When I’m procrastinating, I always go off on massive YouTube binges, clicking linked side videos like there’s no tomorrow. One particular topic to find me in this absolute video oblivion was, ‘Neil Hilborn- “OCD” (Rustbelt 2013)’. I used to like watching Slam Poetry, but had forgot all about it, Youtube hadn’t. In reminding me of what I used to love, I got to thinking what it is I finding interesting about these performances. I think our contemporary world is often infatuated with things of a instantaneous and visual nature and these videos (of performances) are a nice, little contrast to that obsession (how ironic that I am watching on YouTube). I know the dramatic, staged nature of these stand up poets can be viewed as “tacky” and often made fun of in films but there is something I love about it. With a lack of screens/images and merely only one (or few) passionate voice(s) to listen to, words spoken can truly resonate. To me its like watching a one-person play, but the actor has made up the words, deliberately attempting to incite some form of emotion. I would really love to go and listen to one of these events in Melbourne as I am quite interested in language use. I believe the more avenues that people can utilise language-play and listen to creatively-crafted poetry, the better.