The Beauty and Honesty of Spoken Word Poetry

I’ve been sucked into a hole of the internet this past week. The latest mini project from we are the contributors is called #mediumswitch. I knew I wanted to do something for this project, but as I sat down to think of what to work on I was suddenly stumped. Between art classes in high school, attending art school and just being an artist who likes to experiment, I’ve played with a lot of mediums in my time. photography, mixed media, calligraphy, cyanotype, stamping, screen print, bamboo brush, digital illustration and manipulation and painting, oil paint, watercolor, acrylics, book making, embroidery, colored pencil, chalk pastels, oil pastels, land art, sculpture, clay, pencil, pen, charcoal, wax, food art, stop motion, image transfers and so much more.

At this point in my creative life, I’ve gotten to the point that I know what materials I like and what I enjoy creating and I stick with it because I’ve tried so much. So I did a search looking for something new, something to excite me and make me say “hell yes!” and I found it: performance art. spoken word poetry.

I’ve been a writer longer than I’ve been a visual artist and poetry has been a long time love. For a while, I wanted to grow up and be a poet more than anything else. I’ve never done spoken word, however. Because of my anxiety, I don’t plan on getting up in front of an audience (at least not now) but I’m working on a piece that I’m going to video and hope to share.

Today, I wanted to share a few of my favorite pieces of spoken word poems I’ve found. (please note: most of them are about very real topics and might contain triggers so please watch with caution).

“[Depression]is applying a clown face and pretending everything is cool and content when you know you will explode any minute.”
“It’s being afraid of being alone with your own thoughts in an empty apartment but not wanting anyone around you.”
“You wouldn’t call me crazy if you knew how much I hate me.”
Depression by Rage Almighty

“I know girls who are…playing Russian roulette with death. it is never easy to accept that our bodies are fallible and flawed.”
“…the funny thing is women like us don’t shoot, we swallow pills still wanting to be beautiful at the morgue, still preceding to put on make up still hoping that the mortician makes us sexy and attractive…”
“I only know how to exist when I am wanted. Girls like us are hardly ever wanted you know.”
“You are worth more than who you attract. You are worth more than a waist line…You are no less valuable as a size 16 than a size 4.”
I Know Girls by Mary Lambert

“We are the magnifiers of mole hill. The princes of panic. The ambassadors of anguish. There is no pride here.”
“These people who fight through everyday like fucking gladiators. Who fight demons worse than you and I can dream of. Just because they want so badly to live, to hold on. To love because you can’t be this afraid of loosing everything if you don’t love everything fist.”
Anxiety Group by Catalina Ferro

“There is hurt here that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry.”
“There will be days like this my mama said…when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. when your boots will fill with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the days you have all the more reason to say thank you…”
“I see the impossible every day. impossible is trying to connect in this world, trying to hold onto others while things are blowing up around you.”
“This isn’t my first time here, this isn’t my last time here, these aren’t the last words I’ll share, but just in case I’m trying my hardest to get it right this time around.”
Sarah Kay Ted Talk

Share: Have you recently tried out a new medium? Hod did it go? Have you ever done any spoken word poetry?