Spoken Word poetry
"Pointlessly stiff term for poetry read aloud with stand-up comic timing and
aggression," said the New York Times in 1994. Renewed interest in
The Beats during the early '90s mobilized young poets
to display their verbal
acuity at coffee bars nationwide. From Venice's Beyond Baroque to New York
City's Nuyorican Poets Café and Fez, hungry "wannabeats" entered
game-show-like "poetry slams" where audience popularity determines the
victor. (Chicago's Green Mill is credited with originating the form in 1986.)
The Gap was among the first corporate entities to invoke spoken word, making
a minor celebrity out of Max Blagg, the English-born poet featured in a $10
milli on TV ad campaign in 1992. (Adweek later proclaimed the
commercials "a raving flop.") Among other spoken word mini-celebs were Reg E.
Gaines and Maggie Estep, surly stars of
MTV's inter-program "Fightin' Wordz" segments; in 1993
the station staged poetry specials and a tours. There was a boom in spoken
word CD releases both old and new, including a three-disk collection by
long-time practitioner Henry Rollins; in 1994,
Lollapalooza upgraded from spoken-word videos
to a dedicated tent.
POETRY
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Document URL: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/spoken-word.html
Last modified: Wednesday, 18-Jul-2007 16:28:46 EDT