Buddy Wakefield - Flockprinter
I belong to a poetry community on LiveJournal, and this video was posted there a while ago. I had never heard of slam poetry, had no idea what it was, but have since then sought out opportunities to see it. This guy is supposed to be pretty awesome, and I know there are other famous names out there. Give it a whirl; even if you have no idea what he is talking about, the emphatic and intense way he presents this might interest you. I’ve watched it multiple times and always discover something new in what he says.
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Sometimes the truth is
Peter Atkinson said:
The worst poetry springs from true emotion. If you look at Edgar Allen Poe’s’ ‘The Raven’ and his documentary of the process with which he wrote it, it was cold, calculating, and truly unemotional. Which is why i think the above is pretty horrible. I might be wrong but there it is…
April 10, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
Edward said:
“The worst poetry springs from true emotion.”
What? I’m not sure I understand your comment.
(Also, emotion is not the only component to poetry, and thank goodness.)
But regardless, are you saying that the slam poetry is unemotional? That guy is totally into it! The way the sentences weave in and out of each other, the biting rhythms that he uses, his intense facial expressions and articulation…Buddy Wakefield is emotional and a half!
April 10, 2008 @ 5:56 pm
Chris said:
No I think he was saying that Poe is good because it wasn’t emotional, and this guy wasn’t because that was the driving force of his poem.
Though I must admit, I imagine this guy put some serious forethought into this. Even if it is all off the top of his head, I tip my hat to anyone that can spew such directed randomness. It seems like his calculating was probably intended to support a a more raw emotion, but I would bet Poe could, and would, quote his poetry with appropriate emotion, and had it in mind while writing, just as I expect this guy did.
April 11, 2008 @ 1:53 am
leafless said:
I have never heard of slam poetry before. The guy was intense.
April 14, 2008 @ 5:59 pm
Corbin said:
I used to go down to a coffee shop in Savannah and watch guys do slam poetry. Some of them got REALLY intense, but they were definitely amazing. I forgot all about that kind of poetry.
Are you guys saying that instead of the poetry being the performance, the performer becomes the real action of the performance? Instead of focusing on what he is saying, you are paying more attention to what he is doing? It’s slam poetry! I think that the performance and emotion are the driving force behind the poetry. It’s an experience when you see these kinds of things live. Especially by amateurs in coffee shops. Thats when you get the true emotion.
April 16, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
Edward Atkinson said:
I love seeing amateur productions at just about anything. Like you say Corbin, that’s definitely where you get the real deal, the raw emotion.
People that don’t do things for money often do things the best.
April 16, 2008 @ 8:45 pm