Spoken Word Poetry Quotes

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And the most beautiful words ever spoken, I have not yet said to you.
Nâzım Hikmet
The first time I saw her, Everything in my head went quiet.
Neil Hilborn
Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water.
Kamand Kojouri
here’s a toast to Alan Turing born in harsher, darker times who thought outside the container and loved outside the lines and so the code-breaker was broken and we’re sorry yes now the s-word has been spoken the official conscience woken – very carefully scripted but at least it’s not encrypted – and the story does suggest a part 2 to the Turing Test: 1. can machines behave like humans? 2. can we?
Matt Harvey
Utterance" Sitting over words Very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing Not far Like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark The echo of everything that has ever Been spoken Still spinning its one syllable Between the earth and silence
W.S. Merwin (The Rain in the Trees)
We somehow must become what we are not, sacrificing what we are, to inherit the masquerade of what we will be.
Shane L. Koyczan
The spoken word is ephemeral. The written word, eternal. A symphony, timeless.
A.E. Samaan
THE SILENT PEOPLE Some people are so rude, Living their lives with no concern for others, Or possibly just intent on pissing other people off- Annoying everyone around them. The silent people- Want to kill them- And drive forks into their skulls- Create weapons of extreme torture- And scream from the top of their lungs- "SHUT UP." But words are not spoken- And attention is not given. Though annoyance is apparent, The annoying keep on living.
Giorge Leedy (Uninhibited From Lust To Love)
The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, Except that the reader leaned above the page, Wanted to lean, wanted much to be The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom The summer night is like a perfection of thought. The house was quiet because it had to be. The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind: The access of perfection to the page. And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world, In which there is no other meaning, itself Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Wallace Stevens (Transport to Summer)
Private Parts The first love of my life never saw me naked - there was always a parent coming home in half an hour - always a little brother in the next room. Always too much body and not enough time for me to show it. Instead, I gave him my shoulder, my elbow, the bend of my knee - I lent him my corners, my edges, the parts of me I could afford to offer - the parts I had long since given up trying to hide. He never asked for more. He gave me back his eyelashes, the back of his neck, his palms - we held each piece we were given like it was a nectarine that could bruise if we weren’t careful. We collected them like we were trying to build an orchid. And the spaces that he never saw, the ones my parents half labeled “private parts” when I was still small enough to fit all of myself and my worries inside a bathtub - I made up for that by handing over all the private parts of me. There was no secret I didn’t tell him, there was no moment I didn’t share - and we didn’t grow up, we grew in, like ivy wrapping, moulding each other into perfect yings and yangs. We kissed with mouths open, breathing his exhale into my inhale - we could have survived underwater or outer space. Breathing only of the breathe we traded, we spelled love, g-i-v-e, I never wanted to hide my body from him - if I could have I would have given it all away with the rest of me - I did not know it was possible. To save some thing for myself. Some nights I wake up knowing he is anxious, he is across the world in another woman’s arms - the years have spread us like dandelion seeds - sanding down the edges of our jigsaw parts that used to only fit each other. He drinks from the pitcher on the night stand, checks the digital clock, it is 5am - he tosses in sheets and tries to settle, I wait for him to sleep. Before tucking myself into elbows and knees reach for things I have long since given up.
Sarah Kay
I’ve been here before, dreaming myself backwards, among grappling hooks of light. True to the seasons, I’ve lived every word spoken. Did I walk into someone’s nightmare?
Yusef Komunyakaa
I want you.” Three words. Three simple words became my undoing. Spoken roughly, dominantly, yet it sounded like poetry to my soul.
Tillie Cole (Raze (Scarred Souls, #1))
A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken. The seedword is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it. Classical odes grow from and or because, romantic lyrics from but and if. Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb. Good poems, therefore, are always close to banality, over which, however, they tower like precipices.
Alasdair Gray (Every Short Story, 1951-2012)
I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak But I know now it doesn't matter how well I say grace if I am sitting at a table where I am offering no bread to eat So this is my wheat field you can have every acre, Love this is my garden song this is my fist fight with that bitter frost tonight I begged another stage light to become that back alley street lamp that we danced beneath the night your warm mouth fell on my timid cheek as i sang maybe i need you off key but in tune maybe i need you the way that big moon needs that open sea maybe i didn't even know i was here til i saw you holding me give me one room to come home to give me the palm of your hand every strand of my hair is a kite string and I have been blue in the face with your sky crying a flood over Iowa so you mother will wake to Venice Lover, I smashed my glass slipper to build a stained glass window for every wall inside my chest now my heart is a pressed flower and a tattered bible it is the one verse you can trust so I'm putting all of my words in the collection plate I am setting the table with bread and grace my knees are bent like the corner of a page I am saving your place
Andrea Gibson
Some music has words, and rock had words that at times aspired to poetry, but the words were always sounds first, spoken to the body before the mind.
Rebecca Solnit (A Field Guide to Getting Lost)
I love how grown children will still name their mothers the most beautiful. It is as though, their eyes have met the cascading curves and golden silhouettes of every woman. Yet their souls still drum to the beat  of their mother's warmth and care.
