Experimental Poetry 14: Speak out loud

Poetry is not only textual. It is also spoken word. The oral tradition of story telling through verse has a long history.

Most of my early poetry experiences were either listening to the spoken word, or on stage performing the spoken word of my own poetry. So poetry has a natural affinity with the voice - whether spoken out loud - or the inner voice, inside the mind. All of our poetry derives from our voice. Some of the best poetry I have ever experienced was heard rather than read. Here in the UK there are some awesome living poets, including John Cooper Clarke, Mike Garry and Harry Baker. The spoken word creates ambience, emotion, cadence and inflection way beyond what you might expect to encounter in a printed text. The spoken word takes poetry to the next level.

It would be only natural then, to also create poetry without using a pen, pencil, laptop, quill etc. All of these are human inventions that enable us to make writing more or less permanent. But what if we would instead create our poetry from only the speaking out loud method?

Method 25: Speaking out loud. Here's how it might work: You think of a topic (give it a title), and then begin speaking. It doesn't need to necessarily make sense, rhyme or have any specific direction. Remember my post on stream of consciousness poetry? Simply speak and the words come out. There are some excellent freestyle rappers who can do this at the drop of the hat, but they have had a lot of practice. Don't expect yours to be perfect first time. It won't be. But somewhere in the jumble of utterings and mutterings that emerge, you might find a few lines or phrases that you can develop later into a fully fledged poem. Don't forget to record it as you speak! 

Now that's experimental poetry!

Steve Wheeler

Previous posts in this series

Experimental Poetry 1: Found Poetry
Experimental Poetry 2: Stream of Consciousness
Experimental Poetry 3: Fake Translations
Experimental Poetry 4: Overlapping Voices
Experimental Poetry 5: Random Prompts
Experimental Poetry 6: The Movie Method
Experimental Poetry 7: Unexpected End Rhymes
Experimental Poetry 8: Calligrams
Experimental Poetry 9: Anarchic Poetry
Experimental Poetry 10: Timed Writing
Experimental Poetry 11: Paraphrasing
Experimental Poetry 12: Deliberate Malapropism
Experimental Poetry 13: Breaking Structure

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Urban poetry

What is urban poetry? Well, have you ever seen or watched a performance of poetry on the streets? I used to do this myself when I was younger. It takes some courage, but out on the streets you always have an audience of some kind. I would get on top of a wooden box with a microphone stand and perform my poetry to anyone who was walking by and who might be prepared to stop and listen for a while. Yep, I was a little bit more insane back then. I've seen others do similar. Urban poetry doesn't have to be outdoors. It can be anywhere. Some of the best urban poetry pops up unexpectedly and takes us all by surprise. 

Urban poetry is about being on the right side of history. It's about telling the truth in spoken word. It can be about down to earth subjects with which we can all identify, like love and loss, traffic jams, chip shop queues, losing your keys, self esteem, or simply... living in a city. More often than not, urban poetry is a protest about something - corrupt politicians, war, poverty, pollution, racism... you name it. If you want to speak out against something by writing and performing poetry, you can call it urban poetry. There's no room for flowery language in urban poetry. It's delivered in a no-compromise, earthy, gritty, street level rhythm and tempo with plenty of rhyme and some choice language too.

Classic urban poetry proponents include Manchester Poet Mike Garry performing Penny for the Guy in an outdoor market, or Gil Scott Heron with his classic The Revolution will not be Televised complete with a bass and drum accompaniment.

Look out also for excellent urban poets such as Harry Baker, the inimitable John Cooper Clark (here he is in 1980 with a poem about urban decay called Beasley Street) and Birmingham poet and playwright Benjamin Zephaniah (here with a 2009 performance of Dis Poetry)... all of whom have influenced my own writing and poetry performances and probably inspired me to write my 2020 collection Urban Voices. If you have poetry in you, and it is just screaming to get out, try the spoken word as well as the written word to get your message out there. You can do a lot worse than plunge into some poetry performances out on the street. 

Be an urban poet - and go make some waves. 

Steve Wheeler

Image copyright by Steve Wheeler 2023