How Presentation Can Add Emotion - Lessons Learned From Spoken Word Poetry

As a prose writer, I've all the time enjoyed poetry from a distance. If person makes me read one, I'll read it and take it in stride, but as soon as they're gone, I'll put it away. I often just find that prose speaks so much more to me than poetry and so, stay away from poetry as often as I can. However, this weekend I went to a Poetry Slam which has started to convert my tune.

For the uninitiated, a Poetry Slam is a competition of spoken word poetry. Google Def Jam Poetry and you'll get an occasion to see some of the best in the enterprise at work. While I didn't see anything quite to that caliber, many of the contentious poets were extremely talented and opened my eyes to how I could bring poetic techniques into my own writing.

Owen Meany

The winner of the Slam struck a chord with me as I verily enjoyed the way he used the flow of his work to feature his emotion. I asked myself, how could we extend this to prose writing? A lot of his emotion is derived from his delivery. How do you convey a raised voice, an intense thought, faster pace, when you aren't in control, when person is reading your words on paper?

How Presentation Can Add Emotion - Lessons Learned From Spoken Word Poetry

First, be willing to play with font. Italics can be used for more than just book titles, and caps lock, while annoying on forums, can be effective when rationed. For instance, in a modern piece I've written, I attempt to feature my intense thoughts by utilizing italics. "I could just kiss you, I thought". In a similar sense, caps lock can be used to feature a louder delivery, seen when I write "Attempting to win her attention, I said 'Dan Brown's a great author.' Failing to get her attention, I try again. 'Dan Brown'S A Great Author.' I shouted, possibly a itsybitsy louder than I'd intended."

Suddenly, the presentation of your writing is doing a itsybitsy more than simply conveying the words to your reader, but also giving a feeling for what's being described. A great example of this is in John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, in which all things said by Owen Meany is in full caps.

Going beyond straightforward font tricks, sentence buildings can do wonders to convey the feeling of the piece and help replicate a lot of the emotion seen in spoken word poems. Shorter sentences slow the writing, making it choppier but placing a greater focus on the private words. Longer sentences can speed things up as you find no hurdles in your reading, and placing a greater focus on the bigger picture.

Taking it even further, paragraph buildings can do the same thing as sentence structure, only on a larger scale. More regular paragraph breaks can cause the writing to appear more staggered and slow the reader's intake of all things you've said. Longer paragraphs have the reverse effect, burying the reader in an uninterrupted wave of text which they can suck up quickly.

Unfortunately, we don't all the time have the occasion to read our pieces aloud to others. However, by utilizing these techniques, I believe you can capture some of the magic and emotion of spoken word by presenting your writing in a unique manner.

How Presentation Can Add Emotion - Lessons Learned From Spoken Word Poetry

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