Sarah Kay
Quick answer: How Sarah Kay builds spoken word: storytelling warmth, wonder in ordinary objects and the instructional poem, with practice exercises and where to begin.
Sarah Kay gave spoken word its most famous gateway: her 2011 TED talk, opening with a poem imagining what she would tell a daughter, has been watched many millions of times and sent a generation of teenagers to their first open mic. Born in New York City in 1988, Kay started performing at the Bowery Poetry Club as a teenager and co-founded Project VOICE, which brings poetry into schools worldwide, with fellow poet Phil Kaye.
Her craft is narrative warmth under strict control. The poems feel like being told a story by someone who likes you, but their structures, list poems, instruction poems, object meditations, are precise machines. She is an ideal study for writers who want accessibility without slackness.
Who she is
Kay grew up in Manhattan, began performing in her early teens, and became one of the defining voices of the 2010s spoken word boom. Her books include B, the single poem from the TED talk published as an illustrated volume, No Matter the Wreckage, The Type, All Our Wild Wonder and A Little Daylight Left. Through Project VOICE she has taught poetry in classrooms across dozens of countries.
Her position matters historically: she demonstrated that spoken word could be tender, funny and craft-driven rather than purely declamatory, and her teaching work built infrastructure for the form's next generation.
The signature moves
Kay's poems repay slow watching. These are the recurring devices.
What you can learn
Write an instruction poem: choose a listener who needs preparing for something, a first heartbreak, a hospital visit, leaving home, and let every line be advice. The frame forces generosity, and generosity forces concreteness.
Practise object wonder as a daily drill: ten minutes on one ordinary object, no similes for the first five minutes, only description, then let metaphor in. The discipline of looking first is what keeps the eventual metaphor honest. Finally, script your spontaneity. Mark where a reading should pause or smile, and rehearse it; naturalness on stage or on the page is almost always constructed, and there is no shame in the construction.
Where to start
Watch the TED talk If I Should Have a Daughter first, then performances of Hands and Hiroshima. In print, No Matter the Wreckage is the essential collection, and A Little Daylight Left shows the mature register. Her joint performances with Phil Kaye, especially the co-written poem about their uncanny parallel lives, display duet timing worth studying.
What poets can take from this
- Frame a poem as instructions preparing someone you love for something hard.
- Describe an ordinary object for five minutes before allowing any metaphor.
- Tell a charming story, then rotate it to reveal what it was really about.
- Script your pauses and asides; rehearsed warmth still reads as warmth.
- Teach a poem to someone; explaining craft exposes what your drafts lack.
Try it yourself
Write a poem of instructions for someone about to experience something you have survived. Include one ordinary object that becomes the poem's central metaphor by the final line.
Questions
What is Sarah Kay's famous TED talk?
Her 2011 talk If I Should Have a Daughter opens with the poem B and has been viewed many millions of times. It became a gateway into spoken word for a generation of young writers.
What is Project VOICE?
An organisation Sarah Kay co-founded with poet Phil Kaye that brings spoken word poetry into schools around the world, using performance and teaching to build student confidence in writing.
Which Sarah Kay book should I read first?
No Matter the Wreckage (2014) is the best first collection, gathering the poems from her defining performance years.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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