THE SPOKEN WORD REVOLUTION

Slam poetry. Hip hop. Performance art. And their bedeviled ancestors--the Beat Poets. All had one thing in common. They all wanted to get poetry out of the lecture halls and into the streets. This text-sized volume and accompanying CD offer some solid examples, context, and a frenetic history of what narrator Marc Smith calls the "democrazation" of poetry. Smith knows of what he speaks, having arranged and participated in the earliest slam performances in Chicago in the late 1980s. These days slam competitions are held worldwide. Reciting a poem out loud is one of our most ancient and honored oral traditions. What those "deep in the scene" want you to know is that standing up, commanding an audience to listen, and artfully baring one's soul is still important--and still works. B.P. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: OCT/ NOV 03]