Editing Spoken word (section)

{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2023}}
{{Short description|Type of performance art}}
{{About|a performance art|the 2009 film|Spoken Word (film){{!}}''Spoken Word'' (film)}}
{{more citations needed|date=March 2019}}
[[File:Erika Renee Land at the Newberry Library.png|thumb|[[MacDowell (artists' residency and workshop)|MacDowell Fellow]] [[Erika Renee Land]]  performing at the [[Newberry Library|Newberry Library in Chicago]] during the Surviving The Long Wars Triennial]]
'''Spoken word''' is an oral poetic [[performance art]] that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an [[oral tradition|ancient oral artistic tradition]] that focuses on the aesthetics of [[recitation]] and [[word play]], such as the performer's live [[Intonation (linguistics)|intonation]] and voice inflection. Spoken word is a "catchall" term that includes any kind of poetry recited aloud, including poetry readings, [[poetry slam]]s, [[jazz poetry]], pianologues, musical readings, and [[hip hop music]], and can include [[Sketch comedy|comedy routines]] and [[prose]] [[monologue]]s.<ref name="Glossary">{{cite book |last1=Hirsch |first1=Edward |title=A Poet's Glossary |date=8 April 2014 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |location=New York |isbn=978-0151011957}}</ref> Unlike written poetry, the quality of spoken word is shaped less by the visual aesthetics on a page, and more from [[phonaesthetics]] or the aesthetics of sound.