Investigation of non-Verbal Elements in Speech Poetry

Speech poetry in the past two decades has expanded considerably and has led to various discussions and different claims about it. However, no impartial and independent research has been done to collect and classify views about it and proposing a scientific claim by comparing those views with poetic examples critically. By analyzing nonverbal features of speech poem in four main branches, that is, music, imagination, structure and content, the particular features of this kind of poem are explained critically. More than anything else, this kind of poem depends on language-based elements. Language in this poem is simple and, in most cases, free of the traditional aesthetic aspects and even modern experiences of contemporary poetry. Various matters that make up its content, often instead of using common methods of imagery, are depicted with sentimental tone and with simple and non-rhythmic language derived from the nature of spoken language. In speech poetry, we are facing with two trends. First we have meaningful spoken poems which have a consistent structure; second we have meaning-escaping spoken poems which lack any kind of coherence. The poets of this movement claim that they are looking for literariness in popular language. It seems that they have somehow achieved what they want especially in the domains of language, rhyme and imagery.