Spoken Word/Slam Poetry

We've all heard the age old adage that "a picture tells a thousand words"; but what can a thousand words tell you, other than also paint a picture?

I cannot bear allegiance to either one medium or the other - art and literature tell truths in their own special way that can not and must not be compromised for the sake of a better sell. It brings to mind the attempts of the Hollywood remake, so often tearing down cultural nuances in the mad rat race for some measly dollars. What good has ever come of it?

We ridicule philosophers, we scoff at the great thinkers of the past, and we mock poets for all their deep emotions. But sometimes, six little words are enough to resonate within us all.

Spoken word, or slam poetry, has an emormous impact on me. I will be the first to admit that my knowledge of it is of a bare minimal level, but I hope my appreciation overcomes that. 

In recent years I have admired Saul Williams, and in recent days I have engrossed myself in his music. Please read, or even better, listen to it...

I've been waiting here for what now seem the better of an hour. I've raised every crippled question from the dead and given power to the abscense of my sanity. The presence of a fear that lies in between forgotten dreams that pile up every year. Up above your highest testaments, down below the wooden floor, there's a gutted room, pitch black at noon, beneath a hidden door. Deep within you'll find the attributes of every sunken man who must bang his head against the dead each day he tries to stand. And he's standing pressed against the very woman that he loves. Kissing eyes and lips, embracing hips, surrendering to her touch and just at the very moment that he touches heart to heart, she pulls from his touch, 'cause it's too much to mend what's torn apart...
Skin of a Drum - Saul Williams


To manifest your dreams before you manifest your fears. To navigate beyond the treachery of self-despair. To find the balance between all you sense and all you see. To find the patience and the strength it takes to let it be. To stand amongst the crowd and have the strength to hold your own. To throw away the pen and pad and simply be the poem. To rise above hatred to love through seeming contradiction. To seldom take a side and learn to compliment the friction. To bring about the change within that we can't live without. To shift and rearrange ideals and learn to deal with doubt. To voice the victory and unlearn ways of self-defeat. To learn the value of "Yo fuck the words, just ride the beat." To leave the comfort zones of all you know to all you feel. To step beyond the void and realize the unknown is real. To re-imagine every obstacle as just a means, of honing craft and learn to laugh at failures funny dream. There has to be some other way to stop the fight!  

Raised to be Lowered - Saul Williams

I have also had the pleasure of stumbling upon a spoken word artist from Harlem, New York who performed the following piece on SBS Insight last week:

We are a persevering people. America, surely you are a tale to be told somersaulting in the voice of a hopeful nation, Lady Liberty singing the blues a relentless heartbeat in tune. A quilted soul humming for change, what a breathing dream in the palm of hard work, you are fireworks set free in the glow of a child's eye. Opportunity inspiring us to reach for the sky dancing, miracles in the midst of adversity, you are a cause worth fighting for. America, you are a country clinging to the future wearing passion ocean-wide like a frantic love. Let us build bridges and not burn them. May we engage a new wisdom, inspire a wandering imagination and live to see our dreams butterfly and take hold.

I have nothing more left to say.