Spoken Word Redux: An open commentary on life, laughter, and what truly brings us together.

                                             

Slam poetry is a revolution in and of itself. As a reflection on life, slams show true emotion through the craft of figurative language and honest words. Performance poetry has even influenced “Hollywood” (63).In Spoken Word Redux, Mark Eleveld composes an anthology of poetry in distinct sections as an introspective view on the world of slam poetry. He separates poems as one would separate genres of literature or music. Each section has an introduction relating to the poetry yet to come, creating a feeling of formality that seems unwarranted for such a collection of spoken word. As an introduction to each section of the book, Eleveld introduces someone outstanding in the field of spoken word who specializes in that specific type of performance poetry such as hip hop, or women’s voices. The inclusion of this created some adherence where there really wasn't any (because poetry is such a personal expression of self), but also detracted from the organic form of the poems. That said, there were some poems that seemed to adopt a different meaning because of their adjacency to a similar one. Such poems by radically different artists spoke the same message, yet in drastically different ways.  Although Eleveld cannot claim authorship, he most definitely picked impressive and thought provoking poems to include in this compilation of works.

 Almost all of the poems in this book and even on the CD resonated with me, but they still felt trodden on because of their delivery. It was as if I was forced to recreate a poetry slam environment in my mind as I was reading the poetry, trying to figure out the ways in which the poet would present the words on the page. The CD had major discrepancies with the book, and I found it was better enjoyed as a separate entity entirely. The only problem was, I had to envision the slam. After attending and performing myself in slams, the book seemed to lack the pulse of life that is visible in live young poets that I've seen. The spoken word artists in this area overcome even “the young and the spoken” (which most closely represents the types of poetry slams I've been to) in Spoken Word: Redux, and perhaps it’s because I almost never see words on the page when at a slam (197). The poets in the Poetry Now program, which is comprised of poets from the northern Virginia area, are more relatable to readers like myself because of their age ranges and topic choices. Some of this is echoed on the pages and mp3s of this anthology; however, the same type of human reliability isn't available. I couldn’t see the pain in the poet’s faces, or watch their elation grow as their poem progressed. Lacking that human element, I found that the book fell a little flat.

That being said, the compilation was completely comprised of fantastic works of art. This pattern is repeated over and over by Spoken Word: Redux, and underlines the true potential of poetry. No matter how it is presented, well written poetry will grow and evolve as the reader does, and be relatable to nearly everyone. This book is an easy collective source of many incredible poems, but this lends it the quality of an encyclopedia, almost, rendering it difficult to read straight through. Being a reader with very little time on her hands, I read snippets of the book here and there without complaint, but once I was forced to sit down and consume the book in a large chunk due to time constraints, I found it difficult to fully grasp the meaning of each and every poem, since they all deserved to be pondered and appreciated. Due to the average time and delivery of normal slam poetry, it is easy to absorb a lot at one time. In this case, since it was in print form, I found it difficult to make my AP annotation driven mind shy away from such things and enjoy the work as it is. Instead, I tried to analyze the works far more than favored them, therefore making reading a large amount of poetry at one time exhausting. It became more of a chore to read than a book expressing a type of writing that I love should.

Spoken Word: Redux has its strengths and weaknesses. Mark Eleveld chooses pieces with more meaning than the average writing, lending credence to the work inside the anthology. However, the heavy nature of these pieces being weighed down by paper creates a problem with your average reader. Slam poetry is something beautiful that definitely deserves to be shared, just in a way less reminiscent of reference books. 


Citation: Eleveld, Mark. The Spoken Word Revolution Redux. New ed. Naperville, IL: Source MediaFusion, 2007. Print.