Spoken Poetry Quotes & Sayings

When We Two Parted

When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow -
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame:
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me -
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well:
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met -
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears. — George Gordon Byron

No truer word, save God's, was ever spoken,
Than that the largest heart is soonest broken. — Walter Savage Landor

English kings married their cousins and so their kids were as sharp as clubs. — Peter Prasad

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens. — Russell Simmons

And there's wordplay and there's rhythms and you have to be able to get the poetry out of it. You have to be able to sell my jokes. And if you're talking about somebody like Sam Jackson, they do that. Sam Jackson can do that. Sam Jackson can turn it into the spoken word that it was always meant to be and he can sell my jokes. And Christopher Walken can do it and a lot of people can do it, all right. — Quentin Tarantino

Poetry is an art spoken, as if sung, in relation to other human beings. — David Biespiel

Toccata II
A man sits pen in hand, paper
before him. What is on his mind
he will set down now, the word not to be spoken
lightly. As if of all
his words this was the one that touched the heart
of things and made touch
the last sense of all as it was the first, and the word
that speaks it loaded
with all that came strongest, a planet's-worth
of sunlight, cooling green, the close comfort
of kind. It is the world he must set down
now, also lightly, each thing
changed yet as it was: in so many fumblings traced back
to the print of his fingertips still warm upon it, the warmth
that came when he was touched.
The last, as he sets it down, no more than
a breath, though much
that is still to be grasped may turn upon it. — David Malouf

My falling in love with spoken word poetry definitely came out of that time period where all the adults around me were failing to supply me with any answers. Everyone was too busy dealing with things that were more important. I was pretty lost and invisible. And all of a sudden, this world opened up where I could get on stage and perform in front of my peers. People would listen to me and see me, and people would say, "That thing you created was important." And that was so validating and necessary at that specific moment. — Sarah Kay

We somehow must become what we are not, sacrificing what we are, to inherit the masquerade of what we will be. — Shane Koyczan

The spoken word is ephemeral. The written word, eternal. A symphony, timeless. — A.E. Samaan

When you find yourself writing, reading, or listening the delivery of words when spoken? You know the melody of wordplay. "& I love Wordplay — Elijah Cainaan

Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds. — Henry David Thoreau

If you draw, if you dance, if you like poetry, if you like spoken word, whatever, if you like polka dots - use who you are, who you really are, as a positive. That's your superpower. Wendy — Darryl McDaniels

... and the most beautiful words ever spoken, I have not yet said to you. — Nazim Hikmet

Despite myself, I fought a smile. "You certainly have a way with words."
"I know." Broderick's features rearranged themselves, settling back into impassive neutrality. "Everything out of my mouth is goddamn poetry."
I surrendered to the smile and fought a laugh. "Loveliness, the incarnation of beauty in spoken form."
"Like a fucking butterfly, but with sounds."
And now I surrendered to the laugh. He laughed as well. We laughed together in a way two people cannot and do not laugh alone. — L. H. Cosway

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there. — Wallace Stevens

We need poetry as living language, the core of every language, something that is still spoken, aloud or in the mind, muttered in secret, subversive, reaching around corners, crumpled into a pocket, performed to a community, read aloud to the dying, recited by heart, scratched or sprayed on a wall. That kind of language. — Adrienne Rich

The first time I ever performed spoken word poetry in front of a big crowd, it totally failed. It ended, people barely clapped ... in retrospect the poem was terrible. And for a while I thought this was something I would never do again. And then I realized that, in my 17-year-old head, that was the worst it could have been. And it wasn't that bad - [because] from there, it could only get better. And I think that failure kind of freed me up to explore and not be afraid of failing again. — Phil Kay

I find that the thoughts spoken between the lines are the most important parts of a poem or story. — Lynn Cullen

The first spoken word poem I ever wrote was when I was 14 and I wrote it because I was accidentally signed up for a teen poetry slam. Because I loved poetry I said that I'd try it out. — Sarah Kay

If I looked at some of these pieces as if this project was not spoken-word but just short anthology, I probably would have fussed with some of the sentences, you know? Syllabication and prosody and such crap. Because the printed word is etched in stone. But for reading purposes I accepted this book of texts in the manner in which I wrote them, no need to fuss. Most of the shorter stuff was written as poetry. Meaning lots of white space on the page. — Richard Meltzer

