“We appreciate hip-hop as an art form”
While some say there is a split between academically trained poets and slam poets, Harvard’s poetry professor Lisa New says the bigger gap exists within the education system itself.
“In the poet community, there is an unnecessary split between academically trained poets and slam poets,” says Jason Koo, founder and head of the non-profit “Brooklyn Poets.”
There seems to be some truth to that. At readings at Berl’s poetry bookshop in Dumbo, Brooklyn, you are likely to see a predominantly white audience.
At poetry slams, on the other hand, you will find a more diversity among the artists and the audience, and also a more competitive atmosphere.
By organizing open mic events as well as regular reading and writing workshops, Koo wanted to draw those two communities closer together — but not all agree that this is an issue for the poets’ community.
“It would be silly to say that there is not a gap, but I think it is exaggerated,” says literature professor Lisa New. She teaches poetry at Harvard. Some of her courses areonline, and many are free. She hopes to reach a broad, worldwide audience — and it works. Her course on Emily Dickenson she reached 13,000 people; her current course on modernism reaches 5,000 people (she believes that the reason for the big difference is that the title of the current course was off-putting and too technical).
New says that “the appreciation of hip-hop and spoken word has penetrated the universities,” and that these days, higher education institutions “do appreciate hip-hop as art form”. Harvard, for example, has its own hip-hop archive and fellowship program.
She thinks a much bigger issue is the gap between higher education and secondary education. She calls it a “major disconnect”: While poetry is offered and taught on a very high level at universities, she thinks that secondary schools do not give the art form the attention it deserves, even though reading poetry would help young adults gain complex reading skills.
The pliterature professor says that teachers are not equipped to teach students complex forms of poetry, and that hip-hop and spoken word could help to reach a younger audience.
“Students are in love with this very complex form of poetry; with hip-hop,” says New. “Hip-hop, at its best, draws on all traditional devices of poetry.”
“We need a whole new generation of teachers who teach reading as an exploratory art, in a playful way,” says New.
