Our special guest was Lacroy Nixon, founder and director of Slam Connection, a relatively new spoken word poetry collective based in Williamsburg. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect.

Here, however, the artists provide an incredibly natural-feeling extension of the poem, emphasizing the feel and relentless beat of the melancholy behind the words. With words like this ...

From making a big deal out of the word "like" to complaining ... as you can see in Melissa Lozada-Oliva's spoken word poem "Like Totally Whatever" — because, like, maybe this trend is not ...

In fact, it's so tricky that even native English speakers with college degrees may struggle to get through it without botching a word. Titled The Chaos, the poem was penned by Dutch writer ...