You are capable of doing everything you are afraid of doing, If only you would energize and motivate the Magical thing would absolutely happen to you! — Sereda Aleta Dailey

A beautiful woman combining the prospect of happiness and nakedness in the same spoken sentence could achieve the power of the greatest lyric poetry. — Nick Hornby

Sylvia Plath, Rumi, there's a lot of spoken word poets who do a really incredible job putting their spoken work into page poetry - that's what I strive to do. — Mary Lambert

Peter Piper
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
why couldn't he use his kick-ass alliterative skillz
to write Spoken Word poetry? — Beryl Dov

Spoken word poetry is the art of performance poetry. I tell people it involves creating poetry that doesn't just want to sit on paper, that something about it demands it be heard out loud or witnessed in person. — Sarah Kay

I've been here before, dreaming myself
backwards, among grappling hooks of light.
True to the seasons, I've lived every word
spoken. Did I walk into someone's nightmare? — Yusef Komunyakaa

High school was the first time I ever saw spoken word poetry. The first place I ever performed a poem was at my school, so in some ways it was the nucleus of how it all started. For me I think high school was a period of trying to figure myself out, and poetry was one of the ways I did that, and was a very helpful avenue to try to do that. — Phil Kay

Remind me who you are," he said in a gentler tone, almost a please. "How we know each other."
"Okay," she began. "I'm Savannah Evans, a grad student and teaching assistant who teaches English at a college in Cambridge. I applied to the colony to work on my poetry and arrived six weeks ago. "We've spoken many times. You've praised my work, which I find a great honor as I'm a fan of your art. — Lisa Carlisle

If I were a psychiatrist, I should advise my patients who suffer from "anguish" to read this poem of Baudelaire's whenever an attack seems imminent. Very gently, they should pronounce Baudelaire's key word, vast. For it is a word that brings calm and unity; it opens up unlimited space. It also teaches us to breathe with the air that rests on the horizon, far from the walls of the chimerical prisons that are the cause of our anguish. It has a vocal excellence that is effective on the very threshhold of our vocal powers. The French baritone, Charles Panzera, who is sensitive to poetry, once told me that, according to certain experimental psychologists, it is impossible to think the vowel sound ah without a tautening of the vocal chords. In other words, we read ah and the voice is ready to sing. The letter a, which is the main body of the word vast, stands aloof in its delicacy, an anacoluthon of spoken sensibility. — Gaston Bachelard

THE SILENT PEOPLE

Some people are so rude,
Living their lives with no concern for others,
Or possibly just intent on pissing other people off-
Annoying everyone around them.

The silent people-
Want to kill them-
And drive forks into their skulls-
Create weapons of extreme torture-
And scream from the top of their lungs-
"SHUT UP."

But words are not spoken-
And attention is not given.
Though annoyance is apparent,
The annoying keep on living. — Giorge Leedy

I had become wiser, I tried to find out what irony really is, and discovered that some ancient writer on poetry had spoken of "Ironia, which we call the drye mock." And I cannot think of a better term for it: The drye mock. Not sarcasm, which is like vinegar, or cynicism, which is so often the voice of disappointed idealism, but a delicate casting of cool and illuminating light on life, and thus an enlargement. The ironist is not bitter, he does not seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or serious, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker. He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He speaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the same nature as the wit, who so often speaks from the tongue and no deeper. The wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement. — Robertson Davies

My first spoken word poem, packed with all the wisdom of a 14-year-old, was about the injustice of being seen as unfeminine. The poem was very indignant, and mainly exaggerated, but the only spoken word poetry that I had seen up until that point was mainly indignant, so I thought that that's what was expected of me. — Sarah Kay

To read a poem
Is to see light where there is darkness
Is to hear silence where there is noise
Is to dance where there is no music
Is to sing where the only instrument is words
And the stirring, impassioned pauses — A.A. Patawaran

When I was in school, I was very much into just sports, mostly basketball, and didn't really see myself as much of a student. But once I got into college, I figured I wasn't going to be play beyond college. I started to think what was I going to do, since I wouldn't be able to make a living with basketball. There were a couple of things I liked to do. I wrote poetry, spoken word mostly. — Matt De La Pena

