Spoken Word Poetry Quotes

My first spoken word poem, packed with all the wisdom of a 14-year-old, was about the injustice of being seen as unfeminine. The poem was very indignant, and mainly exaggerated, but the only spoken word poetry that I had seen up until that point was mainly indignant, so I thought that that's what was expected of me. ~ Sarah Kay

I love

how grown children
will still
name

their mothers
the
most
beautiful.

It is
as though,

their eyes
have met
the cascading
curves

and golden
silhouettes
of every
woman.

Yet
their souls
still
drum

to the beat
of their
mother's
warmth
and care. ~ A Starry Eyed April

What is love but a word?
A feeling roughly concordant to fear?
A fantasy that breaks through
the heartbreak
and endows the defeated with bravery? ~ Tatjana Ostojic

Every poet will forever try to write the greatest poem ever written, I have found that this kind of poem can be written with "One" word. And that word consists of a beauty beyond any measure to man and one of the most beauty creations to grace the presents of man. That one word poem is ... ... .. "YOU ~ Michael Jones

You see flaws in every face
If you look long enough.

That's why I'm so afraid
Of the word 'forever'.

Forever is long enough
For sunrises to become stale
For fire to become tame
For a favorite song
To become like nails
On a chalkboard;

Forever is long enough
For passion to waste away
Like grapes into raisins
Under the beating sun
Of countless days. ~ Justin Wetch

The boon of language is not tenderness. All that it holds, it holds with exactitude and without pity, even a term of endearment; the word is impartial: the usage is all. The boon of language is that potentially it is complete, it has the potentiality of holding with words the totality of human experience--everything that has occurred and everything that may occur. It even allows space for the unspeakable. In this sense one can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man. For prose this home is a vast territory, a country which it crosses through a network of tracks, paths, highways; for poetry this home is concentrated on a single center, a single voice, and this voice is simultaneously that of an announcement and a response to it. ~ John Berger

and he said,

"regret is a sorry word, too late for those words spoken or actions already done. ~ Anthony T Hincks

[Science] works! Planes fly. Cars drive. Computers compute. If you base medicine on science, you cure people. If you base the design of planes on science, they fly. If you base the design of rockets on science, they reach the moon. It works ... bitches. ~ Richard Dawkins

Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery. Don't eat pork. I'm sorry, what was that last one?? Don't eat pork. God has spoken. Is that the word of God or is that pigs trying to outsmart everybody? ~ Jon Stewart

The first inkling of this notion had come to him the Christmas before, at his daughter's place in Vermont. On Christmas Eve, as indifferent evening took hold in the blue squares of the windows, he sat alone in the crepuscular kitchen, imbued with a profound sense of the identity of winter and twilight, of twilight and time, of time and memory, of his childhood and that church which on this night waited to celebrate the second greatest of its feasts. For a moment or an hour as he sat, become one with the blue of the snow and the silence, a congruity of star, cradle, winter, sacrament, self, it was as though he listened to a voice that had long been trying to catch his attention, to tell him, Yes, this was the subject long withheld from him, which he now knew, and must eventually act on.

He had managed, though, to avoid it. He only brought it out now to please his editor, at the same time aware that it wasn't what she had in mind at all. But he couldn't do better; he had really only the one subject, if subject was the word for it, this idea of a notion or a holy thing growing clear in the stream of time, being made manifest in unexpected ways to an assortment of people: the revelation itself wasn't important, it could be anything, almost. Beyond that he had only one interest, the seasons, which he could describe endlessly and with all the passion of a country-bred boy grown old in the city. He was beginning to doubt (he said) whether these were sufficient to make an ~ John Crowley

[M]odern physics has definitely decided for Plato. For the smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense of the word: they are forms, structures, or – in Plato's sense – Ideas, which can be unambiguously spoken of only in the language of mathematics. ~ Rupert Sheldrake

A prayer is a private conversation, a poem is an incantation ~ Kyle “Guante” Tran Myhre