A Starry Eyed April
..giving power to negative thoughts or fears was bringing ideas to life in physical world,idea in mind became emotion in heart,emotion turned into words spoken,written,painted,strummed across guitar strings,or vibrantly held note by Tibetan singing bowl, thoughts affected physical world.
Christina Westover (The Man Who Followed Jack Kerouac (The Man Who Followed Jack Kerouac, #1))
The highest form of truth is not spoken through words; it is experienced through being.
Omar Cherif
I Don't Write Because God Gives Me A Fresh Word Everyday, I write Because of The Words He Has Already Spoken Yesterday That Changed Today.
The Prolific Penman
The trouble with poetry is it's often written to the sound of a drum only the poet may hear; nonetheless, blessed are those poets who always manage to find unshakeable pleasure in their own works.
Criss Jami (Killosophy)
In the beginning was the word, and primitive societies venerated poets second only to their leaders. A poet had the power to name and so to control; he was, literally, the living memory of a group or tribe who would perpetuate their history in song; his inspiration was god given and he was in effect a medium.
Kevin Crossley-Holland (The Norse Myths)
In 2009, we’d put on the first-ever White House poetry and spoken-word event, listening as a young composer named Lin-Manuel Miranda stood up and astonished everyone with a piece from a project he was just beginning to put together, describing it as a “concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop…Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
I’m convinced that there is nothing ​truly good. Hell, sunshine can wilt a flower.
Kay Whitley (Out Loud: A collection of spoken word poetry)
If you draw, if you dance, if you like poetry, if you like spoken word, whatever, if you like polka dots—use who you are, who you really are, as a positive. That’s your superpower. Wendy
Darryl McDaniels (Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide: A Memoir)
The foremost watchman on the peak announces his news. It is the truest word ever spoken, and the phrase will be th fittest, most musical, and the unerring voice of the world for that time.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Writers are not called poets just because they make words rhyme. Poets respond to an inner calling that enables them to add symmetry to mere vocabulary in such a way as to resonate beyond our minds to our souls. Poetry though, however sublime, does not end with words. The most beautiful verses are poems of affection. A hug is a poem of tenderness spoken with our arms. The act of love is a sonnet written by the passion of two authors. A newborn child is a poem of Divinity in human form; whose birth is an expression of the miracle of creation. If our perceptions are such that we do not acknowledge any of the above, perhaps we need to reestablish the link to the Poet who lives in each of us.
John Casperson
Celebrate life through the music through the spoken word through the splatter of colour on paper or wood or iron or canvas But celebrate your life Celebrate your ability to feel joy and sadness Celebrate your ability to feel! Only then will we be free to feel
Tupac Shakur (The Rose That Grew from Concrete)
We stumbled on in the darkness, over big stones and through large puddles, along the one road leading from the camp. The accompanying guards kept shouting at us and driving us with the butts of their rifles. Anyone with very sore feet supported himself on his neighbor's arm. Hardly a word was spoken; the icy wind did not encourage talk. Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their camps and don't know what is happening to us." That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, supporting each other time and again, dragging one another up and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky, where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morning was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds. But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.
Viktor E. Frankl
Sonnet of Silence I am the loudest when I am silent, My lips are shut yet I speak treasures. Speech without heart is nothing but noise, Listen to my silence, you'll hear the universe. Words spoken with mere lips reach nowhere, For it's the heart that makes words alive. Tell people who you are without saying a word, Speak from your very core, they'll listen alright. I repeat, silent people have the loudest hearts, For when you speak less you get to listen more. The more you listen the more you are heard, The more you hear the more you get to grow. Set the words on fire, let them all turn to ashes. Tell people who you are without all the speeches.
Abhijit Naskar (Honor He Wrote: 100 Sonnets For Humans Not Vegetables)
Every word from Kismet’s mouth sounded like poetry spoken with the most fervent passion one could conjure up. I couldn’t understand how he could stand to have such intensity building inside him. I watched, captivated by each breath in between his words. I found myself tracing the lines of his face over and over and leaning into him.
Jessica Marie Gilliland (Anomaly (The New Haven Project, #1))
i want to love you with simple, like a bare singular matchstick. one stroke to ignite with no words spoken by the heated flames of the timber of crimsoned scarlet fire. as it crackles with close separation entangled with the intimacy of firefly ashes choosing to enchantingly dance around in abundant joy. hazily whistling into the glorified heavens making the ebony soot dissolve into the cool crisp air. yearning to be the explosion who burns through your bones as you visualize red ecstasy of a provoked kindle.
Zuky rose Leigh
English kings married their cousins and so their kids were as sharp as clubs.
Peter Prasad (Campaign Zen 500bc - 2012: Colonial March Thru Election History Told in Tavern Doggerel)
You are capable of doing everything you are afraid of doing, If only you would energize and motivate the Magical thing would absolutely happen to you!
Sereda Aleta Dailey (The Oracle of Poetic Wisdom)
I enjoy poetry where I can talk as bizarre as I please, but theology or philosophy, I always respect the truth by taking it a step further.