A good poem is a tautology. It expands one word by adding a number which clarify it, thus making a new word which has never before been spoken. The seedword is always so ordinary that hardly anyone perceives it. Classical odes grow from and or because, romantic lyrics from but and if. Immature verses expand a personal pronoun ad nauseam, the greatest works bring glory to a common verb. Good poems, therefore, are always close to banality, over which, however, they tower like precipices. — Alasdair Gray

Whenever a time arises where clarity is desired, it is always wise to reflect on the sage within. — Sereda Aleta Dailey

Comedy was something I picked up trying to perfect my art through spoken word. I got on YouTube just to show off my poetry, and then people thought I was funny, so I ran with it. — Spoken Reasons

The first time I saw her,
Everything in my head went quiet. — Neil Hilborn

This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery, when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul. — Sonja Sohn

I became part of his ocean, an ocean of poetry that swayed and moved anybody near, that plunged up against every chair and table and tugged and tried our souls. His poem left me dry-mouthed and hungry, diminished only slightly from the bitterness of the beer I continually forgot was in my hand. — Annie Fisher

Where, then, do we find the truth? We find it in the body, in the woods, in the water, in the soil. We find it in music, dance, and sometimes in poetry. We find it in a baby's face, and in the adult's face behind the mask. We find it in each other's eyes, when we look. We find it in an embrace, which is, when we feel into it, being to being, an incredibly intimate act. We find it in laughter and sobs, and we find it in the voice behind the spoken word. We find it in fairy tales and myths, and the tales we tell, even if fictional. Sometimes embroidering a tale enlarges it as a vehicle for the truth. We find it in silence and stillness. We find it in pain and loss. We find it in birth and death. — Charles Eisenstein

Some music has words, and rock had words that at times aspired to poetry, but the words were always sounds first, spoken to the body before the mind. — Rebecca Solnit

When I'm not working, I'm on the road with my band. Or I'm performing in poetry houses doing spoken work. So I've got another passion and another outlet that allows me to be creatively fulfilled and not sitting at home pulling my hair out waiting for the right role to come along. — Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Prose - it might be speculated - is discourse; poetry ellipsis. Prose is spoken aloud; poetry overheard. The one is presumably articulate and social, a shared language, the voice of "communication"; the other is private, allusive, teasing, sly, idiosyncratic as the spider's delicate web, a kind of witchcraft unfathomable to ordinary minds. — Joyce Carol Oates

Poets are Prisoners
8-29-2015
Poets are prisoners
Practitioners, commissioners &
conditioners of the spoken word
Caged by their own minds
Words are shackles — Debbie Tosun Kilday

Mad Olia had a lot to say, and most of it was nonsensical, if it could be understood at all. Like bad poetry spoken underwater. — Charlie N. Holmberg

I was really drawn to spoken-word style poetry. I loved the rhythms, and for some reason, I was just drawn to this poetry as a way of expressing my feelings, because I didn't have any other outlet. — Matt De La Pena

Utterance
Sitting over words
Very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
Not far
Like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
The echo of everything that has ever
Been spoken
Still spinning its one syllable
Between the earth and silence — W.S. Merwin

In the beginning was the word, and primitive societies venerated poets second only to their leaders. A poet had the power to name and so to control; he was, literally, the living memory of a group or tribe who would perpetuate their history in song; his inspiration was god given and he was in effect a medium. — Kevin Crossley-Holland

Rap and spoken word have reawakened the country to poetry in itself. Texting and Twitter encourage creative uses of casual language, in ways I have celebrated widely. But we've fallen behind on savoring the formal layer of our language. — John McWhorter

I can't remember the poem
That pierced through my heart
It was the saddest I heard
Of all truths ever spoken
It left a scar in me
A wound that doesn't heal
But the words are forgotten
So is a big part of me — A.A. Patawaran

The foremost watchman on the peak announces his news. It is the truest word ever spoken, and the phrase will be th fittest, most musical, and the unerring voice of the world for that time. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mediocre prose might be read as an escape, might be spoken on television by actors, or mouthed in movies. But mediocre poetry did not exist at all. If poetry wasn't good, it wasn't poetry. It was that simple. — Erica Jong

I think you can perform any poem. But what I believe is that the best examples of spoken word poetry I've ever seen, are spoken word poems that, when you see them, you're aware of the fact they need to be performed. That there's something about that poem that you would not be able to understand if you were just reading it on a piece of paper. — Sarah Kay