Black Writers Lecture Series "Spoken Word: Writing on a Three Dimensional Canvas"

Stanford Students: Performers Extraordinaire in an Encore Presentation

"The foundational difference between spoken word and written poetry is that spoken word is written specifically to be performed. Creating spoken word is like writing for a three dimensional (or multi-dimensional) canvas in which the performer is one of those dimensions. When you look at written poetry on the page, you pretty much see all its meaningful content. When you look at spoken word written down (when its multiple dimensions are collapsed down to paper) you miss a large part of its meaning. Just as you'd have no idea how to sing "Strange Fruit" if you just saw the lyrics, so does spoken word have its own notation. This notation lives in the artist and is created at the moment of performance in an antiphonal dialogue with the audience."