It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you've ever attended a poetry slam, you probably already hate "slam voice." For the uninitiated, it's a term used to describe the affected vocal delivery that has evolved out of the spoken word scene in recent years, and tends to involve a number of common features: mournful tone, stilted, Shatneresque pacing, and long crescendos deployed to show us just. How. Fucking. Intense. Everything is. As an outsider, it's an easy thing to make fun of, but unfortunately for our cold, dead hearts, it's always been hard to articulate exactly why it annoys us.

God damn I hated slam poetry the one time I went to see it. I think it really comes down to the strived-for emotive impact that Alley mentions; it tries to be super serious and sombre and intense, and to really beat you over the head with some emotional point, and thereby has always come across to me as pretentious or condescending.

posted 2618 days ago