Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Why Poetry is Alive and Well

Brigham Young University holds a Saturday night Poetry Slam for students and community members alike-- it's tradition, and it's often open-mic. I wasn't able to attend the slam held this last Saturday, so I participated off-campus by watching videos of previous participants' preformed poetry. It was engaging-- if somewhat surprising. There was everything from poetry I found inspirational, well-written, and beautiful, all the way through childish imitations of emotion labeled loosely as poetry. I honestly found both of these kinds intriguing, because to me it meant that poetry is alive and well among this generation of college students. I want to focus my reflections on two videos, but I will link all of the videos I watched below.

The first video I want to discuss is this young woman's courageous use of poetry as a tool for social change. Millennials are a generation obsessed with social change, and poetry can be a powerful means of communicating different perspectives and ideas. Words spoken well can break through years of prejudice. In Mallory Matheson's "Untitled" poem, she succeeded in breaking through my idea of what was normal and acceptable at BYU. She helped me to see that maybe some behavior I had been socially taught to accept, was not in harmony with my feminist equality views. I found her passion on the subject intriguing.





The second video I want to focus on is Austin Jones "Unapologetic English Major." I want to focus on the deliverance of this type of poetry. I think that poems can take on a whole new life when they are preformed not just in front of an audience, but for an audience. Austin clearly wrote this poem in order to preform it, which gives it a whole new life and color. Just read from a page, this poem would not be nearly as comedic or as influential. I believe poetry written to be preformed is another evidence of poetry alive and well today.
Here are the links to the other videos I watched:


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