Spoken Word Poetry

    My poet for the mentor poet assignment is Sarah Kay. We read one of her poems in class, and I decided to learn more about her. Sarah's a spoken word poet, which is something I'm fairly unfamiliar with and previously had no desire of looking into. Before discovering Kay's work, the first thing that I would think of when I heard spoken word poetry happened to be the scene from 22 Jump Street, where Jonah Hill's character is partaking in some poetry of his own.

    If you're unfamiliar with the scene, here is his poem:

 "Slam poetry. Yelling. Angry. Waving my hands a lot. Specific point of view on things. Cynthia. Cyn-thi-a. Jesus died for our Cynthia’s. Jesus cried. Runaway bride. Julia Roberts. Julia rob-hurts. Cynthia. Mmmmm Cynthia, you’re dead. You are dead. Be boop beep you’re dead."

    Those beautiful words have been practically my only experience with spoken word or slam poetry. After watching Sarah Kay perform her poems, I've found a great and new appreciation for spoken word poets. I definitely wouldn't be able to achieve the same effect as her, but it is really interesting to watch. It's extremely impressive how she can induce so much emotion from reading a poem, and I've found that my interest in poetry has grown more.