1. Spoken word & performance poetry
The idea of poetry as spoken performance is as old as the “bardic” poetry of Homer, and as up-to-date as the “poetry slam.”
The poet in such settings is a “public speaker” rather than a private writer – and it is because of this that such poetry can be thought of as rhetorical.
Rhetorical in the sense of language engaged in persuasive discourse, often about issues of public concern.
Rhetorical also in the sense of poetry that, across a very long history, has used direct, familiar and repetitive language especially suited to speech and performance, e.g.:
uncomplicated vocabulary and syntax (including colloquialism and “street” language)
a preference for loose overall structures and for varied line lengths
a fondness for repeated phrases, insistent rhyming and word-play

2. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Ancient & traditional examples
Christian examples
Afro-Caribbean examples
‘Prophet-ic,’ ‘democrat-ic’ & ‘beat’ poetry
Afro-American examples
Avant-garde ‘perform-ance’ art

3. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Ancient & traditional examples
‘Oral’ & ‘bardic’ epic
Tradit-ional ballad
Incantat-ions, spells, mantras, etc.
‘Formulaic’ language – stock phrases in a repeated metrical form - as a compositional tool in oral poetry; choruses & other repetitive forms.

4. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Christian examples
Bible reading
Prophecy & sermons
Hymns, psalms, spoken prayers & respon-ses
‘Parallelism’ as a characteristic of Hebrew/ Biblical style; the rhetoric of preaching; rhythmical & repeated song/chant

5. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Afro-Caribbean examples
W. African ‘griot’ storytelling & song traditions
Calypso: plantation music in Trinidad, orig. sung in Creole
Reggae: urban Jamaican music with U.S. R&B influences
Song & dance styles, fusing African & European musical forms, often based on improvisation & topical themes, sometimes protesting against colonial/elite authorities.

6. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
‘Prophetic,’ ‘democratic’ & ‘beat’ poetry
William Blake, Marriage of Heaven & Hell, [PR4144.M2]
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855 [PS3201]
Allan Ginsberg, Howl, 1956
[PS3513]
The use of long lines & plain language, as vehicles for radical, dissenting poetry - voicing the outlook of the ‘common man,’ as well as of countercultural protest.

7. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Allan Ginsberg, Howl, 1956
Ginsberg reading ‘Howl’ in 1959:

8. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Afro-American examples
Gospel-based preaching & ‘Negro spirituals’
Blues: post-slavery music of the ‘Deep South’
Rap: spoken or chanted rhymed lyrics, esp. in 80s hip-hop
Song forms based on many influences, with a core of rhythmical speech, loose narratives of ‘hard times,’ often addressing difficult issues within Afro-American communities.

9. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Avant-garde ‘performance art’
Dadaist poems & sound poetry
Word art within installat-ions
Verbal art within ‘happen-ings’ & ‘flash mobs’
Experimental uses of language, employing words as units of sound over meaning, & involv-ing performance as a vehicle for interrogating conventional ideas of poetry & communication.

10. Spoken word & performance poetry: the wider picture
Dadaist poems & sound poetry
Holly Pester & Emma Bennett, Camaradefest II
(Rich Mix Arts Centre, 2014)

11. Spoken word & performance poetry
Louis MacNeice, ‘Prayer before birth,’ 1944
Benjamin Zephaniah, ‘Money,’ 1992
Patience Agbabi, ‘Word,’ 2000
John Cooper Clarke, ‘Transvest-ite,’ 2009
Neil Hilborn, ‘OCD,’ 2013
Savannah Brown, ‘I’m a slut,’ 2015

12. Spoken word & performance poetry
Louis MacNeice, ‘Prayer before birth,’ 1944

13. Spoken word & performance poetry
Louis MacNeice ( )
Collected Poems
(Faber, 1962)
PR6025.A27
I am not yet born; O hear me. Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the 
club-footed ghoul come near me. I am not yet born, console me. I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me. I am not yet born; provide me With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me. I am not yet born; forgive me For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me. I am not yet born; rehearse me In the parts I must play and the cues I must take
when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.
I am not yet born; O hear me, Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.
I am not yet born; O fill me With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with 
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and 
thither or hither and thither  
like water held in the
hands would spill me. Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me. Otherwise kill me.

