Stay tuned for further commentary by Poetry Matters.
"The Voice in Twenty-First Century Spoken Word Poetry and Confessionalism: An Analysis of Performances by Lozada-Oliva, Benaim, and Vaid-Menon" by Anushree Joshi
"...the reclamation of the poetic space, earlier accessible in more limited and limiting ways, through the integration of confessionalism and the physical presence of the poet on the stage, has challenged hierarchies of marginalization, particularly with respect to gender and race. This is the socially empowering potential of spoken word performance by enlivening a community effect: 'their public declamation in relatively democratized spaces 鈥� bars, clubs, etc. 鈥� suggests that they participate in poetic activity with roots in a collectivity not conventionally recognized as a prime origin of literary 鈥� particularly poetic 鈥� production' (Damon qtd. in 11)."
"Commentary on 'Poetry and Re-emergence' through Melanie Faith's听This Passing Fever: 1918 Influenza Poems"听by Hedye Berdjis
"...re-emergence can only result through some form of change, and change usually involves some form of loss. The main losses of both pandemics are abundantly clear and need no further elucidation, but the necessary changes, with their concomitant losses, to build a path towards re-emergence, are the ones that Melanie Faith illustrates in This Passing Fever. In reading her poems, we re-encounter change in safety measures, change in perspective, change of focus, change of actions."