Spoken Word Prompt: "Moments" (SLASH)

Hello, spoken word poets! Here’s SLASH’s very first spoken word prompt. In the coming weeks, you’ll see more in-depth features about identity, activism, and spoken word. For now, I’d like to offer a quick prompt to make you think about how you can use the medium. SLASH is an educational column and it should be a conversation among readers and performers, so I want to see what you can do.

Spoken word’s immediacy and vitality allow spoken word artists to make very personal performances. It’s essentially storytelling and storytelling can be a very effective form of activism. It might not initiate widespread policy changes, but it affects individuals. To change one person’s mind feels very concrete and genuine. You can do that by telling your story. That story doesn’t have to be the sum of your entire life, though. Moments are just as important.

When you tell your story, you can draw the reader in with intense concrete imagery. For example, sentiments like “love conquers all” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” may be shared among many people, but we’ve all heard it before! Those lines are dry with overuse. When you use specific examples to make a universal emotion feel nitty gritty and personal, you remind your reader that the idea is still real. It isn’t lofty or romanticized - it belongs to a real person! Your story has unique details. It may involve emotions that many people feel, but it’s something they’ve never quite heard before.

So! Here’s the challenge:

1. Pick a moment from your life that you associate with a specific emotion.

2. Make a list of concrete images to describe that moment. What did you smell? Taste? Feel? Hear? I want salt, strangely tinged skies, strawberry juice, dirt, the sound of firecrackers, or sun shining on glass. 

3. Write a poem of images that make up that very specific moment. Convey emotion without ever using “feeling” words (no “happy,” “sad,” “angry,” etc).


4. Read it aloud. How does it feel? Which words stand out? Which words do you stumble over? Practice emphasizing different lines. 

5. If you’d like, make a recording of your moment poem. Send it to SLASH to be featured in the coming weeks!

Here’s my example:

1. Moment: the Fourth of July parade in my hometown after a storm. Emotion: nostalgia/sadness.

2. Images: children playing in mud puddles, chilly, muddy gravel, cars going the wrong way, a six-legged dragon, overcast sky, hot sugar, gray boards, white T-shirts, children singing, my uncle clapping, dirty flipflops, horns blaring...

3. Write:

children splash in mud puddles in the road,

throw rocks at the holes in the cement.

cars turn around and drive where they shouldn’t go.

today the dragon is coming, the dragon is coming

down from the cloudy sky.

the horns are out of tune.

children sing. my uncle jumps up and down.

yesterday, the hurricane ripped through again

and knocked the trees on rooftops,

flooded the lakes out into town,

piled the power lines like spaghetti.

the dragon is coming from the sky

into the gray morning.

he chases the rain down the road,

brings back the heat.


4. Record (sound or video!):

As always, please email me with questions/feature suggestions/etc. SLASH is a work in progress and I’d love to hear from you.

Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist

slashcolumn@gmail.com

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