Juan Felipe Herrera Quotes

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.

Many performance poets seem to believe that yelling a poem makes it comprehensible. They are wrong.

Stadium rock and commercial rock are the opposite of what poetry needs. An audience of around 200 is ideal for poetry.

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.

Reading a poem aloud to an audience is gestural as much as precise.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first, then read it. Performance is more provocative.

For the last 15 years that I have been performing, all I ever wanted to do was transcend poetry to the world. See, it wasn't enough for me to write a book. It wasn't enough for me to join a slam competition, and while those things hold weight, it wasn't the driving force that pushes the pen to the pad.

But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea, but of course I never really much got the chance to do it.

I went on all over the States, ranting poems to enthusiastic audiences that, the week before, had been equally enthusiastic about lectures on Railway Development or the Modern Turkish Essay.

It's like freedom of speech - they can't tell you not to do it. When no one will put you on at a club or venue, you can go to the street, just start singing, and get a lot of good feedback from people as they walk by. I got really good at lip reading and seeing if a song is working. It was a good way to start.

Ideally, I'd like to write poetry for public performances and prose for a different, more contemplative kind of consumption.

I really just love reading. It's my favorite thing, performing my poems live. Reading by reading, I just kind of follow my nose.

The poet is like the wise fool or like a version of the stand-up, because we're standing, we're doing stand-up. That's exactly what we're doing.

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.

When you recite you're giving a performance, in the way that an actor or a singer performs, and some poets are not interested in doing that, maybe because they're writing for a readership as opposed to an audience, or because they see poetry as a very private art.

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.

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.

Street performing can be a great teaching ground and a barometer for what you're doing. It's rough and unforgiving at times, but it can be wild and fun and a real open canvas for your creativity.

I had to find a way to get off the streets because it was too windy. So I started organizing variety shows of street performers. I would rent a hall, cafe or bar so I could put on a show. I did that for years before the 'Tonight Show With Johnny Carson' heard about this odd thing I did with bubbles.

I like to warm them up with stand-up, get them into my world and tone, and then bring other characters on. There's so much you can do theatrically on stage. You keep changing the direction and angles, and then people don't get bored.

One of my favorite things to do, when the ghost light is on and it's just an empty stage - I'll let my shadow spread right across the theater, and I just say to myself, 'For the next few hours, these folks are my responsibility. I get to share in something that is unique.' It's like church.

Poetry is all I write, whether for books or readings or for the National Theatre or for the opera house and concert hall or even for TV.

I won the speech competition in class, and I always say this was my first 'spoken word performance.' It was the first time I got on stage and recited something. I fell in love with the stage at the age of 12.

I believe in entertaining the audiences with whatever I do.

I feel it's my duty, my job, now to allow people to hear the dance to different genres of music, to ensure audiences have the chance to listen to tap dancing up against all these other styles.