Slam Poetry and Cultural Experience for Children (Report‪)‬

Introduction Poetry is entwined with the lives of children from infancy--lullabies and nursery rhymes at birth; street rhymes, incantations, and the traditional forms of poetry at school-age. Drawn to limericks, nursery and street rhymes, children have used poetry for play and language expression--roll the sounds in their mouths and jauntily spit them out. School age experiences with poetry turn to recitation and memorization of poetry. These experiences are focused on poetry as a genre, the structure of poetry, or the study of traditional Western poets where exposure to the emotional and observational experiences of others is the lesson's center. Adults distort the poet's work into a meaningless, detached bundle of words by using structured models to write poetry (haiku, rhyming schemes, acrostics, etc.) and forced memorization of "classic" poems to chant poetry, The introduction of slam performance of poetry into children's lives can salvage a relationship with poetry.