Criss Jami (Healology)
Poets are Prisoners 8-29-2015 Poets are prisoners Practitioners, commissioners & conditioners of the spoken word Caged by their own minds Words are shackles
Debbie Tosun Kilday
Do not think about failure. Remember that even stars fall sometimes, and when they do people wish on them.
Maddie Godfrey
Whenever a time arises where clarity is desired, it is always wise to reflect on the sage within.
Sereda Aleta Dailey (The Oracle of Poetic Wisdom)
I recall that one time he told the people to read the poems out loud because the spoken word was the seed of love in the darkness.
Tomás Rivera (... y no se lo tragó la tierra ... and the Earth Did Not Devour Him)
the world is being built up by greedy people wanting higher towers and then there’s a war or a hurricane or a tsunami or a virus or a financial collapse happening to put things in balance. this has happened all through history and the humankind survives and moves on. this is not an exception: this is a rule. and you are not granted to stay here, that is not your right. you were handed a gift of walking here for a little while, breathing the air, feeling things, but did you say thank you? ever? or just took for granted, carried life like a burden and now you’re being angry because suddenly things outside of your control are threatening your peace? why do you let your peace depend on things outside of your control in the first place?
Charlotte Eriksson
Because this painting has never been restored there is a heightened poignance to it somehow; it doesn’t have the feeling of unassailable permanence that paintings in museums do. There is a small crack in the lower left, and a little of the priming between the wooden panel and the oil emulsions of paint has been bared. A bit of abrasion shows, at the rim of a bowl of berries, evidence of time’s power even over this—which, paradoxically, only seems to increase its poetry, its deep resonance. If you could see the notes of a cello, when the bow draws slowly and deeply across its strings, and those resonant reverberations which of all instruments’ are nearest to the sound of the human voice emerge—no, the wrong verb, they seem to come into being all at once, to surround us, suddenly, with presence—if that were made visible, that would be the poetry of Osias Beert. But the still life resides in absolute silence. Portraits often seem pregnant with speech, or as if their subjects have just finished saying something, or will soon speak the thoughts that inform their faces, the thoughts we’re invited to read. Landscapes are full of presences, visible or unseen; soon nymphs or a stag or a band of hikers will make themselves heard. But no word will ever be spoken here, among the flowers and snails, the solid and dependable apples, this heap of rumpled books, this pewter plate on which a few opened oysters lie, giving up their silver. These are resolutely still, immutable, poised for a forward movement that will never occur. The brink upon which still life rests is the brink of time, the edge of something about to happen. Everything that we know crosses this lip, over and over, like water over the edge of a fall, as what might happen does, as any of the endless variations of what might come true does so, and things fall into being, tumble through the progression of existing in time. Painting creates silence. You could examine the objects themselves, the actors in a Dutch still life—this knobbed beaker, this pewter salver, this knife—and, lovely as all antique utilitarian objects are, they are not, would not be, poised on the edge these same things inhabit when they are represented. These things exist—if indeed they are still around at all—in time. It is the act of painting them that makes them perennially poised, an emergent truth about to be articulated, a word waiting to be spoken. Single word that has been forming all these years in the light on the knife’s pearl handle, in the drops of moisture on nearly translucent grapes: At the end of time, will that word be said?
Mark Doty (Still Life with Oysters and Lemon: On Objects and Intimacy)
Silence is not always complacency. It is contemplation and forethought taking place in the minds of those who would be careful with their words and actions, unwilling to contribute to negativity that is fed by rashly-spoken comments. Quiet contemplation is a powerful tool for change because those thoughts, though silent, become actions built on conscientious pondering. Those actions then become examples. And quiet example is the greatest teacher, the most effective behavior modification tool of all. I am not listening to what you say half as closely as I am watching what you do. Think about that.
Richelle E. Goodrich (Being Bold: Quotes, Poetry, & Motivations for Every Day of the Year)
The weather is doing unusual things and our leaders are not even pretending not to be demons So where is the good heart to go but inwards- Why not lock all of the doors and bolt all of the windows... (from ' Three-sided Coin')
Kae Tempest
It is my sincerest hope to leave this world in better shape than which I found it. Everyone says that. However the distinction I feel that is necessary to make is. I hope to leave this world better in spite of my departure, not because of it.
Kay Whitley (Out Loud: A collection of spoken word poetry)
Where, then, do we find the truth? We find it in the body, in the woods, in the water, in the soil. We find it in music, dance, and sometimes in poetry. We find it in a baby’s face, and in the adult’s face behind the mask. We find it in each other’s eyes, when we look. We find it in an embrace, which is, when we feel into it, being to being, an incredibly intimate act. We find it in laughter and sobs, and we find it in the voice behind the spoken word. We find it in fairy tales and myths, and the tales we tell, even if fictional. Sometimes embroidering a tale enlarges it as a vehicle for the truth. We find it in silence and stillness. We find it in pain and loss. We find it in birth and death.
