Spoken word rant

6 comments on “Spoken word rant”

1. AskThisBlackWoman says:
   May 21st, 2008 at 11:28 am

   I occasionally play this game with my black friends. What “black” thing, art form, music, fashion, do you really hate but are afraid to admit in front of other black people for fear of losing your black-cred. Spoken word is number 1 on my list. I hate everything about it.

2. Jacob McArthur Mooney says:
   May 21st, 2008 at 4:19 pm

   I’m really glad this is becoming a topic of conversation. While I wish Paul had used a slightly less apocryphal title in his blogpost, I agree with a lot of what he said. Mostly, though, I appreciate that he started a conversation (debate? riot?) about spoken word poetry that doesn’t use any of the typical shouting-off points that characterize that discussion (see: race, class, the big evil A word–academia). I want to add a couple of points that maybe approach from a different angle but are my major reasons for being eternally suspicious of the spoken word world.

   1. Ownership
   As a “page” poet, I really like the idea that once I write a poem, put it in a book, and have the book go out in the world, I lose intellectual control over it. Ideally, a written poem is a kind of blueprint for a possible experience. If the blueprint is well constructed, then the reader can unpack it for themself and experence a personal rendition of what the poet was trying to communicate. It’s as close as we’re ever going to get to telepathy. But a poem whose value is intrinsically tied to its “performance” demands that the audience (he or she is no longer actively involved enough to call themselves anything as important as a “reader”) only experiences the poem the way its creator wants you to. To use the same metaphor, the poet makes his or her blueprints, drives to your front lawn, tears your house down, builds the house displayed in the prints, buys all your furniture, then waits for you to applaud. There’s no personal experience and no intimacy. This is why people tend to hate film versions of their favourite novels. People don’t like to have their imagination translated into some dictatorial, communal, experience. What I love about writing poetry is there will always be a time when you say to a readership, “Here, have this. I don’t own it any more. It’s up to you to say it’s good.” The spoken-word equivalent of that statement appears to be “This is mine. All mine. And only I can show you how it’s supposed to be said. I’ll let you stand in the same room as I recite it, or listen to it on a CD, but that’s as close as you will get.”

   And all this from the art form of “power to the people”.

   2. Propaganda. I’m always hearing spoken worders complain that a good poet with good ideas will always lose out to a good performer with no ideas. Some people are voicing those complaints in the comments section of Paul’s blog right now. If we can regress a few years to the old idea of poetry being the combined application of the dimension of sound and the dimension of sense, then it bothers me that the former always wins out over the latter in spoken word-art. Certainly, this happens sometimes in written poetry, as well (and as it should, we’re not essayists or journalists, at least not outside of our day-jobs), but the effect seems to be more complete in spoken word. So complete, in fact, that it’s gone beyod the point of sound OVER sense and into the far more extreme territority of sound IS sense. The prosaic equivalent is probably the equally-ridiculous mantra of the ethic IS the aesthetic. I remember going to a show and seeing a performer who regularly lost his train of thought, seemed to have confused the definition of the word dogmatic with the word secular, but could find a natural rhyme for any word (even “dogmatic” and “secular”) and knew how to build to a strong conclusion. So, he received an impassioned applause and I remember thinking, This sucks. Who are these people? I just think that there’s a real confusion happening in spoken word right now where elevated sound is being mistaken for elevated thought. Where the visceral reaction (and probably the mob mentality) of being carried away by a public performance is acting as a replacement for real, considered, intellectual experimentation and emotional honesty. So often the politics are just a restatement of the speaker’s identity, and the conflict is just a list of things they dont like. Using sound as a smokescreen for a dearth of ideas is dishonest, unoriginal, and, let`s just come out and say it, politically reckless. I know that not everyone in spoken word does this of course, but it’s inset with the culture of the art. What matters that everyone could do it if they wanted to.

   So, thanks to Paul for saying this stuff out loud. I hope nobody shows up to heckle you (in perfect 4/4 time) at your next reading. This kind of debate is always prone to shouting matches, but I think it’s worth talking about. I’d ike to se Bookninja donate some magazine space to hearing from many sides of the story.

   -Jacob McArthur Mooney, Mississaug-why?

3. Doctor Morgue says:
   May 21st, 2008 at 4:35 pm

   I couldn’t have read it better myself.

4. Rusty Priske says:
   May 22nd, 2008 at 7:20 am

   I encourage people to go and read the thread associated with the blog. There is a lot of good information therethat exposes this piece for what it is.

5. Jacob McArthur Mooney says:
   May 22nd, 2008 at 11:56 am

   Hilarious sidenote to #4: And most of it was written by Rusty.

6. Rusty Priske says:
   May 22nd, 2008 at 1:41 pm

   Not quite. I posted 3 times out of the 37 comments listed.

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