Talk Ugly to Me

On playing with the idea of poem as Speech:
It sets up poetry as a living-breathing thing, intertwined indefinitely with its creator, but still takes on a life of its own. Just like stories are past down from generation, we still have brilliant poems from times past available for us to read or remember from hearing the stories told to us.
A benefit of hearing the poem spoken (especially by its original creator) gives us more of a sense of the tone that the writer was trying to convey. Some may argue that hearing it spoken in the way it was supposed to be read hinders the audience's/reader's experience of fully enjoying the piece. Yet, if you are imaginative in spirit, you would still be able to take whatever you wanted from the poem. Writers create these stories and poems... but they are essentially ours for the taking in a way. We get to pick at them, become stubborn and fussy, separate certain sections however we feel like it. Humans are curious by nature.

I saw poetry as speech come to life when I watched The Intangibles perform at a local community college back home; I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Raw, honest, moving poetry. It flowed from their mouths... they were storytellers. They talked about love, pain... they talked about life as it really is (no bells and whistles). They are poets... but in a "in your face" sort of way. They are a collective poetry performance group who participate in many slam poetry contests.

One of my favorite poets from the group is:
Sierra Demulder. She also has a side-project called Talk Ugly to Me. Give her a listen... she's scary good.



"If the first step is saying I love you, I will carve it in braille on your pillow so it's the first thing you feel in the morning" ~ quote from: "Garden" by Sierra Demulder