Poetic Forms: Performance Poetry
Interpreted broadly, the category of performance poetry might include any poem that is read, sung, recited, acted, or otherwise performed before an audience. In recent decades, however, the term “performance poetry” has emerged to indicate a more specific body of work: poems designed expressly for live performance, often in collaborative or multimedia contexts that incorporate music, dance, or the visual arts. In the United States, performance poetry usually refers to jazz, rap, and hip-hop poetry and to the popular open-mike readings and slam competitions of the Spoken Word movement of the 1990s, although it also includes the more abstract sound-based experiments of the avant-garde. In all these instances, the poem as performance moves decisively off the printed page and into public settings, reclaiming a social space for poetry and expanding its audience.
Crown, K. (2001). Performance poetry. In E. L. Haralson (Ed.), Encyclopedia of American poetry: the twentieth century. London, UK: Routledge. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.simmons.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/routampoetry/performance_poetry/0?institutionId=5600