Charles Eisenstein (The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible (Sacred Activism))
Toccata II A man sits pen in hand, paper before him. What is on his mind he will set down now, the word not to be spoken lightly. As if of all his words this was the one that touched the heart of things and made touch the last sense of all as it was the first, and the word that speaks it loaded with all that came strongest, a planet's-worth of sunlight, cooling green, the close comfort of kind. It is the world he must set down now, also lightly, each thing changed yet as it was: in so many fumblings traced back to the print of his fingertips still warm upon it, the warmth that came when he was touched. The last, as he sets it down, no more than a breath, though much that is still to be grasped may turn upon it.
David Malouf (Earth Hour)
To quote Ms. Lauryn: i wrote these words for everyone who struggles in their youth... * * - Esther - * * "Don't worry that you'll be a copy The Maker had you on His mind the entire time Before a speckle of sand hit the darkness Before sound came from the void Before two drops of hydrogen And oxygen combined Before mama knew papa The vibrations in your voice are like thumbprints The fequency and wavelength your sound generates Reverberates in the universe Breaking and entering into souls A light house in a perfect storm Your siren song does not take but lends To safety To refuge To home Don't be afraid that its already been said - Speak Don't be afraid that its already been thought - Think In this generation This moment For this time
spoken silence
If I were a psychiatrist, I should advise my patients who suffer from "anguish" to read this poem of Baudelaire's whenever an attack seems imminent. Very gently, they should pronounce Baudelaire's key word, vast. For it is a word that brings calm and unity; it opens up unlimited space. It also teaches us to breathe with the air that rests on the horizon, far from the walls of the chimerical prisons that are the cause of our anguish. It has a vocal excellence that is effective on the very threshhold of our vocal powers. The French baritone, Charles Panzera, who is sensitive to poetry, once told me that, according to certain experimental psychologists, it is impossible to think the vowel sound ah without a tautening of the vocal chords. In other words, we read ah and the voice is ready to sing. The letter a, which is the main body of the word vast, stands aloof in its delicacy, an anacoluthon of spoken sensibility.
Gaston Bachelard (The Poetics of Space)
Orlando, who had just dipped her pen in the ink, and was about to indite some reflection upon the eternity of all things, was much annoyed to be impeded by a blot, which spread and meandered round her pen. . . . She dipped it again. The blot increased. She tried to go on with what she was saying but no words came. Next she began to decorate the blot with wings and whiskers, till it became a round-headed monster, something between a bat and a wombat. But as for writing poetry with Basket and Bartholemew in the room, it was impossible. No sooner had she said 'impossible' than, to her astonishment and alarm, the pen began to curve and caracole with the smoothest possible fluency. Her page was written in the neatest sloping Italian hand with the most insipid verses she had ever read in her life: I am myself but a vile link Amid life's weary chain, But I have spoken hallowed words, Oh, do not say in vain! . . . . . She was so changed, the soft carnation cloud Once mantling o'er her cheek like that which eve Hangs o'er the sky, glowing with roseate hue, Had faded into paleness, broken by Bright burning blushes, torches of the tomb, but here, by an abrupt movement she spilt the ink over the page and blotted it from human sight she hoped for ever. She was all of a quiver, all of a stew. Nothing more repulsive could be imagined than to feel the ink flowing thus in cascades of involuntary inspiration.
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
Despite myself, I fought a smile. “You certainly have a way with words.” “I know.” Broderick’s features rearranged themselves, settling back into impassive neutrality. “Everything out of my mouth is goddamn poetry.” I surrendered to the smile and fought a laugh. “Loveliness, the incarnation of beauty in spoken form.” “Like a fucking butterfly, but with sounds.” And now I surrendered to the laugh. He laughed as well. We laughed together in a way two people cannot and do not laugh alone.
L.H. Cosway (The Player and the Pixie (Rugby, #2))
Language... is a highly ambiguous business. So often, below the word spoken, is the thing known and unspoken... You and I, the characters which grow on a page, most of the time we're inexpressive, giving little away, unreliable, elusive, obstructive, unwilling. But it's out of these attributes that a language arises. A language, I repeat, where under what is said, another thing is being said... There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smokescreen. When true silence falls, we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness. We have heard many times that tired, grimy phrase, "failure of communication", and this phrase has been fixed to my work quite consistently. I believe the contrary. I think that we communicate only too well, in our silence, in what is unsaid, and that what takes place is a continual evasion, desperate rearguard attempts to keep ourselves to ourselves. Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose to others the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility. I am not suggesting that no character in a play can ever say what he in fact means. Not at all. I have found that there invariably does come a moment when this happens, when he says something, perhaps, which he has never said before. And where this happens, what he says is irrevocable, and can never be taken back.
