"What Teachers Make"

The poem I will be analyzing is “What Teachers Make” a slam poem by Taylor Mali. A good place to start is right at the beginning, perhaps before the actual beginning, at the title. The title of this poem is somewhat interesting as there is not actually a title, but three titles. The webpage where the poem is posted reads as the title, “What Teachers Make or Objection Overruled or If Things Don’t Work Out, You Can Always Go to Law School.” I think this is sort of a way to say a title doesn’t really matter in a slam poem, as long as it has one. The main title though, is “What Teachers Make.” Hearing this, the reader (or listener) would think the poem is probably about how much money teachers earn in a paycheck, (which is exactly what Mali wants you to think.) That is the original meaning of the phrase within the poem as well, but as a key point of the poem he transforms this into another meaning. He says teachers “make a goddamn difference.”

The poem begins by placing you into a dinner conversation where an unnamed person begins with, “What's a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?” The narrator of the poem, he himself a teacher, feeling insulted, decides to “bite [his] tongue.” The man from before asks the narrator, “What do you make?” At this point the narrator goes on a sort of mental rant, where says, in reference to the question, “…if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.” He lists the things that he “makes.” “I make kids wonder, I make them question. I make them criticize. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them write, write, write. And then I make them read.” This is only a portion of the things he claims to “make.” In the end, almost as a summary to his list he says, “I make a goddamn difference! What about you?”

The tone of Mali’s poem is powerful and angry but at the same time, proud. In the beginning you can sense a sort of tension rising within the narrator. He is at a dinner, a relaxing environment, until someone insults his job choice. He suddenly becomes angry, but only in his mind, “Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite company.” Suddenly the voice becomes rushed though after being asked “What do you make?” This is where the shift occurs. The remaining portion of the poem is loud and fast, even from reading it you can feel the emotion in the voice of the narrator. Even though he is angry though, he knows what he does is good, contrary to the other man’s beliefs about teachers. He knows that without him the world would be nowhere, children would be uneducated, regardless of how much money he makes.

Reading Reflection

I’ve finished reading a selection of slam poems, and I feel like I’m really beginning to understand the style. All of these poems are filled with emotion, no matter the subjects. These subjects range from the deliciousness of cheese, to the pay of a school teacher. So, there really is no limit for what you can talk about, as long as you mean what you’re saying. When the poets speak, their voices change tone, and tempo throughout the reading. The audience reacts to specific lines by letting out hoots and yells when the poet says something that they feel. This also seems to be another meaning of slam poetry, to get the audience to react. Slam poetry is written for competitions, if you don’t have the audience on your side you probably won’t win.

The syntax and diction for slam poetry is conversational for the most part. In fact, I think without the speaker’s voice involved it could almost be read as prose. When it is written out though, line breaks have sometimes been added, which help to add the effect of how the speaker says it. Other times it was just written out in a large paragraph. In videos the emotion comes out more clearly. You can hear the poet’s voice get louder, or faster, or slower, or more comical sounding or more dark sounding…the list goes on. A lot of times the voice speeds up into a crescendo until finally reaching that big line, which also gets the audiences biggest reaction. Though these poets are competing, most care more about getting their poetry out than actually winning the competition.

The Search Continues

I've managed to find three more slam poems to read. Which is a difficult task. Not to find slam poetry, but to find written slam poetry. Slam poetry is read in competitions, not written down and looked over. The tone of voice, speed of voice and body language are key in the presentation of slam poetry. They add more emotion to the poem than you could get from simply reading it. Even so, I managed to find these slam poems:

Sting - Bleedinout
What Teachers Make - Taylor Mali
Scratch and Dent Dreams - Eric Darby

Alright, I've wasted most of this class googling about fifty different keywords, and have found nothing else. Everything is either in video, or audio form. Of course, these are inaccessible in school, so once I get home I'll put some of those up on here.

Slam Poems

Slam poems I've read so far:

Pucker - Ritah Parrish
The Wussy Boy Manifesto - Big Poppa E
America (It's Gotta Be the Cheese) - Eitan Kadosh
I Wore A Coin in My Shoe When We Got Married - Sou MacMillan
The Edge Is Where I Want To Be - Lisa Martinovic

So far, I've realized these poems have a great variety to them. From romantic, to comedic, to somewhat disturbing. They all have one thing in common though, they express emotions or feelings about certain subjects. What might normally be inner thoughts or beliefs are let out. Which is appropriate since slam poems were meant to be read on stage, for audiences to hear.

The poems are pretty entertaining. I especially like "The Wussy Boy Manifesto." It literally had me laughing out loud, and nudging Meghan at the computer next to me, saying "Read this right here." Google it, it's pretty good. :D