Medium Commentary — Slam poetry

One of the topics studied in the MATLUPB course was the Slam poetry. For me this one has been one of the most exciting and interesting topics from the class because it allows us to express a lot of things through the language. But first, I would explain what a slam poetry is. In words of Smith (2009) he said that a slam poetry is like a rap without music, something like what the rapper Eminem did in his song 8 mile or “Slam poetry is performance poetry, the marriage of a text to the artful presentation of poetic words on stage” (Smith, 2009, page. 3). Also, a slam poetry it is not just about someone reading a text, the slam must be related with the person who is performing to has sense.

After the definition of slam poetry, I would like to say why for me is one of the best topics of the class. First, with the slam we had the opportunity to express ourselves. We had the change to do whatever we want, talk about our feelings, opinions, lives, and a lot of other things. And for me this is something very important because it is a way to motive the students to use the language in the way they want because the topic was free. So, every student will perform with passion, or at least most of them, because metaphorically they talked about a topic that moves them or represent them in the way they are. There were not specify topics to do that maybe could get bored the students. Maybe some people won’t understand the reason why the topic is free for everyone, but I think it is because allow the students express their happiness, sadness, anxiety, anger and everything is way to the teacher see how students use the language that he is teaching in class.

Moreover, the principal point of all of this for me, it is the way every student expresses themselves. As I said before, the teacher uses this to see how every student uses the language to show what they feel or how their lives are. It is something known that every language is different, and this aspect is seen too in the way how we can express. So, for me, the teacher wanted to see how we were going to use the language to transmit our feelings, because it is not the same talk about anger in Spanish than talk about anger in English, and of all this happen with all the feelings. It means that the way students did the slam poetry shows their level of management of the English and how they could use it to talk about what they feel.

REFERENCE:

· Smith, M. K. (2009). Take the mic: The art of perfomance poetry, slam, and the spoken word. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks MediaFusionCE: