How To Write Slam Poetry

To write is to express with subtlety, and Slam Poetry is an excellent way to speak your heart out effectively, and writers are always admired portals like StoryMirror are hall of fame for writers. The question that we all face is, can I also write? and if I can then how to write? Well it is not a steep climbing task as we all take it to be, it is as easy as writing a letter to your loved one and reading it out to the same person. All you need is just a pen, some time, and of course your mind to work upon it. All you need to do is sit down, relax and write it all out whatever you feel like without worrying over rhymes, meters or any rule of such sorts. It should be a point to remember that slam poetry is not just about writing but also about reading it out loud and enactment of expressions.  You can start with following steps and write whenever you feel like, hopefully you can become a good slam poet someday.

To begin with you can sit at a calm place and think. You are free to think about anything that matters to you or anything for which you possess genuine emotions or attachment, trust me it is easier than writing your exams as you are free to write whatever suits your mind. It can be a past event that had an impact on you or a person that influenced you in some way or may be a place where you have been or you wish to go to. Decide a subject and it will act as a centre to your poem and after this you can brainstorm about rest of the aspects or attributes of the subject of your choice. Keep in mind that your work must be original.

Start your pen with the first thing that comes to your mind about your subject, and so on. Try describing the progress or the different aspects of your subject. Write as much as you can and as long as you feel like. Try using more of a communication language, and make sure you nail the words nicely, not to sound great but to tell your listeners what you wish to convey. Write it to be rhythmic and passionate.You must not exceed three minutes limit of performing so write accordingly.

Read your own work again and again and practice it in front of mirror. Try reading it as loud as you can and try fitting it to the time frame. Remember to enact your words using your hands and body, you can also include sign language as part of your performance so it would be nice if you know a little about sign language. And putting your feelings into words while you say would always help. You can check out poetry slam videos on YouTube or maybe attend a session for first hand experience

Now as you have practiced and have become self satisfactory you may turn to your friends to have your first audience. They will tell you your mistakes there itself and will not mind them anyway. So practice is the key to success and Slam Poetry is the key to an amazing experience of expression.

Those who have not written anything ever should begin today with a pen paper and their mind at work, nothing much is required no expensive instruments or anything of that sort, just you and your poetry can let the world know what you wish to say or to convey.

CINDERELLA

 

Cinderella is the common man’s fairy tale. The story is about kindness and gentleness of a girl who was treated poorly all her life. The Disney version, again the most popular, tells us about a girl whose mother passed away and her father remarried so that she could have the love of a mother. However, her stepmother has two daughters and can never accept Cinderella into her life. So when the father dies, the stepmother is cruel to Cinderella and treats her like a maid. A few years pass. The Prince of the region has organized a ball to find him a suitable wife. Cinderella goes there by the aid of her fairy godmother. However, the spells will wear off at twelve.She arrives at the ball and immediately the Prince falls in love with her, her charm, her beauty and her kindness. They dance all night and Cinderella just realizes that it is almost twelve. She runs and accidentally drops her glass slipper while hurrying home. The Prince, who fell in love with Cinderella finds her through that slipper and proposes. They live happily ever after.

Cinderella is one of the most beautiful stories of all times. It tells us that the bad situations will end. And everything will be okay eventually. If you are kind, honest and good, you will get a happy ending. Cinderella was a nobody, another one of those souls who was abused at home and treated poorly in general. Yet, the Prince fell for her. Her kindness, her good nature, her attitude and her intelligence attracted him. These traits are irreplaceable, found only in the good souls of this world.
Cinderella is one of the most relevant of the fairy tales in the modern world. That can be proved by the number of movies, serials etc. made on the same. It is the story of an everyday girl who was ill-fated and ill-treated. It is a story of a happy ending. The modern versions of this story has no fairy Godmother, rather it has helping neighbors, caring workers and best friends giving our Cinderella or Ella a makeover. Instead of balls, there are proms or parties, instead of Prince Charming, the star player and the famous singer.

Originally though, Cinderella was a tale of abuse. The name ‘Cenerentola’ comes from the Italian word ‘cenere’ (ash). It has to do with the fact that servants were usuallysoiled with ash due to the cleaning work and were nobodies. This story has the richest history and so many variations before the modern time itself. The earliest known Cinderella story is the story of Rhodopis, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt (7 B.C.).