Harold Pinter (Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics)
The Law of the Jungle NOW this is the Law of the Jungle — as old and as true as the sky; And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the Wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back — For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep; And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep. The Jackal may follow the Tiger, but, Cub, when thy whiskers are grown, Remember the Wolf is a Hunter — go forth and get food of thine own. Keep peace withe Lords of the Jungle — the Tiger, the Panther, and Bear. And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the Boar in his lair. When Pack meets with Pack in the Jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken — it may be fair words shall prevail. When ye fight with a Wolf of the Pack, ye must fight him alone and afar, Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the Pack be diminished by war. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home, Not even the Head Wolf may enter, not even the Council may come. The Lair of the Wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it too plain, The Council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it again. If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with your bay, Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop, and your brothers go empty away. Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can; But kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill Man! If ye plunder his Kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride; Pack-Right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide. The Kill of the Pack is the meat of the Pack. Ye must eat where it lies; And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair, or he dies. The Kill of the Wolf is the meat of the Wolf. He may do what he will; But, till he has given permission, the Pack may not eat of that Kill. Cub-Right is the right of the Yearling. From all of his Pack he may claim Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same. Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same. Cave-Right is the right of the Father — to hunt by himself for his own: He is freed of all calls to the Pack; he is judged by the Council alone. Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe and his paw, In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of your Head Wolf is Law. Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they; But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is — Obey!
Rudyard Kipling
NAMING THE EARTH (a poem of light for national poetry day) And the world will be born again in circles of steaming breath and beams of light as each one of us directs our inner eye upon its name. Hear the cry of wings, the sigh of leaves and grass, smell the new sweet mist rising as the pathway is cleared at last. Stones stand ready - they have known since ages and ages ago that they were not alone. Water carries the planet's energy into skies and down to earth and bones. The cold parts steadily as we come together, bodies and hearts warm, hands tingling. We are silent but our eyes are singing. We look, we feel, we know, we trust each other's souls, we have no need to speak. Not now, but later, when the time is right, the name will ring within the iron core of each other's listening - and the very earth's being. Every creature, every plant, will hear it calling, tolling like a bell - a sound we've always felt but never dared to hope to hear reverberating - true at last, at every level of existence. The poets come together to open the intimate centre. Believe in life and air - breathe the light itself, for these are the energies and rhythms that we need to see, to touch, to reach, to identify, to say, the NAME. Colours on your skin fuse and dissolve - leave the river clean for pure space and time to enter and flow in. We all become one fluid stream of stillness and motion, of flaring thought pulses discovering weird pools and twists within where darkness hides from the flames in our eyes but will not snare us. We probe deeper still, journeying towards a unity which will be more raw and yet also more formed than anything written or spoken before. Our fragile bodies fall away - and the trees, and the roots of trees, guide us - lead us away from the faces we remember seeing each day in the mirror - into an ocean of dreams seething with warmth, love, where the beginning is real, ripe, evolving. And the world is born again in circles of steaming breath and beams of light. An ache - a signal - a trembling moment - and the time is right to say the name. We sing as one whole voice of the universal - all the words, the names of every tiny thirsting thing, and they ring out together as one sound, one energy, one sense, one vibration, one breath. And the world listens, beats, shines, glows - IS - Exists!
Jay Woodman
I pull words from thin air....words never spoken....words never there
Michael Dimitri Mullins (Unleashed Poetry)
When you find yourself writing, reading, or listening the delivery of words when spoken? You know the melody of wordplay. “& I love Wordplay
Elijah Cainaan
A touch so tender Bliss of sweet words fills of desire Open Hearts of sweet surrender Nightly poison gas the fire. A quite place to romance Touches as we held hands. No loud words spoken, but whispers Just Heart, promises to be kept No tales being told tonight. No looking back ­ no regrets. Longing for this moment Such complacent little time. We vowed to another. Being lonely is the only hate within my heart. Tomorrow bringing sorrow. A smoke of Marlboro to release myself. A brief moment of blame with shame With memories reflecting back to those nights. A release from compassion's flames.
Henry Johnson Jr
When I try to achieve greatness, it spits on me the night before.
Monroe Ariel (Her OutSpoken Lips: Part I & Part II)
In the word vast, the vowel a retains all the virtues of an enlarging vocal agent. Considered vocally, therefore, this word is no longer merely dimensional. Like some soft substance, it receives the balsamic powers of infinite calm. With it, we take infinity into our lungs, and through it, we breathe, cosmically, far from human anguish. Some may find these minor considerations. But no factor, however slight, should be neglected in the estimation of poetic values. And indeed, everything that contributes to giving poetry its decisive psychic action should be included in a philosophy of the dynamic imagination. Sometimes, the most varied, most delicate perceptive values relay one another, in order to dynamize and expand a poem. Long research devoted to Baudelaire's correspondences should elucidate the correspondence of each sense with the spoken word.
Gaston Bachelard (The Poetics of Space)
Spoken Word Poetry [10w] Spoken Word Poetry AKA Projectile Poetry makes me wanna' hurl.
Beryl Dov
I can't remember the poem That pierced through my heart It was the saddest I heard Of all truths ever spoken It left a scar in me A wound that doesn't heal But the words are forgotten So is a big part of me
A.A. Patawaran (HAI[NA]KU and other poems)
Peter Piper If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, why couldn't he use his kick-ass alliterative skillz to write Spoken Word poetry?
