First off, Open Sky is amazing, and all you wonderful readers should do yourself a favour and go for their slams. For a year and a half, I'd been wanting to attend one of these slams, and I finally made it. And let me tell you that I regret not having attended sooner. While I was sitting there, various thoughts came into my mind, and having found them interesting, I would like to share them with you. I found that my thoughts followed two distinct trails. And as such, I am organizing them into two posts, of which this is the first.
Spoken word poetry is appreciated often for a number of things. For the issues it brings to light, for the conversations it creates, for the wonderful communities it builds around the art form, for the validation and solidarity offered by the community to each of its members, and so on and so forth. However, I have very rarely found much appreciation for the form and techniques employed by the artist. I do not want to be misunderstood here. I do appreciate it for the other reasons I have mentioned and for many more. However, as I was sitting there at Open Sky Slam, the various techniques employed by many poets made the whole experience a treat. I'm sure all of you know these techniques and have seen them often. But allow me to talk about a few of the poets who really stood out personally to me in terms of technique alone. This does not mean that they were better than others who I've left out. I'm looking at them purely on technique.
The thought first hit me while watching Meghna Prakash perform. Her performance had a musical cadence. And as she performed, she was gently swaying to her own words. Performance poetry is primarily an auditory experience, with a tinge of visual. And the way she used both the auditory as well as visual elements was masterful. Cadence refers to the modulation of the voice that renders a musicality to it. It is linked to rhythm, and many traditional written poets have used it masterfully (e.g. "Once upon a midnight dreary / While I pondered weak and weary....). However, the technique finds its ultimate use when combined with good performance.
Though performance poetry has been present in different forms among various different cultures, its modern avatar as spoken word poetry is still quite young. The lack of established traditions and genres allow artists to experiment heavily. One of the possible ways of experimenting is through borrowing elements from other art forms. Angshuman Sharma did a brilliant job by borrowing a number of elements from stand up comedy. He not only borrowed the performance elements, but his content (or lyrics) was prepared in a way that the entire performance can pass as a decent stand up piece, without losing the quality of spoken word poetry.
Imagery is an all time favourite among poets of all traditions, be it written or spoken word. Imagery engages the senses and thereby makes poetry a wholesome experience. Three performers who used it really well today were Akshay Balan, Cipun Mishra, and Simran Narwani. Akshay used olfactory imagery to great effect with his poem on smell itself. "Burn smell - black herbal coconut oil - old books - coffee breath and smoke": such words and phrases leave a distinct odour among the audience. Cipun Mishra used striking visual imagery which made the experience not unlike watching a video montage or a photo album. The image of the shopping complex where once a house stood is something that will be stuck with me for a long time to come. Simran employed tactile imagery in a simple and powerful manner. We all know how a hug feels, and therein lies the effectiveness of her imagery. We could feel each line as it was performed. While I felt my hands enveloping a friend, Simran asks whether the hand really belonged to me. Brilliant!
A number of poets today performed beautifully in Hindia and Urdu. The advantage of this is that traditionally Hindi, and especially Urdu poetry is meant to be performed. The most popular form of such poetry is the Shayari. Many Hindi and Urdu poets employed this. However, two poets really stood out to me in the way they used this. Aditya Kedia, in a poem where he spoke about colours, juxtaposed Shayari lines within story telling. The strength of the story telling form often lies in imagery, and timely well delivered punch lines (which generate snaps). Aditya did have imagery (a poem on colours will of course have good imagery), but his punch lines were delivered in the form of Sher (couplets) of the Shayari tradition. Similarly, Abhishek (I don't know his full name) juxtaposed dialogue into the Shayari form. Dialogue is a technique primarily of the theatre. And Abhishek's poem consisted of two parts. The first was the poet talking to the shoemaker, and the second was the reply of the shoemaker. Very clever!
To conclude, techniques are like spices. They add flavour, but if not used in the right amount, could make the entire ordeal of sitting through a performance quite painful. The chef is usually precise with his preparation, but the person who eats may not recognize the various spices that make the food delicious. Similarly, precise use of technique may often be unnoticed, but that does not make it unnecessary.
P.S. 1. I'm sorry that the first two techniques I mentioned ended up becoming rather vague. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing the techniques as an audience, but explaining turned out quite a hard nut to crack. I know I haven't done justice to it, and I apologize.
P.S. 2. I'm planning to do a series of posts commenting on the various elements of spoken word poetry, such as technique, form, structure, performance, and so on. Do look forward to it.
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