Hello dearest Scrawl Nation! This week, following last week’s terrifying Horror writing episode, we decided to talk about a particular type of writing that is very popular among tutors at the Writing Center: spoken word poetry. Joining us on Scrawl this week were two current tutors at the writing center, Hannah Lee and Annie Baldwin. Both are spoken word poets, and they shared the stories of their involvement with spoken word and how they started as poets. As always, we played a rousing round of Word of the Day. Our first song today was a spoken word piece from a British Poet, Suli Breaks.
During our interview with Annie and Hannah, we asked a variety of questions concerning audience, what determines if they make a poem a spoken word piece or a written piece, what they think makes a great performance, and how they perform. Our favorite moment from this conversation was Annie Baldwin’s sharing that spoken word allows her to be free in “gushing my truth.”
Instead of playing America’s Favorite Game, we listened to America’s Favorite Spoken Word, as performed by our two guests. Jump to the 35 minute mark if you just can’t wait to hear these two original pieces by two amazing UCWbLers!
Our final song, “Shake It Off,” by Taylor Swift, was also the focus of the rhetoric section this week. Our analyses focused on the repetition in the song, who she was addressing with this song, her play into conventional cliches, and if this counts as spoken word poetry.
You can listen to the podcast today by clicking here or clicking the streaming player at the bottom of this post. Be sure to check the UCWbL out on Facebook, Twitter, and Digication!