Practice Speech: Poem Out Loud
Level: Awareness, Novice
Time Limit: 60 seconds
Target Audience: Envision reading an inspiring poem to a group of 75 guests honoring a mentor or a positive influence in your life (a parent, teacher, or boss) for their service to a non-profit organization like Kids in Distress or the American Cancer Society. You have the opportunity to convey your feelings about your mentor by reading this poem.
Instructions: Read a short poem that you find meaningful. Be sure that you rehearse enough to maintain eye contact 75% of the time. Decide on the type of feeling you want to convey to your audience. Is this a happy poem to make people smile? Or is this a poem to be taken more seriously? Each type of poem demands a different tone of voice and pace of words. If available, listen to an online reading of the poem and incorporate vocal inflection in your own reading. Then practice conveying the concepts, theme, and feeling of the poem through your voice.
Delivery Options
Option 1: Read the poem to an imaginary audience in your living room. Stand tall in front of the pillows on your couch for they will act as your audience.
Option 2: When you see a group of people on TV, pause the scene and practice giving your speech to them. Stand tall. Look them in the eye when giving your speech.
Option 3: Read your poem aloud to someone you trust. It can just be one person. Stand tall and establish eye contact. Be sure to create the tone you want.
Purpose: Get comfortable projecting your voice with different emotions and vocal inflections. Notice how your body, facial expressions, hand gestures physically react to the emotion and emphasis you add to the various lines.
Skills to Practice: Project your voice; add emotion, inflection, and energy. Relax and deliver a reading in a non-threatening environment.
Resources:
Here is a website of 500 famous poems. You can select one that speaks to you!
Both of these resource have many poems to choose from, but they also provide resources to listen to poetry and tips on reciting. Listen to the inflection in the reader’s voice and try to mimic strategies you hear. This will help you learn to use more inflection in your voice.
Sample Poem: The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Context: Robert Frost was one of the most popular American poets. He was born 1874 and died in 1963. Like “The Road Not Taken,” published in 1916, Frost’s poems often feature the New England countryside. This poem may be his most frequently cited work.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Note: After you have read it with meaning, it might be fun to listen to actual professional readings of the poem located on YouTube.
References
Alex, Groberman Fri, January 13, 2017. (n.d.). Difference Between Stress and Anxiety. Retrieved July 19, 2017, from http://www.psyweb.com/articles/anxiety/difference-between-stress-and-anxiety
Anxiety [Def.2 Medical]. (2017) In Merriam Webster Online, Retrieved March 1, 2017 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anxiety
Berger, C. R. (1988). “Uncertainty and information exchange in developing relationships. In S. Duck, ed., Handbook of Personal Relationships. New York, Wiley.
Berger, C. R. and R.J. Calabrease. (1975). Some exploration in initial interaction and beyond: Toward a developmental theory of interpersonal communication. Human Communication Research, 1. 99-112.
Bodie G.D. (2010) A racing heart, rattling knees, and ruminative thoughts: Defining, explaining, and treating public speaking anxiety. Communication Education, 59: 1, 70—105.
Brennan S. E., Williams M. (1995). The feeling of another’s knowing: Prosody and filled pauses as cues to listeners about the metacognitive states of speakers. Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 383-398
Cannon, W.B. (1915) Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage: an account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement. New York: D. Appleton.
Clark, T. (2011). Nerve: poise under pressure, serenity under stress, and the brave new science of fear and cool. New York: Little, Brown.
Clear, J. (2014). The science of positive thinking: How positive thoughts build your skills, boost your health, and improve your work | Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost. com/james-clear/positive-thinking_b_3512202.html
Diamond DM, et al. (2007). “The Temporal Dynamics Model of Emotional Memory Processing: A Synthesis on the Neurobiological Basis of Stress-Induced Amnesia, Flashbulb and Traumatic Memories, and the Yerkes-Dodson Law.” Neural Plasticity: 33. doi:10.1155/2007/60803. PMID 17641736.
Doctor, R. M., Khan, A. P., Adamec, C. (2008). Glossophobia. In The encyclopedia of phobias, fears and anxieties. (Third Edition, pp. 253). New York: Facts on File, Inc.
