Is There A Difference Between Page and Stage Poetry?
Until slam poetry hit the scene, I think it’s safe to assume most of us didn’t encounter poetry through performance. We encountered it in classrooms, on the page, and with our teachers droning on about metaphor. You know, before Youtube.
If you spend any time with the genre, it’s not hard to see that there are some notable differences between page poetry and stage poetry. I don’t think these differences are inherent in nature, I think that I have more to do with the goal of the writer.
It’s important to remember that not all performance poets are slam poets, but there is some definite overlap. Slam is arguably one of the more popular outlets for performance poetry and made poetry more accessible to a larger audience.
I’ve been writing poetry since I was in Jr. high school and performing poetry for about 6 years. I’ve been to a lot of poetry shows and performed in a fair number of them as well. These are my broad-stroke observations about poetry as entertainment.
3 Things Performance Poets Do Differently
They’re in control.
Performance poets are in control when they’re on stage. They know what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and it shows up in their stage presence.
They care about the audience’s experience.
You can see this in the type of story they’re telling. Performance poetry is a type of entertainment, they know the audience is there to get something out of it, and the audience can’t get something out of it if they can’t connect to the performance.
They’re easily understandable.
Performance poets are committed to curating a specific feeling on stage. You often won’t see them using convoluted, hard-to-follow metaphors. Unless, of course, they’re trying to curate a hard-to-understand experience, but then that begs the question of whether they care about the audience’s experience.
Where does that leave “page” poets?
There are beautiful and effective things about both page poetry and stage poetry. As a writer, you have to consider the kind of experience you’re trying to create with your work.
“Page” poets get to focus on their language and create visual experiences that won’t necessarily translate on stage. The benefit of being on the page is that your reader can sit with the poem for a while if they want.
There’s room for both, and that’s the beautiful thing about the art form.
Interested in learning more about poetry writing and performance?
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About the author
Abby Bland (she/they) is a nonbinary writer who also straddles the line between comic and poet in Kansas City. Her poems have appeared in numerous publications and she regularly produces shows in the KC area. In 2022 she was awarded an ArtsKC Inspiration Grant for her one-person spoken word comedy show You Are Here.