From Page to Stage: A Transcendental Exploration of the Spoken Word
by HOSSEIN SALIMIAN RIZI and FATEMEH TORKI BAGHBADERANI
As poetry continues to evolve beyond the page and into embodied performance spaces, older literary traditions such as American Transcendentalism find new life in contemporary spoken word. American Transcendentalism was a 19th-century philosophical and literary movement that emerged in New England, emphasizing individualism, intuition, and the inherent goodness of both people and nature. Transcendentalists value individuality over collectivism, subjective
intuition over objective empiricism, and non-conformity over conformity. In a similar manner, spoken word poetry celebrates individuality and self-exploration, inspiration from nature, and quest for genuine truths while challenging societal expectations.
Sarah Kay (1988), an American performance poet, has several poems that resonate thematically
with poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), one of the pioneers of the Transcendentalist movement. Emerson and Kay, despite a significant time difference of over 150 years between them, connect with readers and audiences on a profound level. Kay’s spoken word poetry resonates deeply with the philosophical ideals of American Transcendentalism, particularly as expressed in the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Both poets explore themes of
self-reliance, inner truth, and resistance to societal conformity. Through close reading and thematic analysis, this article examines how Kay’s poems “The Type” (2016) and “Unreliable” (2022) echo and reanimate key transcendentalist ideas extracted from Emerson’s “SelfReliance” (1841) and “Good-Bye” (1839), offering a contemporary lens through which these enduring themes are performed, felt, and reinterpreted.
To explore these thematic connections, a summary of each poem is presented, followed by a
deeper analysis of how they converge around key transcendentalist themes – precisely selfreliance, self-exploration, and individuality.
- “The Type” (Kay): critiques rigid masculine norms and invites her audience to question culturally imposed definitions of womanhood. By urging listeners to “build it yourself,” she echoes the transcendentalist call for self-determination and resistance to conformity – a theme central to Emerson’s work.
- “Unreliable” (Kay): explores the search for personal truth and meaning in life by encouraging the audience to look within themselves and trust their intuition, which resonates with the transcendental theme of subjective intuition.
- “Self-Reliance” (Emerson): though better known as an essay, Emerson’s poetic expression of the same name celebrates individualism and inner wisdom, rejecting societal conformity and upholding freedom from external opinions.
- “Good-Bye” (Emerson): repudiates flattery and celebrates the speaker’s withdrawal from his sylvan home and reunion with God, expressing a desire to return to authenticity and spiritual selfhood.
The Shared Transcendental Themes:
Self-reliance:
“The Type”
“Do not mistake yourself for a guardian, / … / You are a woman, / skin and bones, / veinsand nerves, / hair and sweat. / You are not made of metaphors, / not apologies, / not excuses.”
The speaker challenges idealized or metaphorical portrayals of women that often reduce them to symbols rather than individuals with bodily and emotional realities. By grounding identity in physicality (“skin and bones”), Kay asserts that self-reliance begins with embracing one’s true, unromanticized self—free from societal expectations or poetic abstractions.
“Unreliable”
“I am the center of my own dramatic universe and it appalls me. / In my dream, from somewhere down a hallway of locked doors, a voice asks, / What if you aren’t as bad as you suspect you are? / What if you’ll never be as good as you ache?”
Here, the speaker confronts internal doubt and self-criticism while asserting ownership of her narrative. The questioning tone reflects a struggle between self-perception and potential—a tension central to self-reliance. The poem seeks to reclaim agency by asking the listener (and the speaker) to trust their inner voice over external validation.
“Self-Reliance”
“HENCEFORTH, please God, forever I forego / The yoke of men’s opinions. I will be / Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God.”
The poem’s speaker rejects the weight of public opinion and foregoes publicity in favour of spiritual freedom. This echoes the speaker’s insistence on a close bond with God that basically, through choosing personal intuition over conformity, stems from one’s own self-reliance.
“Good-Bye”
“Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home: / Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine. / … / I
am going to my own hearth-stone.”
Like in many other poems, Emerson locates truth not in long-established conventions but in solitude and self-trust. Truth, the speaker claims, starts from a decisive withdrawal from society toward a more authentic, inward existence, namely “my own hearth-stone,” which symbolizes self-possession and independence.
Self-exploration:
“The Type”:
“When you fall in love it is discovering the ocean after years of puddle-jumping. / It is realizing you have hands. / It is reaching for the tightrope when the crowds have all gone home.”
The speaker uses vivid imagery to depict falling in love as a moment of self-discovery. Puddlejumping suggests small, safe experiences, whereas the ocean represents vast, transformative emotion.
“Unreliable”:
“Where is my prize for most unreliable narrator? / I would never lie to you, but I lie to me all the time / … / I am not an optimist but I play one in the group chat. / I don’t know who I think I need absolution from.”
The speaker here acknowledges self-deception and the pressure to perform optimism. The search for absolution reveals a longing for authenticity – an essential step in self-exploration.
