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Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an oral tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of recitation and word play, such as the performer's live intonation and voice inflection. Spoken word is a "catchall" term that includes any kind of poetry recited aloud, including poetry readings, , jazz poetry, pianologues, musical readings, and hip hop music, and can include Sketch comedy and prose . (2014). 9780151011957, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780151011957 Unlike written poetry, the quality of spoken word is shaped less by the visual aesthetics on a page, and more from phonaesthetics or the aesthetics of sound.
Poetry, like music, appeals to the ear, an effect known as euphony or onomatopoeia, a device to represent a thing or action by a word that imitates sound. "Speak again, Speak like rain" was how a poet of the Kikuyu people people, an East African people, described her verse to author Karen Blixen, confirming a comment by T. S. Eliot that "poetry remains one person talking to another".Eliot, T. S. (1942), "The Music of Poetry" (lecture). Glasgow: Jackson.
The oral tradition is one that is conveyed primarily by speech as opposed to writing, (2025). 9780618604999, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 9780618604999 in predominantly oral cultures proverbs (also known as maxims) are convenient vehicles for conveying simple beliefs and cultural attitudes. "The hearing knowledge we bring to a line of poetry is a knowledge of a pattern of speech we have known since we were infants".
Performance poetry, which is kindred to performance art, is explicitly written to be performed aloud and consciously shuns the written form. "Form", as Donald Hall records "was never more than an extension of content." Performance poetry in Africa dates to prehistorical times with the creation of hunting poetry, while elegiac and panegyric court poetry were developed extensively throughout the history of the empires of the Nile, Niger and Volta river valleys.Finnegan, Ruth (2012), Oral Literature in Africa, Open Book Publishers. One of the best known griot epic poems was created for the founder of the Mali Empire, the Epic of Sundiata. In African culture, performance poetry is a part of theatrics, which was present in all aspects of pre-colonial African lifeJohn Conteh-Morgan, John (1994), "African Traditional Drama and Issues in Theater and Performance Criticism", Comparative Drama. and whose theatrical ceremonies had many different functions: political, educative, spiritual and entertainment. Poetics were an element of theatrical performances of local oral artists, linguists and historians, accompanied by local instruments of the people such as the kora, the xalam, the mbira and the djembe drum. Drumming for accompaniment is not to be confused with performances of the "talking drum", which is a literature of its own, since it is a distinct method of communication that depends on conveying meaning through non-musical grammatical, tonal and rhythmic rules imitating speech.Finnegan (2012), Oral Literature in Africa, pp. 467–484.Stern, Theodore (1957), Drum and Whistle Languages: An Analysis of Speech Surrogates, University of Oregon. Although, they could be included in performances of the griots.
The poet and ethnographer Jerzy Ficowski has studied and written extensively about the Polska Roma tradition of spoken word. Though the vast majority of Polish-Romani people of that generation did not read or write, oral folk traditions were very strong. The most famous example is Papusza, who Ficowski discovered when he was following gypsy caravans on the road. Ficowski had her work translated and published, and she went on to become one of Poland's most iconic poets. (1989). 9788322323212, Interpress Publishers. ISBN 9788322323212
In ancient Greece, the spoken word was the most trusted repository for the best of their thought, and inducements would be offered to men (such as the ) who set themselves the task of developing minds capable of retaining and voices capable of communicating the treasures of their culture. The ancient Greeks included Greek lyric, which is similar to spoken-word poetry, in their Olympic Games.
Vachel Lindsay helped maintain the tradition of poetry as spoken art in the early twentieth century.'Reading list, Biography – Vachel Lindsay' Poetry Foundation.org Chicago 2015 Composers such as Marion Bauer, Ruth Crawford Seegar, and Lalla Ryckoff composed music to be combined with spoken words. Robert Frost also spoke well, his meter accommodating his natural sentences. Poet laureate Robert Pinsky said: "Poetry's proper culmination is to be read aloud by someone's voice, whoever reads a poem aloud becomes the proper medium for the poem." "Every speaker intuitively courses through manipulation of sounds, it is almost as though 'we sing to one another all day'." "Sound once imagined through the eye gradually gave body to poems through performance, and late in the 1950s reading aloud erupted in the United States."
Some American spoken-word poetry originated from the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, blues, and the Beat Generation of the 1960s. (2025). 9780415965712, Routledge. ISBN 9780415965712 Spoken word in African-American culture drew on a rich literary and musical heritage. Langston Hughes and writers of the Harlem Renaissance were inspired by the feelings of the blues and spirituals, hip-hop, and slam poetry artists were inspired by poets such as Hughes in their word stylings.
The Civil Rights Movement also influenced spoken word. Notable speeches such as Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream", Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?", and Booker T. Washington's "Cast Down Your Buckets" incorporated elements of oration that influenced the spoken-word movement within the African-American community. The Last Poets was a poetry and political music group formed during the 1960s that was born out of the Civil Rights Movement and helped increase the popularity of spoken word within African-American culture. Spoken word poetry entered into wider American culture following the release of Gil Scott-Heron's spoken-word poem "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" on the album Small Talk at 125th and Lenox in 1970.Sisario, Ben (28 May 2011), Ben Sisario, "Gil Scott-Heron, Voice of Black Protest Culture, Dies at 62", The New York Times.
The Nuyorican Poets Café on New York's Lower Eastside was founded in 1973, and is one of the oldest American venues for presenting spoken-word poetry. "The History of Nuyorican Poetry Slam" , Verbs on Asphalt.
In the 1980s, spoken-word poetry competitions, often with elimination rounds, emerged and were labelled "poetry slams". American poet Marc Smith is credited with starting the poetry slam in November 1984. In 1990, the first National Poetry Slam took place in Fort Mason, San Francisco. The poetry slam movement reached a wider audience following Russell Simmons' Def Poetry, which was aired on HBO between 2002 and 2007. The poets associated with the Buffalo Readings were active early in the 21st century.
Spoken word poets have served as poets laureate in US states and cities, for example, Yolanda Wisher named Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2016 and Jewel Rodgers named Nebraska State Poet in 2025.
In 2003, the movement reached its peak in France with Fabien Marsaud aka Grand Corps Malade being a forerunner of the genre.
The spoken-word movement in Ghana is rapidly growing, so that individual spoken-word artists such as Megborna, are continuously carving a niche for themselves and stretching the borders of spoken word by combining spoken word with 3D animations and spoken-word video game, based on his yet to be released poem, Alkebulan. In Kumasi, the creative group CHASKELE holds an annual spoken-word event on the campus of KNUST giving platform to poets and other creatives. Poets including Elidior The Poet, Slimo, T-Maine are key members of this group.
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