Beryl Dov
Autumn Psalm To understand a fraction of what they mean. The writings in the world’s most spoken language across from one that can barely get a minyan. Sick of lanzmen, the yidden are trying to engage the guys across the aisle in some conversation: How, for example, do you squeeze an image into so few words, respectfully asks Glatstein. Wang Wei, at first, doesn’t understand the problem but then he shrugs his shoulders, mumbles Zen ... but, please, I, myself, overheard a poem, in the autumn rain, once, on a mountain. How do you do it? I believe it’s called a psalm? Glatstein’s cronies all crack up in unison. Okay, groise macher, give him an answer. But Glatstein dons his yarmulke (who knew he had one?) and starts the introduction to the morning prayer, Pisukei di zimrah, psalm by psalm. Wang Wei is spellbound, the stacks’ stale air suddenly a veritable balm and I’m so touched by these amazing goings-on that I’ve forgotten all about the autumn staring straight at me: still alive, still golden. What’s gold, anyway, compared to poetry? a trick of chlorophyll, a trick of sun. True. It was something, my changing tree with its perfect complement: a crimson vine, both thrown into panic by a Steller’s jay, but it’s hard to shake the habit of digression. Wandering has always been my people’s way whether we’re in a desert or narration. It’s too late to emulate Wang Wei and his solitary years on that one mountain though I’d love to say what I set out to say just once. Next autumn, maybe. What’s the occasion? Glatstein will shout over to me from the bookcase (that is, if he’s paying any attention) and, finally, I’ll look him in the face. Quick. Out the window, Yankev. It’s here again. Part 2
Jacqueline Osherow
I don't know how was your day. But you have to be brave enough to face every challenge in life. To be survive. You can do this. Have faith in yourself.
Chinthia Indah
In 2009, we’d put on the first-ever White House poetry and spoken-word event, listening as a young composer named Lin-Manuel Miranda stood up and astonished everyone with a piece from a project he was just beginning to put together, describing it as a “concept album about the life of someone I think embodies hip-hop…Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton.” I remember shaking his hand and saying, “Hey, good luck with the Hamilton thing.
Michelle Obama (Becoming)
You act like like adobo and pikliz can't go together, like griyo and pernil aren’t cousins, and my parents couldn’t possibly be from two different islands.
Lysz Flo (Lysz Flo Reflects 1.31.19)
If you draw, if you dance, if you like poetry, if you like spoken word, whatever, if you like polka dots—use who you are, who you really are, as a positive. That’s your superpower.
Darryl McDaniels (Ten Ways Not to Commit Suicide: A Memoir)
Since perception itself is never complete, since оur perspectives give us a world to express and think about which envelopes and exceeds those perspectives, a world which announces itself in lightning signs as a spoken word or as an arabesque, why should the expression of the world be subjected to the prose of the senses or of the concept? It must be poetry; that is, it must completely awaken аnd recall our sheer power of expressing beyond things already said or seen.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Signs)
stats say relationships decline when a baby’s in the picture but the truth is, if the camera doesn’t take good pictures now, the pictures will always be bad quality, no matter the lighting, no matter the scenery don’t take my word for it look at the iphone adverts
Xayaat Muhummed (The Breast Mountains Of All Time Are In Hargeisa)
the last words have been spoken hanging over my head – the sword of Damocles since the beginning of time I will keep on weeping over thoughts and over you wandering about all of my rooms your absence is all around me and the silence is more frightening then any sound has been before too much is truth in those words: that wonders are falsehood and the days are gone, never to return
Dahi Tamara Koch (Within the event horizon: poetry & prose)
When Daddy turned back to the slim volume of Benton's poetry, and spoke the following words, I knew he was speaking from his own heart, as he said the words with a new feeling of confidence and authority. I knew those words were his words, too and that somehow Benton had spoken those same words for so many other men who could never personally say them. "...and when the enemy is; the lost, the vacant/the aimless something belched out of a vast and blind explosion/I have no heart for that/Mine is not the skill for overseeing/My hand is not the hand to wield God's flaming sword." His voice quavered brokenly with the last line, as Daddy closed the book gingerly and turned to look at me, embarrassed yet unapologetic. His face tried to smile but couldn't. The tears that had formed in his eyes clung to the dark grey lashes and reflected the light from the setting sun outside. I finally reached over and without saying anything, placed my hand over his.
Theresa Griffin Kennedy (War Stories 2015: an anthology)
At the height of happiness, I have spoken of a music never heard before. So what? If only I could in a continual state of ecstasy, shaping the body of the pome with my own, rescuing every phrase with my days and weeks, imbuing the poem with my breath while feeding letters of its every word into the offering in this ceremony of living.
Alejandra Pizarnik (El infierno musical)
I feel whole when I write. I feel like a fraud when I don’t write.
Charlotte Eriksson (He loved me some days. I'm sure he did: 99 essays on growth through loss)
God has spoken to me, without words, to my heart. He has told me that I am to rewrite the future and remind His people's faith and to help keep that faith alive attached with the Holy Bible to Him. God gave me the name Compton Gage. My earthly name is not important. My person is not part of the reminder. This is not an ordinary book, this is not a Bible. The materials of the Third Testament, was organized and re-written by me. I was given a good authority by God. BY GOD ONLY!
