eh yo!

What I really thought was interesting about what we read from Bum this week was how much form varied from poem to poem. I think most of the time when people think of Spoken word or performance poetry they assume that it has no relationship to the page. But poems like Beauty Ritual, Medusa, A Blue Black Pearl, and Hey Yo/Yo Soy! show just how important the page and space can be even when the poem is being read.

The poem that stood out for me the most was Hey Yo/Yo Soy! because it takes over the page so much. It’s a poem that to me seems to have a sense of machismo but also this sort of sadness at the way that this machismo plays at. The way that it moves across the page and takes up so much space, adds to this sense of oppressive energy. There is nowhere to run to because Jesus Papoleto Melendez, uses practically every inch of the page. He is completely in your face as you read the poem. In performance, this kind of space might be shown by walk around the stage and really engaging with the audience but what reading the work on the page forces your mind to feel invaded in a way in which the performance can’t.
In terms of content v. form, I think the two are working together in this poem. I think in this poem especially the form of the poem is building upon the content. It helps us get a sense for where the poem is coming from and feel the full weight of the poem. I think in some poetry form and content can feel like they don’t really go together or it feels like one is consuming the other. Hey Yo/Yo Soy! incorporates form into content to a point where they feel as though they cannot be separated from each other. For me the words by themselves feel a little abstract at times and at times, it could feel exclusionary with the Spanish but I think that the form adds this other element.

I think the big question for me is whether form is necessary for poetry. Personally, I think that this question is way bigger than it seems. For some poets form and content and intrinsically linked and this tends to be people who have more traditional styles but also for people who believe that poetry is solely meant to be read on the page. For some people poetry is a solely oral tradition. And in most of those cases, I would say that form just isn’t necessary. Personally, I’m of the camp that poetry should be both for the page and the stage and if that means that form becomes necessary then great. I guess I’m saying that writing poetry in itself is a form so it is necessary. Now the more hardcore methods of creating form…. not so much.