Each word, as someone once wrote, contains the universe.
The visible carries all the invisible on its back.
Tonight, in the unconditional, what moves in the long-limbed grasses,
what touches me
As though I didn't exist?
What is it that keeps on moving,
a tiny pillar of smoke
Erect on its hind legs,
loose in the hollow grasses?
A word I don't know yet, a little word, containing infinity,
Noiseless and unrepentant, in sift through the dry grass. ~ Charles Wright

I feel the written word, poetry and literature is just one of the most beautiful things that human beings do. So we have to fight for it. ~ Helen Mirren

Overall I think the show went well, kudos to Miss Jeanie It was well rounded. From artwork to singing, to spoken word to short films, I think it definitely stimulated the audience's senses. ~ Angie Brown

Children, we should visit homes of the poor, orphanages and hospitals from time to time. We should take our family members along and offer assistance and look after the welfare of inmates. A word spoken with love and concern will give them more comfort than any amount of money. That will lead to the expansion of our hearts as well. ~ Mata Amritanandamayi

Fuck them," says Susan Falls. This is the first time, in her entire life, that she has employed an extra-cerebral profanity. Though in fantasy she has often used swear words, she has never spoken one. It feels good, and it occurs to Susan that, as stupid as most people sound when they use profanities, as stupid as she must have sounded just now, the feeling of power that just rushed through her, from inner labia to thyroglossal duct, the trace sensations leftover from just now, just now when she said the word fuck, make sounding stupid more than worthwhile.
"Fuck them, then," Carla Ribisi agrees, and it is the hottest motherfucking thing Susan has ever heard. ~ Adam Levin

For the first time, his wife was waking up in his arms ... And if he'd known how it would feel to have her there, his heart bursting out of his chest and his throat so full and tight that he couldn't have spoken a word if he'd wanted too, Thom would never have been able to pass a single night away form her. He didn't know how he ever would again. ~ Meljean Brook

Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically. ~ Jean Cocteau

The hallmarks of the noir style are fear, guilt and loneliness, breakdown and despair, sexual obsession and social corruption, a sense that the world is controlled by, malignant forces preying on us, a rejection of happy endings and a preference for resolutions heavy with doom, but always redeemed by a breathtakingly vivid poetry of word (if the work was a novel or story) or image (if it was a movie). ("Introduction") ~ Francis M. Nevins Jr.

In some instances, music is actually better than the spoken word, because it doesn't need to be understood. ~ Victor Wooten

A good journalist must be neutral," were the first word she heard from her professor at Georgetown.
"No journalist is, nor will be, nor really should be neutral," were the first word spoken to her by editor-in-chief of the Des Moines Registrant. "We're all biased one way or the other and that's fine. It's like in the court of law, two points of view clashing so the truth can emerge. Being objective is not the same as being neutral. ~ Krzysztof Pacyński

And it's beyond my energy to explain why I don't think that four-letter word that everyone's so obsessed over and that gets everyone into so much trouble and pretty much makes everyone behave like an ass can live in a place like this. Somewhere during dry cleaning, details, and missed meals, it flakes away and what you're left with is married people with a tolerable affinity for each other. That little four-letter word can exist only in poetry, or movies of 2 to 3 hours in length. Maybe in a mini-series.
This place of dull details and irksome obligations is a home only to other four-letter words, which are used much more frequently. ~ Kendare Blake

Song

This is the love I bring,
Absolute and nothing:
A tree but with no roots,
A cloud heavy with fruit,
A wide stone stair
That leads nowhere
But to empty sky,
Ambiguous majesty.

This is the love I bear:
It is light as air,
Yet weighs like an earth;
It is water flowing,
Yet adamant as fire.
It is coming from going.
It is dying and growing.

