Spoken Word Art

If someone analyzed my Master's Artist posts throughout the years, I know one theme that would arise, predominant: I love the sound of words. I love the silent music sung inside a reader's head, subconscious melody creating mood like violins behind two lovers, unaware, enraptured without knowing why.

I also love that many folks could read the paragraph above (and this as well), not noticing it's all composed in meter, yet affected by iambic feet as though they marched, unseen yet pulsing, making meaning matter more, like soundtrack strengthens story on a screen. 

It's why some writing sings and some appears to stammer. Read aloud the words up to this point, and you will see--but better yet, you'll hear.

If language is music (and it is), then we writers do well to learn not only our ABCs but also our do, re, mis. Ah, but where to start? 

I'm so glad you asked. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Stephen Wilbur.

Steven is a performance poet or spoken word artist. (The less-preferred but often-used term is slam poet.) He also happens to be Jubilee's talented drummer and one of the nicest, funniest people you could ever know. I asked Steven if I could share some of his work with you today, and he graciously consented. He suggested the following piece, and I think it's perfect for our purposes, especially for those of us who desire to write works that speak to Christians but also appeal outside the doors of the church.

Given our topic today, I suggest you read this poem aloud. (What's that? You're at work/the airport/Starbucks? All the better. The world can always use more music.)

I, bullet proof vest

The deepest tree legs ever found

extended 400 feet into the crust of South Africa.

They were the legs of a wild fig tree;

by closest anatomical approximation,

I am a man, an XY chromosome couple,

something most people recognize.

I read of men in wars who likened themselves

to bulletproof vests for others and so

were bulletproof vests for me.

I hate death as much as anyone

but it’s the one place we’re all going.

It’s the four corners of the maps

on our skin folded

back over bones

shaking hands.

If I’m only going there once

I want to be someone’s parachute,
to be wings of a carrier pigeon bigger than me
with directions for those who cannot find their way.
I know I didn’t just get this from green plastic

soldiers or Martin Luther King.
It was somewhere climbing protein chain ladders

into space. These stars got stuck on my feet.
I am learning how to walk.

I’ve seen people who share this Y chromosome skipping rungs,

who follow Y with “be responsible,”

who cut corners off maps and cannot see

where we are going,

that we are dying,

and I see places of myself in them.

To you who don scars of our steps

as we men have made our ways,

to you I have awoken next to after a hot nervous night

with no plan for a future,

and now read our chromosomes

Y cross one again?

You were never meant to be hospitals:

Smiling, open-armed statues

visited only out of necessity.

You were never meant to be unemployment offices.
The space in your unanswered questions

has left big shoes to fill.
So I want big feet.
I want to stand in the sands

of hourglass hurricanes

like a wild fig tree.

They don’t go anywhere.

I want you to feel the truth in my leaves

dust off every airbrushed magazine

you may have worn like a veil.

For my words to taste tender but honest,

like figs, like what this world needs,
and when they dig me up post mortem

I want them to find roots extending five times deeper
than the beaches we cannot for the life of us wash
out of our clothes. I want to say,


I have not been where you have been,

but where I go, you will be fought for.

I will be your bullet proof vest.

I want branches to shelter travelers

beach-weary from being swallowed

by this world going on without them.
Jesus poured blood on a tree to give life.

so a tree I will be.

Growing into myths takes time.

Most of us men carry a lifetime of bruises

from paper airplanes of folded too small shoe ads

thrown by our TVs and radios,

our friend’s fathers, and our fathers.
So, for now, walk with me.

I follow the stars, definite in my feet.


Wherever you are,

when the ground pulses

with a mammoth tree taking his place

you will know,

I am a man.

Your gift may not be performance poetry, but if you are gifted to write at all, you can't get by without words. And words embody sounds. Read your prose aloud, and as you do, consider the inner ear of your reader, the foot keeping beat in time with your tale. Styles vary. Some stories require somber tones and minor keys. Some call for multi-layered, symphonic, purple mountain majesty. Others may lend themselves to the spare, minimalist, or abstract. I'm not trying to tell you what notes to use, I'm only asking one thing. When you write, be kind to the music.

Steven's writing is like a feast of words. It tastes delicious rolling over the tongue and also satisfies the desire for meaty content. And now, we have a special treat for dessert. Here's Steven performing the same poem at an event in Seattle last November. Enjoy!

Jeanne Damoff loves a well-composed symphony of words in almost any key. Right now she's eagerly anticipating a brand new song--the first cries of her baby granddaughter, Harper Sparrow Romjue! (Can't wait to kiss those precious little iambic feet.)

Comments

[Madison Richards]

This is so great! From my earliest memories of writing I too heard the music of words in my head as I wrote them on the page, always concerned about the tempo of the sentence, always in love with its musicality...

So many of us gravitate toward well-written (and rhymed?) prose because we connect with the music in the words more than we even realize. There is a swaying comfort in exemplary prose. Thanks so much for reminding us!

[Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts]

Brilliant!!!

[Grace]

I love this one! We heard him do it when he featured at the Seattle slam.

I can't wait for you to get here and I REALLY can't wait for all of us to kiss Harper's little iambic feet.

[Dee Stewart]

cool. thanks for spotlighting him.