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Today, Fable and the Verbivore are talking about the poetry that we’ve recently been reading and listening to - from slam poetry to Emily Dickinson. And the lessons that we’ve learned from it.

In this episode, we touch on different poets and poems we’ve connected with and unpack some of what we’ve learned.

Here are a few of the poets we talk about:

Slam poets Pages Matam, Elizabeth Acevedo, and G. Yamazawa.

Classic poets Anne Sexton, Emily Dickinson, and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Modern poets Nikita Gil, Morgan Harper Nichols, and Amanda Gorman.

As we talk about slam poets and spoken word, we discuss how reading our work aloud can help us identify where our words don’t flow quite right. That the act of listening can connect us with the rhythm and the language of our work on another level, as well as with our voice.

We talk about rhythm and pattern and making promises to the reader for what they should expect from your work - and how breaking those patterns or promises in a way that feels erratic and without purpose can lose the trust of your audience. We also discuss how words - and poetry especially - has the power to shift our mental lens and change our emotional state.

Lastly, we talk honestly about the barriers and benefits to sharing our words and our voice. We mention how spoken word poet Amanda Gorman shared in a Ted Talk about how terrifying getting up and speaking is still for her - and the process she goes through to remind her that her voice has value.

Though we both are intimidated by the idea of sharing our poetry in a public setting, we’ve made a commitment to each perform one of our original poems at an open mic night sometime over the next couple months - as well as to share our thoughts and takeaways from the experience in an podcast episode after we do.

We hope you enjoy this episode! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore