21st century
SPOKEN WORD POETRY
 written on a page but performed for an audience.
 type of poetry that is geared to be performed onstage for
an audience rather than merely exist in print somewhere
for others to read.
 poetry that is meant to be shared.
 often associated with a younger demographic and/or a
hip-hop culture and lifestyle
 can encompass or contain elements of rap, hip-hop,
storytelling, theater, jazz, rock, blues, and folk music.
 more aggressive than more traditional forms of poetry
 Heavy use of rhythm, improvisation, free association,
rhymes, rich poetic phrases, word play and slang.
Sarah Kay
 an American poet known for her spoken word poetry.
 founder and co-director of Project V.O.I.C.E.
founded in 2004, a group dedicated to using spoken
word as an educational and inspirational tool.
 has a degree of Master of Arts in teaching from
Brown University and honorary doctorate in humane
letters from Grinell College.
 published numerous poems in different well-known
magazines.
 performed at events and venues like the Lincoln
Center, the Tribeca Film Festival and at United
Nations where she was featured performer for the
launch of the 2004 World Youth Report.
Phil Kaye
 a Japanese American poet, writer and filmmaker
 Co-director of Project of V.O.I.C.E
 Performs and teaches in ten different countries.
 Published “A Lightbulb Symphony” in 2011, his first
collection of poetry.
 Former head coordinator of Space in Prinsons for
the Arts and Creative Expression- taught poetry
workshops in maximum security prison
 Two-time recipient of the National College Poetry
Slam Award- the only person to receive the award
twice.
 Sarah and Phil are known as the New York spoken-
word poetry dynamic duo.
 They are not related nor married, but they happen to
share a similar-sounding last name.
 Sarah and Phill have known each other since 2006.
They met in a talent show where they both
performed spoken word poetry.
Now, Kay and Kaye travel around the world together for
spoken word poetry performance shows and workshops.
Elements to be considered when writing a spoken word
poem:
Use of Concrete Language
Vivid images, sounds, actions and other sensations. If your
poem is rich with imagery, your listeners will see, smell and
taste what you’re telling them.
Repetition
MMA
Repetition is a simple but powerful poetic device. Sometimes Projection
just the repetition of a key phrase or image, with extensions of
Speak loudly and clearly so that your voice can be heard from
image and thought for each repetition, can help a writer
a distance.
generate exciting poems.
Facial Expressions
Rhyme
Smile if you’re reading something happy. Don’t smile if you are
Rhyming can enrich your poems and performance if used with
reading something serious.
skill, surprise, and moderation.
Gestures
Attitude (Tone)
Use hand motions and body movements to emphasize different
Feelings and opinions are the “stuff” poetry is made of. Each
elements of
poet has a unique perspective and view of the world that no one
else has. your performance.
It is important that a spoken word poem embodies the courage I AM NOT MY SKIN
necessary to share oneself with the rest of the world.
NEEMA KOMBA
Persona
Neema Komba is a poet and writer from Tanzania. She is the
Spoken word poetry allows you to be anyone you want to be. author of Mektildis Kapinga: a silent hero, and See Through the
You can write a poem in Complicated, a poetry collection. Her work entitled, “The Search
for Magical Mbuji”, appeared in the creative non-fiction
the “voice” of someone or something other than yourself or with
anthology, Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.
a personality trait that is different.
Her other works have also appeared in This is Africa and Vijana
from your own.
FM. She is the 2014 winner of the Etisalat Prize for Literature in
Things to be considered when delivering a spoken word the Flash Fiction category. Her story, Let them eat fruit cake
poem: (published in Index on Censorship), was shortlisted for the 2019
Stack Awards for best original fiction.
Posture
She co-founded La Poetista, a platform for poets and other
Stand up straight, shoulders back, chin up, head held high.
performing artists to showcase their art and create a positive
Eye Contact impact in the community through the arts. Through La
Poetista, she coordinated the Woman Scream International
Don’t stare at the floor, or hide behind whatever it is that your
reading from.

MMA
Poetry and Arts Festival in Tanzania from 2013 to 2015, a
movement to fight violence against women.
Shape Poetry
 a poem that is shaped like the thing it describes.
 shape adds to the meaning of the poem.
 also associated with Concrete Poetry
 Shape is one of the main things that separate prose
and poetry. Poetry can take on many formats, but
one of the most inventive forms is for the poem to
take on the shape of its subject.
 Therefore, if the subject of your poem were of a
flower, then the poem would be shaped like a flower.
If it were of a fish, then the poem would take on the
shape of a fish.
Step by step guide in creating a shape poem:
1. Choose your own object and subject.
2. With a pencil, lightly draw the shape of your object on paper.
3. Write your poem on a separate sheet of paper. Consider the
length of your lines in relation to the shape that you chose.
4. Copy your poem into the shape that you’ve drawn on paper.
5. See if you need to make your text larger or smaller.
6. Erase the outline of the shape (from step 2).
7. Finally, staple or glue a colorful piece of construction paper
behind the easy shape poem and share it online to shape
enthusiasts!
Instagram Poems
In the generation of young people, they have their association
with poetry that has been sparked via a less traditional route:
social media.
The influence of social media is immeasurable and self-
promotion through its channels has become on part with the
social element. And with this, there is a new trend of writing
poems and is being circulated most especially on Instagram.
INSTAGRAM
a photo-sharing platform which has given poetry a much-
welcomed fresh feel.
The dusty, dated schoolbooks poetry is often associated with is
totally separate from the stylized presentation of verse created
by “Instapoets.” The poems being created by the Instapoets are
called Insta Poems.
Instagram Poems
 also called as Insta Poem or Instapoetry
 an adaptation of traditional poetic ideals into a
transformative Internet subgenre
 Poets share their Insta Poems in Instagram (one of
the popular social media platforms) for hopes of
publication.
 usually consist of short direct lines in aesthetically
pleasing fonts that are sometimes accompanied by
an image or drawing, with or without a rhyme
scheme.
 are bite-size, they fit within the square Instagram
frame; and their font is carefully selected.
MMA
  Insta poems can be also posted on Facebook,
Twitter, Pinterest, and the like.
RUPI KAUR
 one of the most popular Instapoets
 a #1 New York times bestselling author and
illustrator of two collections of poetry.
 started drawing at the age of five when her mother
handed her a paintbrush and said—draw your heart
out.
 views her life as an exploration of that artistic
journey.
Kaur’s Poetry Collection
 After completing her degree in Rhetoric Studies, she
published her first collection of poems ‘milk and honey’
in 2014.
 The internationally acclaimed collection sold well over a
million copies gracing the New York times bestsellers list
every week for over a year.
 It has since been translated into over thirty (30)
languages.
 Her long-awaited second collection ‘the sun and her
flowers’ were published in 2017.
 Through this collection, she continues to explore a
variety of themes ranging from love, loss, trauma,
healing, femininity, migration, and revolution.
MMA