Spoken-Word Poets Bringing Words to Life for Students

                A person's last words are a special form of quotation and suicide notes are a special form of last words. Spoken word is a performance art that is word-based. It often includes collaboration and experimentation with other art forms such as music, theater, and dance.However, spoken word usually tends to focus on the words themselves, the dynamics of tone, gestures, facial expressions , and not so much on the other art forms. The art of spoken-word poetry has existed for many centuries. The Ancient Greeks included spoken-word poetry in their Olympic Games.The spoken word has been an outlet for people to release their views outside the academic and institutional domains of the university and academic or small pres.. Spoken word is used to inform or make an audience conscious of some human aspect pertaining to life. The views of spoken-word artists encompass frank commentary on religious, politics, sex and gender, often taboo subjects in society.
             The artistic utilization of the spoken-word genre in black culture today draws on and reflects a rich literary and musical heritage, and the interaction among these genres as in the past has produced some of America's best-known art pieces. Thousands of years ago, the ancient Greeks recited epic poems aloud. Actors have breathed life into Shakespeare's soliloquies since the 16th century. Now, a pair of poet educators are working to bring the rich art of spoken-word poetry to students from kindergarten to graduate school. The poweful and important thing about spoken word is, it doesn't matter what the words look like on paper, told Sarah Kay, a poet and the founder of a nonprofit organization that brings spoken-word poetry to schools. "It's all about what is sounds like when you say it out loud." While poetry long has been a staple of K-12 English classes, Spoken-word poetry, an art form that extends from the beat poetry of the 1950s to contemporary rap, is less commonly taught. But Ms.Kay and other educators who have worked with her organization believe that kind of poetry may be especially well-suited to connecting with young people at an emotional level, making traditional poetry more accessible to students.