I know that one is able to win people far more by the spoken that by the written word, and that every great movement on this globe owes its rise to the great speakers and not to the great writers.
The written word endures, the spoken word disappears
Once sent out, a word takes wings beyond recall.
You know, I'm a fan of Laurie Anderson. One of my favorite records is 'The Ugly One With the Jewels,' a spoken-word record. It's an extraordinary album.
I don't like the word 'poetry,' and I don't like poetry readings, and I usually don't like poets. I would much prefer describing myself and what I do as: I'm kind of a curator, and I'm kind of a night-owl reporter.
I'm trying to make the poems as musical as I can - from the inception. So that whether they're read on the page, or people read them aloud, or I read them aloud, the musicality will be kind of a given.
Insight into character comes from listening intently to the spoken word. The physical person, their charisma, charm and dramatic flair is more often used to persuade audiences, as they use these stealth tools of disguise and deception.
The poet is a specialist in something which everyone practises. Herein, poetry differs from the other arts. Everyone does not practise music or painting or even dancing, but everyone without exception puts together words poetically every day of his life.
All epoch-making revolutionary events have been produced not by the written word but by the spoken word.
I don't think rap really fits in to 'American Idol' in the sense that I believe rap is an art form in itself more akin to poetry, more akin to drama, if you will.
Speech is one of the marvels that characterize man, and also one of the most difficult spontaneous creations that have been accomplished by nature.
All I have is a voice.
All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.
If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.
If you need proof of how the oral relates to the written, consider that many great novelists, including Joyce and Hemingway, never submitted a piece of work without reading it aloud.
Rap is only one end of a whole spectrum of verbal play and virtuosity. Rap is geared for aural pleasure.
I'm not rapping, I'm conversing. It's just a conversation between me and you.
Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem.
I think rap in the street when they have rap competitions is thrilling because these kids are making it up and having a go at each other. They've got something to say. This is about getting their frustrations out.
There's no doubt in my mind that 'Slam' is going to be huge. It's a film about the power of language. People are going to see this and get blown away.
I hate to write! But I love to talk, so I'm told that when people read my books, it like I'm there just talking with them.
I never write. Never! I do not even remember if I can write … This is a true freestyle in general. I put a beat, I said some stuff, I retain ideas, I do it again, with a particular intonation, I test, and especially I record live.
I don't travel and tell stories, because that's not the way these days. But I write my books to be read aloud, and I think of myself in that oral tradition.
Ab-Souls Outro' serves as a jazzy, spoken summation of 'Section.80's themes. Guest cohort Ab-Soul opens the song with one urgent verse after another: Flowing freely like the saxophone behind him, his words advocate veering outside life's most predictable pathways.
I don't like the stigma that comes with being called a poet . . . So I call what I'm doing an improvisational adventure or an inebriational travelogue.
