printThis is Why You Probably Hate Slam Poetry According to a Linguistic Scholar
by ArtemusBlank
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.