Word of Mouth
Boston’s Spoken Word Laureate
Just over a week ago, Mayor Walsh announced a search for Boston’s next poet laureate. A few days after the announcement, BDCwire published an article calling for a spoken word poet, Simone Beaubien, to be named the next Poet Laureate of Boston. My first reaction to the article was a resounding YES. I’ve seen Simone perform and can affirm that she is an incredible artist and is also incredibly dedicated to making spoken word vibrant in the city—she has directed two of the past National Poetry Slams held in Boston. However, the article caught me a bit off-guard because I had not thought that a spoken word artist could fulfill the duties of a poet laureate. But then again, I was not even sure what a poet laureate is supposed to do.
SO WHAT?!
The MC stands on stage with a microphone and squints past the musty yellow light of the Cantab Underground. She begins the poetry slam by giving a short synopsis of the rules of the game: poets perform original work onstage for under three minutes (with a 10-second grace period) while five randomly selected judges in the audience slap numbers on their words so that everyone can go home happy with a numerical label attached to their work. Most people in the room tune out the MC in the beginning because, at least at the Cantab, most of the audience is well-versed in the rules of the game; introducing the competitive art form at the start of each slam is a formality that has become ritual.
Accented Art
There’s a subtle art to mastering accents, and it involves knowing a bit about linguistics. I’ve heard friends say they try to do a Jamaican accent but it comes out Indian. Or their Russian accents sound German. If you’re not a language nerd, this might be utterly tedious to you. Then again, it might be worth it. So bear with me to the end, just in case.
How to Love the Human Voice
First, do whatever you can to eavesdrop on conversations. Curl your feet up on the pebbled carpet of your stairs at home and listen to the tinkling chatter of adults at dinner. Lie on the carpet and watch your brother’s legs shake up and down as he listens to books on tape. Lean the back of your head against your parents’ bedroom door and hear the whispered urgency of goodness-knows-what. Tell yourself this is normal but feel guilty listening in, like a cicada quietly unsticking herself from an ugly shell.When you encounter poetry in school, don’t pay any attention. Who cares about daffodils and how they feel? Rhyming “trees” with “breeze” and “hills” with “daffodils” should not, in your opinion, be enough to constitute a poem. You prefer not to talk because everyone else has so many things to say and more interesting ways to say them. Your brother’s drums are louder than your voice. Jim Dale blasting from his boom-box. You already know you are a nerd.Discover the internet in middle school. This first encounter leads you to the shore of the vast island of distraction. You find a gem called “For those who can still ride an airplane for the first time” by Anis Mojgani:
Slow down, Quentin, slow down.
You don’t have to touch and go.
You can see it all if your finger whispers on one word.
Slow down, and hold what you see just a little bit longer.