‘The New Crusades’ by Luka Lesson

 

The New Crusades

by Luka Lesson

 

Luka Lesson is an award winning Australian Slam poet. The below poem, ‘The New Crusades’ won the Australian Slam Poetry Championships. Pay particular attention to not just his words, but the manner of his delivery and the way that he uses his face, hands and body to enhance his performance and emphasise the meaning behind his words.

 

URL: https://youtu.be/CJOtPjuFMAk

 

You can download the text of the poem here: The New Crusades (text)

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Quick Questions:

  1. What was the poet’s MESSAGE?
  2. What did you notice about the STRUCTURE of the poem (e.g. rhyme, rhythm, repetition)?
  3. What did you notice about the CONTENT of the poem (e.g. any figurative language or other poetic devices)?
  4. What did you notice about the DELIVERY of the poem (e.g. voice, hand gesture, pacing, tone)?
  5. What do you remember most about this poem? What had the biggest effect on you?

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Task: Charting the Performance

Slam poetry isn’t just about the words – it’s about how the words are conveyed to the audience. Slam poetry is also know as performance poetry: the poems are relatively short (2 to 3 minutes) and the audience only hears them once, without seeing the text, so delivery is crucial.

Watch Luka Lesson’s performance carefully

  • Actions (i.e. whole body movements)
  • Hand gestures
  • Pacing (i.e. the speed at which he speaks)
  • Volume (i.e. when he is loud or soft)
  • Voice (e.g. shouting, whispering, singing)

Create a timeline at the bottom of a double page in your books. This timeline will need to include 10 second intervals from 0 minutes 0 seconds to 1 minute 50 seconds (the length of his poem).

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Watch the performance carefully and ‘graph’ the following information on your timeline/graph:

  • Blue Pen: Pacing (faster/slower)
  • Red Pen:Volume (louder/softer)
  • Yellow Highlighter: non-speaking delivery (i.e. singing)
  • ‘X’: Notable, deliberate hand gestures
  • [star]: Larger, whole body gestures

Once complete, answer the following question:

  • In what ways does Luka Lesson use his voice and body to enhance the delivery of his message in ‘The New Crusades’.

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Task: Word/Phrase/Sentence

Listen to the above poem carefully and complete a word/phrase/sentence thinking routine for the above poem. This thinking routine required you to carefully consider how language is being used to convey meaning and engage an audience.

Write your answers in your book. Make sure you use quotation marks to identify that you are quoting someone’s work.

Word: find a SINGLE WORD that stands out for you or carries particular meaning.

Phrase: find a PHRASE (a brief collection of words) that stands out for you or carries particular meaning.

Sentence: find a LINE or SENTENCE in the poem that you feel carries particular meaning.

Once you have identified your word, phrase and sentence you will need to provide a 2 to 3 sentence explanation for each one, explaining why you chose this word, phrase or sentence and what meaning you believe it conveys.