Editing Spoken word (section)

===Development in the United States===
In 1849, the ''Home Journal'' wrote about concerts that combined spoken word recitations with music, as demonstrated by actresses [[Sophie Schröder|Sophie Schroder]] and [[Fanny Kemble]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Kimber |first=Marian Wilson |title=The elocutionists: women, music, and the spoken word |date=2017 |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=978-0-252-09915-1 |series=Music in American life |location=Urbana |pages=27, 213, 225}}</ref>

[[Vachel Lindsay]] helped maintain the tradition of poetry as spoken art in the early twentieth century.<ref>'Reading list, Biography – Vachel Lindsay' Poetry Foundation.org Chicago 2015</ref> Composers such as [[Marion Bauer]], [[Ruth Crawford Seeger|Ruth Crawford Seegar]], and [[Lalla Ryckoff]] composed music to be combined with spoken words.<ref name=":0" /> [[Robert Frost]] also spoke well, his meter accommodating his natural sentences.<ref name="Hall">{{cite magazine |last1=Hall |first1=Donald |title=Thank You Thank You |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/thank-you-thank-you |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date= 26 August 2018 |date= 26 October 2012}}</ref> Poet laureate [[Robert Pinsky]] said: "Poetry's proper culmination is to be read aloud by someone's voice, whoever reads a poem aloud becomes the proper medium for the poem."<ref name="Sleigh">{{cite journal |last1=Sleigh |first1=Tom |title=Robert Pinsky |journal=Bomb |date=Summer 1998}}</ref> "Every speaker intuitively courses through manipulation of sounds, it is almost as though 'we sing to one another all day'."<ref name="Pinsky 1999" /> "Sound once imagined through the eye gradually gave body to poems through performance, and late in the 1950s reading aloud erupted in the United States."<ref name="Hall" />

Some American spoken-word poetry originated from the poetry of the [[Harlem Renaissance]],<ref name="Face">{{cite book |last1=O'Keefe Aptowicz |first1=Cristin |title=Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam |year=2008 |publisher=Soft Skull Press |location=New York |isbn=978-1-933368-82-5 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/wordsinyourfaceg0000apto }}</ref> [[blues]], and the [[Beat Generation]] of the 1960s.<ref name="Neal">{{cite book |last1=Neal |first1=Mark Anthony |title=The Songs in the Key of Black Life: A Rhythm and Blues Nation |date=2003 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=0-415-96571-3}}</ref> Spoken word in African-American culture drew on a rich literary and musical heritage. [[Langston Hughes]] and writers of the Harlem Renaissance were inspired by the feelings of the blues and [[spirituals]], [[hip-hop]], and [[slam poetry]] artists were inspired by poets such as Hughes in their word stylings.<ref name=Folkways />

The [[Civil Rights Movement]] also influenced spoken word. Notable speeches such as [[Martin Luther King Jr.]]'s "[[I Have a Dream]]", [[Sojourner Truth]]'s "[[Ain't I a Woman?]]", and [[Booker T. Washington]]'s "Cast Down Your Buckets" incorporated elements of oration that influenced the spoken-word movement within the African-American community.<ref name="Folkways">{{cite web |title=Say It Loud: African American Spoken Word |url=https://folkways.si.edu/say-loud-african-american-spoken-word/struggle-protest/article/smithsonian |website=Smithsonian Folkways Recordings |access-date= 15 February 2013}}</ref> [[The Last Poets]] was a poetry and political music group formed during the 1960s that was born out of the [[Civil Rights Movement]] and helped increase the popularity of spoken word within African-American culture.<ref name="last">{{cite web |title=The Last Poets |url=http://www.nsm.buffalo.edu/~sww/LAST-POETS/last_poets0.html |website=www.nsm.buffalo.edu |access-date=26 August 2018}}</ref> Spoken word poetry entered into wider American culture following the release of [[Gil Scott-Heron]]'s spoken-word poem "[[The Revolution Will Not Be Televised]]" on the album ''[[Small Talk at 125th and Lenox]]'' in 1970.<ref>Sisario, Ben (28 May 2011), [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/arts/music/gil-scott-heron-voice-of-black-culture-dies-at-62.html Ben Sisario, "Gil Scott-Heron, Voice of Black Protest Culture, Dies at 62"], ''The New York Times''.</ref>

The [[Nuyorican Poets Café]] on New York's Lower Eastside was founded in 1973, and is one of the oldest American venues for presenting spoken-word poetry.<ref>[http://www.verbsonasphalt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2 "The History of Nuyorican Poetry Slam"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111001055252/http://www.verbsonasphalt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2 |date=1 October 2011 }}, Verbs on Asphalt.</ref>

In the 1980s, spoken-word poetry competitions, often with elimination rounds, emerged and were labelled "[[poetry slams]]". American poet [[Marc Smith (poet)|Marc Smith]] is credited with starting the poetry slam in November 1984.<ref name=Glazner /> In 1990, the first [[National Poetry Slam]] took place in Fort Mason, [[San Francisco]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poetryslam.com/faq/nps |title=PSI FAQ: National Poetry Slam |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029201141/http://www.poetryslam.com/faq/nps |archive-date=29 October 2013 }}</ref> The poetry slam movement reached a wider audience following [[Russell Simmons]]' ''[[Def Poetry]]'', which was aired on [[HBO]] between 2002 and 2007. The poets associated with the [[Buffalo Readings]] were active early in the 21st century.

Spoken word poets have served as [[List of U.S. states' poets laureate|poets laureate]] in US states and cities, for example, [[Yolanda Wisher]] named [[Poet Laureate of Philadelphia]] in 2016 and [[Jewel Rodgers]] named [[Nebraska State Poet]] in 2025.