Leopold Sedar Senghor

Leopold Sedar Senghor, one of the greatest of all African writers, knows that poetry is based on the spoken word; all great poetry is “spoken word poetry,” or it is not poetry at all.

“In Africa, when an old man dies, it is like a library burning.” Amadou Hampate Ba was Mali’s ambassador to the United Nations when he said that, and I can find no better example of what Leopold Sedar Senghor meant when he said that poetry comes from speech.

Amadou was stirred—and he was “truly himself”—when he spoke those words at UNESCO in 1962, and as soon as the words were spoken they were poetry.

Shakespeare wrote many of the most beautiful words ever uttered in the English language. His sonnets are truly spoken word poetry, because his words are poems, and they were meant to be spoken.

His sonnets are love poems, and a love that is not spoken out loud is a love that will never come alive. You can get the unabridged collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets and other wonderful collections of the world’s most beloved poetry at Talking-Book-Store.com.

The sonnets are read by Sir John Gielgud, possibly the greatest interpreter of Shakespeare the world has ever known.

You can enjoy listening to many of the greatest American poets in the full-cast production of Classic American Poetry, also available at Talking-Book-Store.com.

This superb anthology of America’s most famous spoken word poetry includes 65 poems by the leading American poets, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, and E.E. Cummings.

The King James Bible contains some of the world’s most beautiful spoken word poetry. “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,” Jesus said. He was quoting Moses, who was one of the first poets of the spoken word.

The Bible is full of poetry: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The first verse of the Gospel of John speaks of the power of the spoken word to create, and it is for me the most rhythmic, stirring, and truly authentic speech ever recorded by man.

Yes, Leopold Sedar Senghor was right: Poetry comes from speech.

Some of my favorite spoken word poetry is in the New Testament: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known,” wrote Paul in his first letter to the church in Corinth.

Dr. Martin Luther King alluded to this verse when he said, “Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.”