COMPTON GAGE
All the while, Cassie is whispering words of quiet poetry. Ones that when spoken by her native tongue unleashes a torrent of magic. She touches his hand and squeezes it. “Hum, Rob you look stunning,” Cassie whispers. Words
Erotic Storm (Seduced (Erotic Storm Collection): Witches, Warlocks, BadBoy Cops, Magic, Sex. Danger. (Enchanted Book 1))
I became part of his ocean, an ocean of poetry that swayed and moved anybody near, that plunged up against every chair and table and tugged and tried our souls. His poem left me dry-mouthed and hungry, diminished only slightly from the bitterness of the beer I continually forgot was in my hand.
Annie Fisher (The Greater Picture)
سنفترقُ كما يفترق رجلٌ وامرأة أقسما -مرارًا- على ألا يفترقا. سنعترفُُ -للمرةِ الأولى- بالوقتِ، والظلِ، والفناءِ، وسنخرجُ إلى الحياة الواسعة -التي تفتحُ أبوابها للجميع سوانا- لا نحمل في قلبينا سوى فرحتين منفيتين والكثيرَ من الرملِ الثقيل. سنمشي في اتجاه الأيامِ وستحملنا موجتان عائدتان من الغرقِ فقط لنتبادلَ هزَّ الرأسِِ ومصافحةَ الغرباءِ. سأستيقظُ ذات صباحٍ ولا شيء سيملأُ الفراغَ داخلي سوى المزيدِ منه، وأنتِ ستكدسينَ الخريفَ في باقةِ وردٍ تحملينها أينما كنتِ.
عمرو صبحي
Every breath we take from the air Takes oxygen from an insect’s lungs mid-prayer And every exhalation does loudly declare That in the currency of life, we’re millionaires. A butterfly flapped it’s wings and Rome fell A passerby’s whistle cracked the liberty bell And I dare urge the daring not to yell Lest we so bid a skyscraper a rough farewell. A snake’s tongue slithered and man did sin Let me tell you how the waves from a shark’s fin Did set the tides on D-Day and let the allies win; Chance and destiny are identical twins. A word was spoken and the earth created Another phrase and the future was dictated And so every action must be carefully weighted We just never know how things are interrelated.
Justin Wetch (Bending The Universe)
I write because one word can change your entire life, then again, why so serious? often times I write for entertainment or just because I myself am curious,
DeJuan Cuffee (Words for the Soul: The Cure for Poetry, Hip-Hop, And Spoken Word: Volume One)
I could murder you with a poem, instead I’ll give birth to a galaxy of clones, and raise an army of poetic drones, to mercilessly stone these shameful acts of illiteracy poisoning the domes,
DeJuan Cuffee (Words for the Soul: The Cure for Poetry, Hip-Hop, And Spoken Word: Volume One)
HIDDEN ME! Exterior hard as a rock. Interior soft like butter. With a look like mine, no one would imagine that I am affected by stressors. The words I've spoken, often comforted many, but to me they are worth less than a penny. Shocking, I know this is to many. My heart is weak and my mind is exploding from the pressure of being on the pedestals of many. I hate that I can't be myself, without disappointing any. What am I to do, when the praises are so many? This is a constant battle I have to fight within; while many look on, with envy. But if I should put my life on display, I wonder who would trade places with me for even a day.
Shantelee R Brown
I learned not to “fight my enemies, but retire them
DeJuan Cuffee (Words for the Soul: The Cure for Poetry, Hip-Hop, And Spoken Word: Volume One)
a wise man once said, imagination is more important than knowledge, in the comics, my superpower is to demolish rap garbage with poetic polish, have the bullshit abolished, as the ignorant herd hollers, after I assassinate another one of their so-called rap scholars,
DeJuan Cuffee (Words for the Soul: The Cure for Poetry, Hip-Hop, And Spoken Word: Volume One)
We walked and talked amid the vines. The bees followed and buzzed the juicy offerings. I watched as they sipped, tonguing the vined fruit. We walked in the heat and scent and the Father talked of the natural world and hinted at books to be read and Music, and how the world reflected some larger potential. I struggled with his words. No one had ever spoken to me like that. His words seduced. Their easy flow thrummed and I could see things that day that I had never imagined. We walked and I noted the bees, how they fed and then staggered in ragged lines across the broad grape leaves. The Father said they were making themselves drunk on the older berries in which the juice had begun to ferment in the hot sun. They wobbled and stumbled like old men. He said the bees were drunk, but they fell to the ground and buzzed one last time and then lay still. He said they were drunk. They seemed dead . . .
Michael Nanfito (Rotten Fruit in an Unkempt Garden: A Memoir in Poetry and Prose)
Vipula had said, ‘That is why words are not enough. We need grammar to string words into sentences, put everything in context. Sometimes even sentences fail to capture what we are trying to say. Prose is useless when speaking to the beloved. We need poetry.’ Jayanta had interjected then, ‘Words don’t matter, only feelings do.’ ‘And how do we communicate feelings without words?’ Mandhata had asked. In response, Jayanta had smiled and touched his brother, his eyes full of tenderness. Vipula watched Jayanta take his brother by the hand into the garden, and show him blue butterflies hovering over yellow flowers. Beauty of the world. Love between brothers. The affection of a teacher. All experienced without anything being spoken.
