page and, without written cues, can be lost on the reader completely. Think of it in the same way you would think about screenwriting. You wouldn’t pay the box office $13.00 just to get a written copy of a film. The true experience is in the performance of the piece, the actors allowing what is written on the page to come to life. It is for the same reason that slam poetry should not be read on the page. Indeed, it should never be published in ink.


Read More
1 Comment

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    March 2013
    February 2013


    Categories

    All
    Art
    Audio
    Bestseller
    Bibliotherapy
    Books
    Bookstores
    Career
    Cartoons
    Censorship
    Characters
    Cliche
    Code-switching
    Comedy
    Comics
    Controversy
    Culture
    Dyslexia
    Dystopian
    E-books
    Editorial
    Education
    Emoji
    Encyclopedia
    English
    Facebook
    Fandom
    Fanfiction
    Fantasy
    Fiction
    Film
    Future
    Gamebooks
    Gender
    Genre
    Google
    Grammar
    Habits
    Halloween
    Health
    Identity
    Journaling
    Kinesthetic Learning
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Library
    Literacy
    Literature
    Manga
    Marginalia
    Media
    Mental Health
    Multimodal
    Music
    New Media
    New York Times Best Seller List
    Nihilism
    Nonfiction
    Normalcy
    Nostalgia
    Obscenity
    Op Ed
    Opinion
    Pandemic
    Podcast
    Poetry
    Politics
    Process
    Pronouns
    Publishing
    Race
    Reading
    Rebuttal
    Research
    Rhetoric
    Rules
    Science Fiction
    Search
    Self-publishing
    Sequels
    Series
    Sexism
    Social Media
    Spoken Word
    Sports
    Standards
    Storytelling
    Student Writing
    Superheroes
    Teaching
    Technology
    Television
    The New York Times
    Trigger Warnings
    Trilogy
    Video Games
    Visual Novel
    War
    Wikipedia
    Workshop
    Writing
    Young Adult
    Zines


    RSS Feed


Picture

glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu
​All Content on this Site (c) 2023 glassworks
Photos used under Creative Commons from RomitaGirl67, ** RCB **, George Fox Evangelical Seminary