I think that Cinderella is one of the best fairy tales because people can actually relate to it. Yes, it has elements of magic. But that is what actually makes it the fairytale that it is today. And we need to believe that miracles do happen. We just have to be kind and good. The rest will follow. We will always get our happy ending.

Cinderella ends my blog discussion about the fairy tales and the variations that we can read even today. Where magic is replaced but not forgotten, miracles happen, but are believable and happy endings are possible. Because Once Upon A Time, in a land far away, there was a girl, who had the courage to follow her heart and she did.  And everyone lived happily ever after. Except maybe the evil stepmother.

FINALLY, THE ERA OF DIGITAL #HASHTAGS

The era of digitization began with the invention of the world’s first computer by Charles Babbage in 1848. Although it was an analog device, the digital world that we know of today can be credited to this great invention. Babbage not only created this ‘analytical device’, he also created a mechanical printer to check the output of his ‘Engine’. This was the world’s first domestic printer. Till 1990, it was a highly debated fact whether Babbage’s inventions actually worked until Allan G. Bromley, an associate professor at the University of Sydney, Australia came along and recreated the ‘Difference Engine 2(another name for the world’s first mechanical computer)’ at the London Science Museum. This system used a series of metal rods with characters printed on them and stuck a roll of paper against the rods to print the characters. Thus began the journey of modern day printing.

Babbage Difference Engine No. 2

We have come a long way from the times when printing was only done on an industrial scale and the cost inputs were very high. Only large publishing houses and newspaper businesses could afford and operate a printing press and the only printed material that the common man had access to, was sold at stands right next to their favorite eating joint. The demand for small scale printers rose when people did jobs where excessive writing was becoming a cumbersome task. Thus came in the ‘Typewriter’. The first typewriter to be commercially successful was invented in 1868 by Americans Christopher Latham Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The device worked on the same principle as the printer that Babbage invented in which printed metal rods formed impressions on paper. These machines were portable, cheap, and most importantly of all, made the job easier.

The disadvantage of such typewriters was that the analog mechanism was very tedious to work with. Every document had to be typed and there was no scope of error. Among the systems widely used through the 1980s were daisy wheel systems similar to typewriters, line printers that produced similar output but at much higher speed, and dot matrix systems that could mix text and graphics but produced relatively low-quality output. This created a demand for a faster and better means of printing and publishing. In came the company ‘Hewlett Packard or HP’ with the first low cost laser printer known as the HP LaserJet which was followed by the Apple LaserWriter which also included PostScript( a computer language) which set off a revolution in printing which was known as desktop publishing.  Laser printers used PostScript mixed graphics with text much similar to the dot matrix system but at much higher quality levels. By 1990, most simple printing tasks like fliers and brochures were now created on personal computers and then laser printed; expensive offset printing systems were being dumped as scrap. 

The Laser Printer: Laser printing is an electrostatic digital printing process. It produces high-quality text by passing a laser beam (typically, an aluminium gallium arsenide semiconductor laser) which projects an image of the page to be printed onto an electrically-charged, selenium-coated, rotating, cylindrical drum. Photoconductivity allows the charged electrons to fall away from the areas exposed to light. Powdered ink (toner) particles are then electrostatically attracted to the charged areas of the drum that have not been laser-beamed. The drum then transfers the image onto paper (which is passed through the machine) by direct contact. Finally the paper is passed onto a finisher, which uses intense heat to instantly fuse the image onto the paper.

3D Printer

Since the rapid expanse of e-mail and other digital communication mediums in 1990s, the use of print technology for domestic communication purposes has ever been on the downside. People began viewing printing as keeping a physical backup for emergencies only and offline reading of books and novels became a thing of the past due to the emergence of e-books and tablet computers. The extensive use of electronic means to communicate with those living on the other side of the world and the rising popularity of the concept of ‘save paper’ has led to the downfall of printing. People have been using e-mails instead of handwritten memos, online submission of forms has become commonplace and people have become more aware of the damage done to the environment due to the overuse of paper during printing. Print media has been on the decline since recent times, and the era of e-books has begun.  The ease of access to a large amount of content online has given rise to immense popularity of the e-world. The very existence of the classic paperback has been threatened by e-books, e-news, e-magazines and a lot of other e-stuff. The newest thing in town is the 3D printing technology which helps to create three dimensional models of our creations on the computer. Although very expensive in the initial stages, nowadays 3D printers come at affordable prices with the advancement in technology and people have started buying these printers for their homes and offices.