14. Spoken word & performance poetry
Benjamin Zephaniah, ‘Money,’ 1992

15. Spoken word & performance poetry
Benjamin Zephaniah
(born 1958)
City Psalms (Bloodaxe, 1992)
Gangsta Rap (Bloomsbury, 2004)
PR6076.E6
Money​ make a rich man feel like a big man
It make a poor man feel like a hooligan
A one parent family feels like a ruffian
An those who have it won’t give you anything
Money makes your friend become your enemy
You start seeing things very superficially
Your life is lived very artificially
Unlike those who live in poverty
Money affects your ego
But money brings you down
Money causes problems anywhere money is found
Food is what we need
Food is necessary
Let me grow my food
An dem can eat dem money
Money can save us
But yet we feel doomed
Plenty money burns in a nuclear mushroom
Money can make you happy
Money can help you when you die
An those who have it continually live a lie
Children are dying
Spies are spying
Refugees are fleeing
Politicians are lying
An deals are done
An webs are spun
An no one keeps the third world on the run
An the brother feels better than the brother next door
Cause his brothers got money an his brothers got more
The brother thinks a brother’s not a brother cause he’s poor
When a brother kills another that is economic war
Economic war we call it economic war
It may not be the east and west anymore
But the north and south third world fall out
Sugar and iron
That’s what it’s about
Economic war
Shots fired from the stock market floor
So we work for a livin’
An we try an we try
With so little time for chillin’
Like we’re livin a lie
Money makes a dream become reality
Money makes real life like a fantasy
Money has a habit of going to the head
I have some for the rainy day underneath me bed
Money problems make it hard to relax
Money makes it difficult to get down to the facts
Money makes you worship vanity and lies
Money is a drug with legal highs
Money made me go out an rob
Then it made me go looking for a job
Money made the nurse
And the doctor emigrate
Money buys friends you love to hate
Money made slavery seem alright
Money brought the Bible
An the Bible shone the light
Victory to the penniless
At grass root sources
We come to mash those market forces

16. Spoken word & performance poetry
Patience Agbabi, ‘Word,’ 2000

17. Spoken word & performance poetry
Patience Agbabi (born 1965)
Transformatrix, (Canongate, 2000)
Give me a word
any word
let it roll across the tongue
like a dolly mixture.
Open your lips
say it loud
let each syllable vibrate
like a transistor.
Say it again again again again again
till it’s a tongue twister
till its meaning is in tatters
till its meaning equals sound
now write it down
loop the loop
letter by letter
till you form a structure.
Do it again again again again again
till it’s a word picture.
Does this inspire?
Is your consciousness on fire?
Then let me take you higher.
Give me a noun
give me a verb
cos I’m in motion
and I’m on a mission
to deliver information
so let me take you to the fifth dimension.
No fee, it’s free
So sit back, relax,
you only gotta pay attention.
let me take you back
to when you learnt to walk, talk
learnt coordination
and communication
mama, dada.
If you rub two words together you get friction
cut them in half, you get a fraction.
If you join two words you get multiplication.
My school of mathematics
equals verbal acrobatics
so let’s make conversation.
Give me a preposition
give me an interjection
give me inspiration.
In the beginning was creation
I’m not scared of revelations
cos I’ve done my calculations.
I’ve got high hopes
on the tightrope,
I just keep talking.
I got more skills than I got melanin
I’m fired by adrenaline
if you wanna know what rhyme it is
it’s feminine.
Cos I’m Eve on an Apple Mac
this is a rap attack
so rich in onomatopoeia
I’ll take you higher than the ozone layer.
So give me Word for Windows
give me ‘W’ times three
cos I’m on a mission
to deliver information
that is gravity defying
and I’ll keep on trying
till you lose your fear of flying.
Give me a pronoun
give me a verb
and I’m living in syntax.
You only need two words to form a sentence.
I am I am I am I am I am
bicultural and sometimes clinical,
my mother fed me rhymes through the umbilical,
I was born waxing lyrical.
I was raised on Watch with Mother
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
and Fight the Power.
Now I have the perfect tutor
in my postmodern suitor,
I’m in love with my computer.
But let me shut down
before I touch down.
Give me a word
give me a big word
let me manifest
express in excess
the rich M I X
of my voice box.
Now I’ve eaten the apple
I’m more subtle than a snake is.
I wanna do poetic things in poetic places.
Give me poetry unplugged
so I can counter silence.
Give me my poetic licence
and I’ll give you metaphors that top eclipses
I’ll give you megabytes and megamixes.
Give me a page and I’ll perform on it
give me a stage and I’ll cut form on it.
any word.

18. Spoken word & performance poetry
John Cooper Clarke, ‘Transvestite,’ 2009

19. Spoken word & performance poetry
Neil Hilborn, ‘OCD,’ 2013

20. Spoken word & performance poetry
The first time I saw her... Everything in my head went quiet. All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared. When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments. Even in bed, I’m thinking: Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. Did I lock the doors? Yes. Did I wash my hands? Yes. But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips.. Or the eyelash on her cheek. the eyelash on her cheek. the eyelash on her cheek. I knew I had to talk to her. I asked her out six times in thirty seconds. She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going. On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or fucking talking to her... But she loved it. She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times or if it was Wednesday. She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk. When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times. I’d always watch her mouth when she talked. When she talked. When she talked. When she talked. When she talked. When she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges. At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off..
Neil Hilborn
(born 1990)
Our Numbered Days
(Button Poetry, 2015)

21. Spoken word & performance poetry
And on, and off…
She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her. Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was just making her late for work... When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking... When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line. She told me that I was taking up too much of her time. Last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place. She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but... How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touched her? Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t. I can’t – I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her. Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin. I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars... And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on. I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel.. How she turns shower knobs like she’s opening a safe. How she blows out candles. Blows out candles. Blows out candles. Blows out candles. Blows out candles. Blows out… Now, I just think about who else is kissing her. I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once — he doesn’t care if it’s perfect! I want her back so bad I leave the door unlocked. I leave the lights on.

22. Spoken word & performance poetry
Savannah Brown, ‘I’m a slut,’ 2015