New opportunities to perform spoken word and slam poetry at Duke are bringing together novice and seasoned spoken word artists alike. A house course and the student organization Spoken Verb—which transitioned to new leadership in the fall—foster communities where students can learn about and perform spoken word, as well as incorporate performing art into their Duke experience.
Fourteen students are enrolled in the house course, “Spoken Word and Slam Poetry in Context: The Art of Social Commentary.” Co-taught by seniors Brittany Coleman and Alana Jackson, the course teaches students about the history and current role of spoken word and slam poetry. The class also serves as a workshop where students can perform their poetry and get constructive feedback from their peers.
“The idea was to create a really supportive community where you could join the class, have meaningful discussions about issues and feel safe enough to write your own poems and really get to know each other,” Coleman said.
Simultaneously, Spoken Verb, which is Duke’s spoken word organization, is pushing for a more active presence at Duke after the majority of its members graduated last spring, said President Cherranda Smith. On Feb. 23, Spoken Verb drew about 50 students to the Mary Lou Center for “Two Shades of Blues,” a collaborative performance with UNC-Chapel Hill’s slam team, the UNC Wordsmiths. The performance was Spoken Verb’s biggest event so far this year, Smith said.
“We’re focusing on getting our name back out there and allowing people to see the new us,” Smith said.
Numerous student organizations have invited Spoken Verb to perform in upcoming events, Smith added. The events include the Muslim Student Association’s awareness week, the Jabulani showcase during BSAI weekend, defMo’s showcase, the Women’s Center’s open mic event and Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity’s Roc the Mic event, which will take place this Thursday. Spoken Verb also hopes to collaborate with Omega Phi Beta Sorority on a community service project that uses spoken word as a counseling tool to help youth express themselves.
These Duke groups recognize spoken word as an art form that can enhance projects from community service to artistic showcases.
The Art and Appeal of Spoken Word
Coleman and Jackson both described spoken word as an outlet for self-expression and social commentary that is unique from other art forms. In their house course, they emphasize that spoken word is more than reading poetry aloud; it is a performance-based, oral art form that uses words, tone, rhythm and cadence to communicate with the audience. Although there are no restrictions on subject matter, spoken word also tends to address social issues, politics and identity.
“It’s about giving voice to things that aren’t usually voiced or are often silent. It’s about creating a space for dialogue to happen,” Jackson said.
Joseph “Church da Poet” Churchwell, founder of Black Poetry Theater, clarified that spoken word often goes beyond just social commentary. It empowers writers with a voice that people will listen to and establishes an interactive relationship between the writer and the audience, he said.
“I don’t want people to come in thinking, ‘Oh, it’s a poetry reading.’ They’re coming to a spoken word event where anything could happen. We encourage finger-snapping, oohs and ahhs, clapping. I like people to run around and do jumping jacks, personally,” Churchwell joked. He added that spoken word has allowed him to experience personal healing.
“Spoken word can actually save somebody, mentally, physically and emotionally, through words,” Churchwell said. Smith described a similar healing experience—she began performing spoken word because it helped her cope with being bullied in middle school and into high school.
“It was therapeutic for me. Words were my escape,” she said. “I was able to write poems about those people and use clever language so that I could be more creative and be in touch with my creative self.”
But for others, the pleasures of spoken word lie in listening as an audience member. Coleman, who does not perform, said she developed her appreciation for spoken word when she started watching YouTube videos of people performing.
“I would be completely mesmerized. It’s like reading a good book, staying up all night and getting lost in the words,” she said.
The Durham Connection
Spoken word at Duke is interconnected with an active (and still growing) scene in the Triangle Area. The Mary Lou Center’s Art and Soul event features live spoken word performances, while Words of Wisdom, Bull City Poetry Slam Team, Black Poetry Theater and Sacrificial Poets form the active core of numerous local poetry groups, Churchwell said. Words of Wisdom hosts open mic events on a nightly basis, and Jackson said that she has performed at an open mic night at the Broad Street Café in Durham.
Spoken Verb is exploring the possibility of hosting open mic events at locally owned businesses such as The Beyu Caffé or Dame’s Chicken and Waffles. Both venues are places Duke students know about and have the “jazz atmosphere” that lends itself well to spoken word events, Smith said.
Fostering Spoken Word Communities at Duke
Smith hopes that, one day, Duke will have a competitive slam team to compete against the UNC Wordsmiths on a national level at the College Union Poetry Slam Invitational. But Spoken Verb needs to build up a community of performers, audience members and fans before they can form a competitive slam team, she said.
In the meantime, this period of growth may influence students’ experiences at Duke in other ways.
Haley Millner, one of the 14 students enrolled in the house course, writes poetry as a hobby but had never performed spoken word before enrolling in the house course.
“The class is really a comfortable space. I feel like most of us there look forward to it and look forward to hearing each other’s poems. It’s become more of a reflection on Duke and our personal lives, using poetry as a vehicle,” Millner said. She added that she hopes to continue writing and performing spoken word for her friends.
The house course attracted a very diverse group of students, whether you slice it by age, race or gender. Coleman said she is “really satisfied” with the class’s diversity and happy that so many different kinds of people joined because, as she sees it, there is a presumption that only a certain kind of person can do spoken word. This diversity, Coleman said, contributes to richer discussions of social, political and identity issues.
“I’m about to graduate, and I want to look back and say I did something that was both fun and meaningful for people,” Coleman said.
Creating an opportunity for students to step outside their comfort zones and discover something new about themselves has been a rewarding experience for Jackson as well.
“I really love to see people grow and reach their creative potential—to see them discover the fact that they’re also artists, that they have the capacity to do that,” Jackson said.
The house course will culminate with a showcase of the students’ work in April.
Updated, 3/7/2013, 2:13 p.m.:
A previous version of this article stated that Coleman was "really satisfied" with the diversity of the class. This quotation was missing context: Coleman qualified her statement by saying she is happy the class hosts a diverse group of students because she believes there is a commonly held idea that only a certain type of person can do spoken word.
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