Words in performance

It's the final day of National Poetry Month. Throughout the month, I've been featuring performance poetry videos from HBO's "Def Jam" poetry series, and in case you hadn't noticed, I've now collected all those posts together on one page which you can access in the sidebar features under "Words in performance".

Seeing as it's the last day of NPM and I wanted to bracket the collection with performances by Saul Williams, the next post belongs to him. His versatility, presence, verbal dexterity, dramatic skill and the audacious inventiveness of his work mark him out as one of the very best of the slam poets.

Incidentally, if you're interested in learning more about the origins of slam poetry then "An Incomplete History of Slam" by Kurt Heintz is a good place to start.

Little Red Books

Kelly Tsai with "Mao" on Def Poetry

PhD in Him

Vanessa Hidary on Def Poetry

Hands

Sarah Kay on Def Poetry

Beau Sia

I realize that last month, when I posted a number of performances (mostly taken from Mos Def's poetry series on HBO and collected here) I didn't include anything by Beau Sia, who is, for my money, amongst the best of the performance poets out there.



Sia achieved widespread exposure after his video response to Rosie O'Donnell's "ching chong" moment. He also caused a bit of a stir when he took issue with Hip Hop in one of his HBO performances. I couldn't find a video of that online but I did find this short video of Sia talking about his work.



Other notable performances from Beau Sia include "I'm so deep", "Back To The Now" and "Asian invasion". Check him out.

Sign Language

Rives on Def Poetry

Totally Like Whatever

Taylor "What Teachers Make" Mali on Def Poetry

Coded Language

Saul Williams on Def Poetry

This Beach

National treasure Oscar Brown Jr lives on at Def Poetry