audience held

One feels most like a poet in that bardic moment speaking before enrapt faces.

poem event

Had the ability to make the reading of a poem an event.

audible line

Meant to be uttered, a line that resisted ink.

ink over utterance

A spoken word artist who wasn’t up to his tattoos.

only the work

OF POETRY

there is only the work.

The work is what speaks
and what is spoken
and what attends to hear
what is spoken

—William Bronk, Death is the Place (North Point Press, 1989)

lower the volume

For the most part, good poets are humble not hortatory.

llittle said thus loud

Words strike us as loud when they’re trite and spoken at a significant decibel level. Uttered at the top of one’s lungs, good poetry won’t hurt the ears.

limits of spoken word

Tough emcee: He once grabbed a skin-head poet by the short hairs and dragged the guy away from an open mike.

spoken word

The poem was full-throated, and full-throttle.