On "Spoken Word" Poetry

The following post sounds worse than I mean it to. I actually really do enjoy spoken word poetry, but this is a bit of a rant. Another time I'll talk about all the good things.

Here's what so-called "spoken word" poets (including me, when I read out loud) are doing. One, reading a written work. Two, being a character (in other words, acting). Three, going for a laugh (being a comedian). Four, making weird sounds (using their voice and words as a musical instrument).

None of these are an accurate translation of what written poetry is to me. Written poetry is dense. It is infused with meaning. A single word can mean so much to a poem.

So what is a performer supposed to do with a powerful word or image? In a written work, a powerful word might appear exactly like every other word in the poem. Very rarely is a single word

emphasized.

In performance poetry, if you (I) let an important word slip by without special emphasis, you risk the audience missing it. But if you emphasize it too much, you sound like an idiot. Or worse, you sound like you think your audience consists of idiots.

Maybe it's just me, but too often when I listen to poetry out loud, the part of my brain that understands things shuts down, and in my head, it sounds like this:

"poetry, poetry, poetry, poetry
poetry poetry poetry poetry
words words words words
words words words words."

Am I the only one? I find the same thing often with music lyrics. So many songs are virtually unintelligible to me. The only way I can comprehend a song or a poem performed is to read the lyrics while I'm listening.