A love so rare and hard
It cuts a diamond word
Upon the windowpane,
"Never, never again,
Never upon my breast,"
Having no time to bring,
Having no place to rest,
Absolute and nothing. ~ May Sarton

I shall need to courage to do what I'm about to do: speak. And risk the enormous surprise I shall feel at the poverty of the spoken thing. As soon as it's out of my mouth, I'll have to add: that's not it, that's not it! But I cannot be afraid of being ridiculous, I always preferred less to more also out of fear of the ridiculous: because there's also the shattering of modesty. I'm putting off having to speak to myself. Out of fear? And because I don't have a word to say. I don't have a word to say. So why don't I shut up? But if I do not force out the word muteness will swallow me forever in waves. ~ Clarice Lispector

hen we allow hope to be challenged, our faith wavers and our words often become negative. Speaking the truth, rather than negative words has a two fold effect. First, the spoken word builds up our hope and faith. In addition, words of blessing released into the atmosphere actually have power to bring positive change. ~ Faith Blatchford

His first word, his first day at junior high. Nonsense things, the deepest, most important poetry of my life. ~ Sebastian Barry

My apologies. I meant no offense." Except that his tone told her he didn't mean a word he'd just spoken. ~ Jean Oram

Detachment, properly understood, means freedom, inner freedom. And, although it is not a word Jesus used, detachment expresses very well an important element in his spirituality: the ability to let go. In the Christian tradition this has been spoken of as "purity of heart" or as the process of becoming "poor in spirit. ~ Albert Nolan

I'm a first-time father, and it was amazing to me to learn that my son could actually use sign language before the spoken word. I could see this intelligence in his eyes before he could speak: how he could understand what was going on around him and was frustrated by that. ~ Matt Reeves

Let us remember, there is One who daily records all we do for Him, and sees more beauty in His servants' work than His servants do themselves ... And then shall His faithful witnesses discover, to their wonder and surprise, that there never was a word spoken on their Master's behalf, which does not receive a reward. ~ J.C. Ryle

Poetry is not a waiting room where one stays overnight ... every word is war. ~ Rolf Dieter Brinkmann

The world of visual perspective is one of unified and homogeneous space. Such a world is alien to the resonating diversity of spoken words. So language was the last art to accept the visual logic of Gutenberg technology, and the first to rebound in the electric age. ~ Marshall McLuhan

Poetry is not an issue of form and enjambments. Poetry, as the word is classically used, has to do with sound and sense. It can be rhyme. It can be rhythm, pace, breath. ~ Tim O'Brien

No one has even a definitive spelling for Cawdrey's name (Cowdrey, Cawdry). But then, no one agreed on the spelling of most names: they were spoken, seldom written. In fact, few had any concept of "spelling" - the idea that each word, when written, should take a particular predetermined form of letters. The word cony (rabbit) appeared variously as conny, conye, conie, connie, coni, cuny, cunny, and cunnie in a single 1591 pamphlet. ~ James Gleick

Speech recognition is utterly crap for writing fiction. If you try reading a novel aloud you'll soon figure out why - written prose style is utterly unlike the spoken word. ~ Charles Stross

The trouble with fashions is you want to fuck the women in their fashions but when the time comes they always take them off so they don't get wrinkled.
Face it, the really great fucks in a man's life was when there was no time to take yr clothes off, you were too hot and she was too hot - none of yr Bohemian leisure, this was middleclass explosions against snowbanks, against walls of shithouses in attics, on sudden couches in the lobby -
Talk about yr hot peace. ~ Jack Kerouac

Yesterday, I was collecting words.
One was up there, sitting in the bo tree,
Another was in the banyan.
One was wandering in my street,
Another was lying in the earthen jar.
A green word lay in the fields,
A black one was eating flesh.
A blue word was flying
With a grain of the sun in its beak.
Every single thing in this world looks like a word to me.
The words of eyes,
The words of hands.
But I do not understand words I hear from a mouth.
I can only read words.
I can only read words. ~ Shiv Kumar Batalvi

I don't speak a word about you but,
You are there in every word I speak.

I may forgive you
On the day when my heart no longer
Whispers your name or
On the day
I no longer see you in my dreams.

You were my dream in the day time
Now, I am going to hide you
In my silence
All through the night.

I don't speak a word about you but,
You are there in every word I speak. ~ Jyoti Patel