http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU&feature=related
One of my music education professors showed this in class last semester. This is the inspiration that keeps me going.
(As annoying as Taylor Mali was in the documentary, he must be one heck of a teacher. )
What do you think?
Laura
10 comments:
I absolutely love this piece of his. First of all, I think he is a wonderful poet and is very entertaining; his gestures, facial expressions, and general stage presence brings a lot to the impact of his presentation. Like Laura, I find this piece very inspirational. I have just recently begun to seriously think of teaching abroad once I graduate, and hearing someone who is passionate about teaching talk about the fulfillment and pride in being one of the people who can influence the next generation is awesome. I hope I can inspire people too one day, like he inspired others.
Oh my gosh, I love love love this! I think that Taylor Malin's poems are so amazing at expressing the meaning he is hoping to give the audience. The way he says every word is thought out really well which I find to be extremely powerful. There is emotion in every sentence which is hard to find these days. I think when people think poetry, they think of rhyming and silly little haikus from elementary school. It's often that we forget how impacting poetry can really be for all ages. This is a poem that is universal to it's listeners. I think middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students could really learn from the message Mali is expressing. Mali's stage performance is also very effective when he is reading his poetry. Watching his facial expressions just make it that much more powerful because you can see the passion and emotion he conveys.
I really like this piece!! It's very inspiring! Taylor Mali has a very unique way of expressing himself through his poetry. He's very good at it, too. I like how he emphasizes certain words for different reasons. Like at the beginning of this particular poem, he sort of mimics the lawyer's laughter and makes him sound completely cynical, which makes the crowd dislike the lawyer from the start. He's really good at setting up his poems. Listening to it a second time, I realize that If I were recalling a certain occasion similar to this one I would have done it completely different. However, he knows exactly how to set up his words to make the poem have this great affect on the audience. I was ready to go change my major to education and try 'make' the same as him.
Like everyone said, he is a powerful slam poet, though I don't think his poetry would be nearly as amazing without him saying it.
God, I think having all that intensity directed at you in a classroom would be terrifying. Wonderfully passionate teacher, but not very sympathetic, is he? Quiet poets had a hard time disagreeing with him, he was such a steamroller.
He is an genuinely original poet. His poems make you realize just how much poetry has created a community of its own. I think he is trying to help people see that poetry doesn't have to be an elitist thing, it can be comedic and relevant and understandable!
This is the first poem of his that I have heard that was serious, obviously it has funny moments, but it is on a serious theme, whereas many of his other works are "making fun" of poetry or other people ;). I honestly didn't see him as "annoying" in the documentary because I have a lot of experience with people like him who aren't jerks, just opinionated.
@hjm, I have to disagree with your statement "though I don't think his poetry would be nearly as amazing without him saying it". I know I keep mentioning my honors poetry class from last semester but it is pretty relevant to this topic. Anyway, several of my fellow students performed some of his poems, and I remember one in particular being quite exemplary. I think this is one of the reason that I enjoy his work so much; it holds water even when other people perform it.
"How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best" That right there was my favorite quote of the whole poem. I sat in front of my computer just listening to that part over and over again. It reminds me of a conversation I had that involved the phrase “who cares what my grade is long as I pass”. It makes me think, what is the point of even attending classes if you are not learning anything? Isn’t that the whole point? To learn and expand our knowledge? Mali brought so many questions to mind that I never thought a poem was capable of bringing. Usually I just let poems slide after reading them once because they tend to be too abstract for me to actually want to decipher them. Anyways what I wanted to get across from my blog is that I’m really excited that for once, a poem made me want to listen to it again, it made me actually care about the poem. It may be because of the way it is spoken and all of the energy that it gives off, but it is still a poem and it still inspired me in some way! (:
While I agreed with Laura, and everyone else, that this piece was inspirational, it was not one of my favorite poems by him. This is probably because it seemed more like a speech than a poem. I did notice his use of poetic elements such as rhyme and putting particular emphasis on certain words, which was great. However, the poem did not seem to have any flow or rhythm. It is this element that makes a poem different from a speech or plain talking. Mali does this in his other poems, and maybe it was just this particular performance.
I like Taylor's style. He gets you interested in his piece with witty remarks and humor, extravagant facial expressions, the changing of his voice, and then right when he has you entranced he brings home the performance with a deeper message as we see in this video. I like that he has this dual side to him where he can meet both our wanting to be entertained and our need to hear a deeper message as expected when listening to poetry. He really touches on little habits that are ridiculous as we saw in the poem he had written about the girl who couldn't help but say "like" after every word, which he then turns around to have a deeper meaning such as being able to express yourself, being able to annunciate, and being able to communicate in an effective way with others. I love this technique the humor he expresses and then the underlying problem. I also noticed that when he gets to his message he raises his voice and shows emotion at whatever he is denouncing. He's letting the audience know that now he is serious..which I think is funny because he had read a poem in the video where he is making fun of the slam poets who yell to get a point across. He knows how to work the audience how to get out of the audience the reaction he wants. He is very charismatic on stage and it's apparent that he is very comfortable in the spotlight. He is a great example of how to talk in front of an audience with power with confidance...he is able to articulate exactly what he wants and even just watching him over youtube is touching. I would love to be able to see him live and wrap my senses around everything he is putting into his poem. It's very inspiring to see someone who can be so dynamic on stage. I love watching him and he always keeps me on my toes, because unlike some poets who are always taking the same approach, like the guy in the video who was always focusing on time and our generation, he can capture you with a silly poem or a poem with much meaning. He can entertain the sense and the mind.
I really do like this poem. His stage presence and intonation, as many of you said, is excellent. I really enjoy it when poems are inspirational in an accessible sort of way. His poem speaks to the audience about something that I hope every student gets to experience at least once: a teacher who really, really cares. Even though he seems to be possessed of an overwhelming and condescending personality, I like him. His poetry has character.
This is one of my sister’s favorites. Her grades…are not what most would call good. She and I generally have differing opinions regarding education. She refuses to put effort into her work unless she feels her teacher cares enough to “deserve” her time. This, for the most part works out very poorly for her. Having a teacher who cares even close to this much is worth something more than would be easy to express in a few words. I get the impression that it would be a lot easier for many students to care about school if they believed that their teachers cared this much about teaching them. It does make a difference.
This is AMAZING! My entire family is made up of teachers! My oldest sister, my mom, my aunts and uncles, everyone :P Teachers are very under appreciated. Their salaries do NOT match all the effort they put into their work and job. This gives me a sign of relief in that, "Finally, someone is speaking out! Teachers are underpaid, yes, we all know that! But they 'make' so much more than that!"
It's because of this under appreciation that I refuse to be a teacher. You'd think that with everyone else in my family that I would follow suit.
I'm glad that Taylor spoke out on this matter!
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