In spite of all this, print media is something that today’s world cannot live without. Not everyone has access to electronic devices; hell! Not everyone knows how to use one. A person believes what he or she can see, can touch, and can feel. One cannot have that with computers. The worlds of writings started in the Neolithic age during which cavemen made drawings on walls of the animals they hunted, their families. From those times, man has always communicated using the written medium and it is damn near impossible for the written medium to be completely eradicated in spite of how much ever technologically advanced man becomes. The world may use the internet for reading stories and sharing stuff to the world like I am but the feeling, the jolt of electricity passing though the hand when one lifts a pen to write is just indescribable. The only outlet of the vast imaginations that our mind holds is the pen, the one thing that helps us truly describe who we are and bares our soul for the world to read…  

This post is the last of ‘The Road Down History’. From next week, I will start with a new topic and together we shall embark on a new journey- ‘MARVEL vs DC’.

-Anurag Bagga

THAT’S HOW WE STARTED

There’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. YES!!! There's a story inside all of us and StoryMirror brings to you an unprecedented platform to express yourself freely and share your untold stories with the world. We are a team of ‘creators’ with a literary vision who want to offer you a platform to write those untold stories that you carry to air and share your stories and make it available to readers worldwide to read them and take delight in your creativity. 

This blog is all about creating and appreciating art of all forms. From literature to TV shows, from paintings and illustrations to different cultures across the world, this blog is for and about the ‘creators’ of the world.

The blog will follow a pattern of weekly topics ranging from history to eras of eminent literature, from the renaissance to digitization of the artistic world spread over three posts per week. This week, I take a road down history. The blog will talk about how the written medium started; how word spread around in the times of your great-great-great-times 10-grandfather, the first printing press, the first printed book, the modern press and the kind of books that the techie-generation of today love to read.

In this first post, I write about the writings of historic times, the first scripts and the ancient methods of written communications

The first forms of written communications can be traced back to the cave paintings of the Palaeolithic man, some of which date back to 40,000 years. They can be found all across Asia and Europe. As man developed, his forms of written communications also progressed in sophistication and clarity. The first actual writings are considered to be Egyptian Hieroglyphs (or God words) which date back to 3300 BC. These writings consisted of complex symbols which were a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements like ‘the owl’ and ‘the wolf’. Egyptians used cursive literature for religious literature on papyrus and wood. As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing. The Rosetta Stone (the most sacred piece of Egyptian history ever found) contains three parallel scripts – hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule (intermittent in the 6th and 5th centuries BC), and after Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Macedonian and Roman periods. Some believe that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish 'true Egyptians' from some of the foreign conquerors.

The Cuneiform script, known to be created by the Sumerians in the 26th century BC, is one of the earliest forms of written languages. The language is distinguished by the wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by blunt reeds. The name ‘Cuneiform’ itself means ‘wedge-shaped’, derived from its Latin roots- cuneus meaning “wedge” and forma meaning “shape”. Cuneiform began as a system of complicated pictographs but during its 2400 years of its usage, its characters simplified and became smaller in size. By the 3rd century BC, Cuneiform consisted of a complex combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic and syllabic signs very much like the English we use today consisting of emoticons and alphabets. Cuneiform although extinct since 2BC, laid the foundations for modern day written language.

Historians also argue that a third independent script was invented by man in another part of the world- the Indus script. It is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilization during the mature Harappan periods between the 35th and 20th centuries BC. Most inscriptions are extremely short. It is not clear if these symbols constitute a script used to record a language, and the subject of whether the Indus symbols were a writing system is controversial. In spite of many attempts at decipherment, it still remains a mystery to this date and no underlying language has been identified. The script does not show any significant changes over time.

So this is it for this time. The next post will be about the more modern ways of printing and getting the word around. Till then, see ya.

-Anurag Bagga