by 2wyth Gbedupoet
Who Is A Poet?
A Poet is someone who expresses himself in a figurative manner. He/she uses the mastery of figures of speech to express himself and both a Page Poet and Spoken Word Poet are true poets because they do the same thing in a different style.
Imagine this:
A Page Poet is an Anglican Church Bishop preaching in an altar cabana with a wired microphone while a Spoken Word Poet is a Pentecostal Pastor preaching with a wireless microphone who paces around the congregation.
Meaning to say the page poet is conventional and the spoken word poet is Avant Garde?
The Page Poet has the liberty to be deep in his figurative expression because he expects you to think and get into his thought process while a Spoken Word Poetry uses figurative expressions that you can easily feel and touch around you.
Yes sir, you are correct. You’re making my work so easily. I love you, no rainbow lol.
With a Page Poet, you have minutes, hours and days with the Poet. So, he writes like he’s giving you assignment to research and learn new things to develop your vocabulary and how you think where with a Spoken Word Poet, he’s like a one-minute man, he needs to make his point asap and make you excited and leave you with few punchlines and painted images with words.
Both forms have their places, times and situations where they fit the most.
Please don’t riot, everyone has their importance and relevance crowned by time.
Most of the riots I see on pages of poetry comes as ‘storms in tea cups” the page poet adheres to the convention of writing poems- figure of speech, lines, verses, and mostly showing and leaving the reader to discern their purports or the intents of the letters.
Spoken Word Poetry is the Afrobeats of Burna Boy, Wizkid and Davido while Page Poetry is the Afrobeat of Baba Fela.
Page Poets will scream hallelujah now lol!
For you to be a great poet, you must master the discipline of Page Poetry and then apply the dynamism of performance that comes with Spoken Word Poetry.
A great Poet can transform any Page Poetry into a beautiful Spoken Word Poetry piece.
The dynamism of both forms… their fusion, of Siamese birth.
A great poet does not glory in punchlines that attracts few seconds finger-snaps but glory in painting pictures with his words and gesticulations and use of words and the cadence with which the words are spoken to leave an indelible mark in the mind of his audience.
This has been practiced here on Naija Poetry Fest Community…it showed the beauty and relevance of both forms
Yes, you just have to know where one stops and where the other ends.
If you want to be a great poet, always go back to the basics no matter how many stages you’ve gotten a standing ovation. The basics of knowing the following:
What is poetry?
Who is a poet?
What makes an expression poetry?
Learn, unlearn and relearn your figures of speech…that’s the accent of a poet.
Listen to other poets both poetasters, young poets and legendary poets.
During conversation, listen more than talking.
Observe how different people from different races and tribes speak…there’s always the poetics of a language embedded in that language.
If you can, learn how to speak another language so that you can think or synthesize words or expressions in different language.
How do you know if you’re a great Poet?
When you can spot a poetic line in everyday conversation with non-poets. This brings me to the submission that everyone is a poet, it’s just that they don’t know it but a great poet spots poeticness when people speak.
Even though both the page and spoken forms of rendering poetry can go hand-in-hand, both are distinct in the impacts they have the essence they communicate; hence both can as well exist on separate platforms. How valid is this assumption?
Yes they can exist on separate platforms. However, a great Poet is a creative chef, who can use the ingredients of both recipe to cook an innovative delicacy that will steal the loyalty of their tastebuds.