E. K. Acton, “On gender differences in the distribution of um and uh,” University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, vol. 17, no. 2, p. 2, 2011.
Faravelli, C., Zucchi, T., Vivani, B. et al, (2000). Epidemiology of social phobia: A clinical approach. Eur Psychiatry, 15:17—24.
Frost, R. (1916). The road not taken. Retrieved April 11, 2017, from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44272
Furmark T. (2002) Social phobia: Overview of community surveys. Acta Psychiatr Scand 105: 84—93. PMID
Furmark, T., Tillfors, M., Everz, PO. et al. (1999) Social phobia in the general population: prevalence and sociodemographic profile. Soc Psychiatry Psychiatry Epidemiology (1999) 34: 416.
Galvin, K. M. (2011). Making connections: readings in relational communication. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gerald R. Ford. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved March 14, 2017, from AZQuotes.com Web site: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1056562
Keller, J. E., Keating, L. C. (1993). Aesop’s fables, with a life of Aesop. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press. English translation of the first Spanish edition of Aesop from 1489, La vida del Ysopet con sus fabulas historiadas including original woodcut illustrations; the Life of Aesop is a version from Planudes.
Kunhardt, P. W., & Oakes, B. (Directors). (2017, January 30). Becoming Buffett [Video file]. Retrieved February 16, 2017, from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6438096/
Laserna, C., Seih, Y, and Pennebaker, J. (2014) Um . . . who like says you know: Filler word use as a function of age, gender, and personality,” Journal of Language and Social Psychology, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 328—338, 2014.
Littlejohn, S. and Foss, K. (2009). Uncertainty reduction theory. In the Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. (Vol. 2, pp. 976). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc.
Mark Twain. (n.d.). AZQuotes.com. Retrieved March 14, 2017, from AZQuotes.com web site: http://www.azquotes.com/quote/661749
M.B. Hamner, G.W. Arana, in Encyclopedia of Stress (Second Edition), 2007.
McCroskey, J. C. (1970). Measures of communication-bound anxiety. Speech Monographs, 37, 269-277.
Musgrave, S. (2015) “Lessons for life,” The STEAM Journal: Vol. 2: Iss. 1, Article 24. DOI: 10.5642/steam.20150201.24
O’Toole, G. (2012) Eleanor Roosevelt quote, No one can make feel inferior without your consent. Retrieved April 06, 2017, from http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/30/no-one-inferior/
Pollard, A., Henderson,J., Frank, M. & Margolis, R. (1989).Help-seeking patterns of anxiety-disordered individuals in the general population, Journal of Anxiety Disorders, Volume 3, Issue 3, 1989, Pages 131-138, ISSN 0887-6185
Roosevelt, F. D. (1933). The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies.
Retrieved April 06, 2017, from https://www.inaugural.senate.gov/about/past-inaugural-ceremonies/37th-inaugural-ceremonies/
Sapir, E. (1927) “Speech as a personality trait,” American Journal of Sociology, pp. 892—905, 1927.
Stein M, Walker J, & Forde D. (1996) Public-speaking fears in a community sample: Prevalence, impact on functioning, and diagnostic classification. Arch Gen Psychiatry 53: 169—174. PMID
Stress. (2017). Retrieved July 19, 2017, from https://www.adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/related-illnesses/stress
Stuttering. (n.d.). Retrieved April 06, 2017, from http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/stuttering.htm
Travis, J. (2004) Fear not. Science News Volume 165, No. 3, January 17, 2004, p. 42. Available at Science News.
“The Wizard Of Oz (1939).” Greatest Films - The Best Movies in Cinematic History. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2017.
Workman, B. (1977). “Fear” In The New Caxton Encyclopedia London, England: The Caxton Publishing Company Limited. The International Learning Systems Corporation. 8: 2359.
Yerkes R.M., Dodson, J.D. (1908). “The relation of strength of stimulus to rapidity of habit-formation.” Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 18: 459—482. doi:10.1002/cne.920180503.