A fellow poet who goes to several open mics a week, posed this: Wondering if you could give me your thoughts on the difference, we are seeing on the poetry scene right now between the written word and spoken word performance.

My response (off the cuff) was this:

My poems end up changing as I get ready to read them at an event. Which is a good thing. But I work a poem to be read. To be looked at by an editor.

 So, I look at the white spaces and the pacing. Some of my poems are a message to myself. That is my audience. Other poems are written to specific people in mind and that changes what I say. In a good way, because it makes it more intimate and then I hope a wider audience connects with it.

I think I also look at my poems as recording history, especially in the last few years. I want to create an enjoyable piece that captures a moment in time.

I think by writing your pieces to be performed, you [my open mic slam poet] are more focused on taking the audience on a journey. To engage with people here and now. Perhaps the words you write are more determined by the rhythm, where mine is getting out what I want to say and then creating a tone similar to other poems in journals. What editors want to publish.

That’s not all of course, but it is part of taking the raw material and chiseling off what is not the poem. The results between my writing to be read and yours to be heard still result in the same (what is the best word to use) and the same (what’s the best way to give the emotion an image).

Yet the great thing is that our different approaches are unique and help us have a distinct voice

What are your thoughts?