Sarah Kay defines Spoken Word Poetry as the idea of “creating poetry that doesn’t just want to sit on paper, that something about it demands that it be heard out loud or witnessed in person.”
Sarah Kay’s mission is to use spoken word poetry to:
Sarah identifies how scary it can be to write poetry and she shares her advice on how to “trick teenagers into writing poetry” by having them write lists instead. The first list she assigns is ’10 Things I Know to be True’; the results of writing such lists is that at some point you would realize four things:
Sarah says that “this is where great stories come from, these four intersections of what you’re passionate about and what others might be invested in.”
Sarah uses spoken word poetry to help her students “rediscover wonder, to fight their instincts to be cool and un-phased and instead actively pursue being engaged with what goes on around them so that they can re-interpret and create something from it.” Sarah teaches spoken word poetry because it’s accessible to everyone, she says that it is not necessarily always the ideal art form, but that it is something that everyone is able to do. Watch Sarah Kay’s TED talk titled “If I Should Have a Daughter…” for more inspiration and advice on getting your students to write Spoken Word Poetry.
Sarah Kay’s mission is to use spoken word poetry to:
- Entertain
- Educate
- and, Inspire
Sarah identifies how scary it can be to write poetry and she shares her advice on how to “trick teenagers into writing poetry” by having them write lists instead. The first list she assigns is ’10 Things I Know to be True’; the results of writing such lists is that at some point you would realize four things:
- First that someone has something very similar if not the exact same thing that is on your list,
- Second, someone else has the complete opposite of you,
- Third, someone has something that you’ve never even heard of before,
- And finally someone else has something that you thought you knew everything about but they’re introducing it from an entirely new angle.
Sarah says that “this is where great stories come from, these four intersections of what you’re passionate about and what others might be invested in.”
Sarah uses spoken word poetry to help her students “rediscover wonder, to fight their instincts to be cool and un-phased and instead actively pursue being engaged with what goes on around them so that they can re-interpret and create something from it.” Sarah teaches spoken word poetry because it’s accessible to everyone, she says that it is not necessarily always the ideal art form, but that it is something that everyone is able to do. Watch Sarah Kay’s TED talk titled “If I Should Have a Daughter…” for more inspiration and advice on getting your students to write Spoken Word Poetry.
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