Devdutt Pattanaik (The Pregnant King)
Flame You burn like a candle or a hurricane lamp, your eyes, shut like a window at dusk. Your hair, orange ropes. The flames from your aura reveal a rapture of release, I see in the cleft of your teeth.
Valentine Okolo (I Will Be Silent)
Many things are too delicate to be thought, much less spoken of in words.
Novalis (Pollen and Fragments: Selected Poetry and Prose)
A song with lyrics is all of it, don’t you think? Poetry plus all the wordless feelings in the music itself. Complex things, ideas are communicated without words. The instrumental part can make the spoken part ironic—like when the lyrics touch on love, but the accompaniment is loud and angry. I love that.
Penny Reid
READ BETWEEN THE LINES It can be a dangerous thing trying to Read between the lines You can’t be sure what someone else is thinking or feeling unless you get inside their head Look into their heart and listen to their feelings Someone says one thing and you read something else into it Why do we do that? Why do we not just ask for clarification? say what do you mean? Tell me what you’re thinking? Trying to work it out causes confusion Builds tension and worry We lie in bed at night procrastinating overthinking Stressing Then we build walls and worry about something that may not be there Read between the lines But how can you? we cannot read minds or see into hearts Souls are deep, complicated So when someone says Read between the lines I’d err on the side of caution forget the lines are there Look for clarity in spoken words.
Soulla Christodoulou (Sunshine after Rain: A Collection of Poetry)
...We fall down, because the sky is above us. We will rise up because the ground is beneath us. But. We will never know the translations of the words spoken by our black skin. We call the language oppression, the country it comes from is called Brusied, the god that created us is called Spiteful, the intentions of being black is called knowing survival. The beauty of being black is not yet known....
Jerm Davitos
It is telling, and extraordinary, that in his most vulnerable moment, Jesus himself turned to the Psalms. Hanging from a Roman cross between two thieves, while his mother and loved ones watched in shock, he cried, “Eli, Eli lema sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). It’s a cry straight from Psalm 22, the God to whom these words were first spoken, speaking them back in human form. Three days later, Jesus would rise from the dead, but in that moment, when all hope was lost and the darkness overwhelmed, only poetry would do.
Rachel Held Evans (Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again (series_title))
The narrative oral history is such an incredible format because it draws from every art form: the chapters have the rhythm of song, the cuts are cinematic, newspaper headlines can punctuate incidents, slang is celebrated, and first-hand accounts bring the poetry of the spoken word. There’s not a single art form we can think of that is not included, from painting, weaving, even pictographs, for great art tells a great story.
Legs McNeil (Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk)
Within this ever-expanding narrative, one can find every word ever spoken, every sigh, every laugh, every tear, every sonnet of Shakespeare, and every future tale waiting to be told. The lullabies of ancient mothers, the war cries of future civilizations, and whispered secrets of lovers yet unborn—all reside in this numerical nexus.
John Frei (Convergence (Nova))
Poetry has been a source of entertainment for centuries, whether through spoken word performances, recitations, or written works. It can captivate audiences and provide a source of enjoyment.
Oscar Auliq-Ice (Simple Essays: Unlocking the Power of Concise Expression)
Poetry has been a source of entertainment for centuries, whether through spoken word performances, recitations, or written works.
Oscar Auliq-Ice (Simple Essays: Unlocking the Power of Concise Expression)
I'd throw kisses while they'd throw banana peels at my feet... Trained monkeys! Still, I'd wrap myself around their thumbs... when they weren't sucking them! -from 'Jane of The Jungle
Casey Renee Kiser (Confessions of A Dead Petal)
What is Raven from my perspective? I believe it is the collective consciousness of the suffering masses melding into one voice. I believe it is conscience personified. Perhaps, a messenger with a message. Or even, the depths of my consciousness rising to the surface. Whatever it is, “Raven” started me on a quest. And I have been on this journey for quite some time.
Valentine Okolo (I Will Be Silent)
It is also about rhythm. The kind of rhythm found in creation. Everything in life possesses this sense of rhythm. The waves crashing into the sands on the beach. The wind whispering in my ears and caressing my face at the top of a hill. It is the flight of birds being borne by thermals, seemingly without effort, on a sunny afternoon in a commute to the outskirts of the city.
Valentine Okolo
When everyone tows a popular line, the truth itself becomes unpopular. And unfortunately, truth is never popular.
Valentine Okolo
For me poetry is the stuff of dreams. A world made up of words. The way these words sound to my ears and how they roll off the tongue. How they taste and how they feel. It is about the balance of the words I place on my lips and how they resonate past pages once performed. It is about the great power behind them. The massive creative force which moved a universe into existence and gave birth to life in Genesis. It is about poetic telegrams breathed out of the lungs and into an attentive ear.
Valentine Okolo
It is always love at first-write.
Valentine Okolo
It is about speaking with temerity and bearing witness for those who have no one to bear witness for them. Because they are poor. And the poor, unfortunately get trampled upon by the rich and powerful. They are those "underneath snake skin shoes and Mercedes tires" something which Niyi Osundare highlighted in one of his famous poems.
Valentine Okolo