“Self-Reliance”
“I never taught it what it teaches me; / I only follow, when I act aright.”
The speaker here frames inner guidance as a teacher. He does not claim to control wisdom but follows it when he acts authentically. This humility before one’s own conscience illustrates the process of self-discovery as a continual unfolding rather than a fixed state.
“Good-Bye”
“Long through thy weary crowds I roam; / A river-ark on the ocean brine, / Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam; / But now, proud world! I’m going home.”
This passage marks the culmination of self-exploration – ultimately returning home after navigating the chaos of the world. After a long-lasting wandering, like “the driven foam”, the speaker gains inner stability by settling down at home.
Individuality:
“The Type”
“Know you are the type of woman who is searching for a place to call yours. / Let the statues crumble. / You have always been the place. / You are a woman who can build it yourself. / You were born to build.”
The speaker rejects inherited roles (“statues”) and instead embraces the ability to create one’s own identity. The repetition of “you are” affirms individual strength and agency.
“Unreliable”
“I am the most porous sponge that ever sponged. / I throw myself off every emotional cliff and build a pogo stick on the way down.”
A “porous sponge” means absorbing life fully, which represents a fluid identity, while building a “pogo stick” mid-fall indicates adaptability. The speaker, therefore, conceives of individuality as a constant, dynamic act of creation.
“Self-Reliance”
“The little needle always knows the North, / The little bird remembereth his note.”
The speaker uses simple yet powerful natural imagery to illustrate innate individual purpose. Just as a bird remembers its song and a compass needle points north, humans too possess an inner compass guiding them toward their unique path – no matter the noise around them.
“Good-Bye”
“O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, / I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; / And when I am stretched beneath the pines, / Where the evening star so holy shines, / I laugh at the lore and the pride of man.”
Here, the speaker finds peace in solitude and nature, contrasting it with the vanity and complexity of human civilization. Laughing at “the lore and pride of man” is a rejection of conformity in favour of a deeply personal, spiritual connection to the natural world – an ultimate expression of individuality.
Conclusion:
The poetic voices of Sarah Kay and Ralph Waldo Emerson, though separated by over a century, converge powerfully in their exploration of self-reliance, inner truth, and individuality. Through close reading of selected lines from “The Type” and “Unreliable” (Kaye) and “SelfReliance” and “Good-Bye” (Emerson), it becomes clear that both poets share a deep commitment to the idea that true understanding begins within.
Kay’s insistence on bodily and emotional authenticity – seen in lines like “You are not made of metaphors, / not apologies, / not excuses” (“The Type”) – echoes Emerson’s rejection of external validation: “I will be / Light-hearted as a bird and live with God” (“Self-Reliance”). Both urge listeners and readers alike to trust their own voice above all else. Similarly, Kay’s exploration of self-doubt in “Unreliable” – “What if you aren’t as bad as you suspect you are?”
– parallels Emerson’s view of the self as teacher and guide, as seen in “I never taught it what it teaches me.” In their celebration of individuality, both poets reject conformity and inherited expectations while affirming that identity is not discovered fully formed but rather shaped through reflection, resistance, and resilience.
Ultimately, these resonances reveal that transcendental ideals – inner wisdom, self-trust, and non-conformity – are not confined to the 19th-century page. In Kay’s performance, they find new life on stage, reminding us that poetry remains a vital space for exploring who we are, who we might become, and how we choose to live.
References
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Good-Bye.” Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Major Poetry. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2015.
—. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. YOGeBooks, Hollister, MO, 2014.
Kay, Sarah. “The Type.” Cover by Alyssa Cline, SoundCloud, uploaded by Alyssa
Cline, 25 Nov. 2015, soundcloud.com/alyssa-cline-5/the-type-poem-by-sarah-kay.
—. “Unreliable.” The 2023 Get Lit Anthology, Get Lit Words Ignite, 2022,
getlitanthology.org/poemdetail/1052/.
Thumbnail photo is by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash.
Author Bios:
Hossein Salimian Rizi’s doctoral dissertation on comparative literature is almost finished at the University of Vienna. His areas of interest include British romanticism, American transcendentalism and Persian mystical poetry. From 2019 – 2020, he was a postgraduate fellow in the ERC-funded project “Global literary theory: Caucasus Literatures Compared” in the University of Birmingham.
Selected conference: “The Dynamism of Poetic Identity Through Keatsian (Un)gendered Negative Capability.” World Conference on English Literature and Linguistics. University of Oxford. 23 – 25 August 2024.
Fatemeh Torki Baghbaderani holds a PhD in English Language and Literature. Having 20 years of teaching experience, she is currently a visiting lecturer at University of Isfahan. An expert in writing, analysing, and guiding academic articles and projects, she is highly interested in working in the field of English literature and related areas such as cultural studies, sociology, and linguistics.
Selected conference: “A Critical Discourse Analysis of Feminine and Masculine Identity in August Wilson’s
Pittsburg Cycle.” World Conference on English Literature and Linguistics. University of
Oxford. 23 – 25 August 2024