Hooray for Dylan!

Hooray for Bob Dylan! Homer would nod with approval, T.S. Elliot would cackle with delight, and Abraham Lincoln would grin and say bravo! I myself was delighted when I was driving in my car and heard the news story about some blogger who discovered that Bob Dylan used the lines of the civil war poet Henry Timrod, the poet laureate of the Confederacy in his new album. "Oh, this is wonderful, this is perfect," I yelled at oncoming traffic... Whaooooooo! In keeping with my series on "Steal like Crazy until you Make Yourself Up", thanks Bob!Bob Dylan has only done what every great speaker, great poet, and great songwriter has been doing for centuries, for millennia. I don't like that they are calling it 'borrowing' though. Motoko Rich of The New York Times called Dylan a magpie... now that's more like it!
"In Mr. Dylan's case, critics and fans have long described the songwriter's magpie tendencies, looking upon that as a manifestation of his genius, not unlike other great writers and poets like T. S. Eliot or James Joyce who have referenced past works."T.S. Elliot said that ""Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different." Homer himself said that "Poetic License" which we now call "Artistic License" is being able to take what you want for your yarns, speeches and songs. I have a license, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill had one, and now Dylan does too! And in doing so, not only do we enjoy his songs, but we learned about about an obscure poet who was lost in American History!This is why I always say to my clients and students: read, read, read, watch, study great speakers, find sparkling words, copy their STYLE! Then.... play like you are them! Chances are, the style of the speaker you like is the same style you have deep in your psyche. Until you become a pro at it, this is the best way to "make yourself up."Anyway, the words Dylan used from Timrod were fantastic: “More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours,” How magic is that? Heck, Dr. Martin Luther King stole words from Lincoln, who stole words from the Bible!
"The opening words that resonated to the ear were about cadence as well as content. He began with two rhyming words: four score. This set in motion a symphony of melodious sounds. The Hebrew cadence, rendered in Elizabethan English, would have been stated slowly by Lincoln: “Four . . . score.”
The biblical ring of his opening words was rooted in lines from Psalm 90: The days of our years are threescore years and ten; And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years."So there you have it. I'll have more on "Steal Like Crazy Until You Make Yourself Up" later as I become a magpie myself and look for more goodies to "steal." (And Homer nods....)

Steal Like Crazy Until You Make Yourself Up!

The Constantly Reappearing "Stolen" Techniques of the Great Speakers

I have a fun assignment in my public speaking class. We study the greatest speeches ever made. My stack of these speeches is now a mile high, because I’m very greedy and love finding new speeches. A funny thing happens as we start to study the great techniques of the masters: the same techniques pop up over and over again. They all copy each other! For example, Abraham Lincoln’s message in the Gettysburg Address was the same message in the funeral oration at the ancient Greek leader, Pericles's funeral during the Peloponnesian War as described by Thucydides!So after great delight in studying these speeches, I came up with a brilliant stolen idea: “Steal like crazy until you make yourself up!” (I’m talking techniques, not plagerism!) So here are some of the techniques that appear again and again in speeches. You too can steal these ideas. They turn a speech into magic!

1. Techniques to Copy from the Great Speakers:
2. Use parallel sentences: Start your sentences (or paragraphs) the same way.
3. Us vs. them (one or the other) (polarizing)
4. The Seesaw Effect (ask not what… but what)
5. Metaphors (highly successful!)
6. The List (the Homeric List – Homer first made use of the list. It’s powerful!)
7. Repetition, repetition, repetition
8. Play on words -- Using unusual words in different contexts
9. Opposites - contrast
10. Comparison
11. Pushing the boundaries, risk
12. Use word pictures (trickling down our economy) (twilight struggle)
13. Use what I call “sparkling” words.
14. Story telling, and parables
15. Weaving a (metaphor) theme….. throughout the speech
16. Tapping into a shared myth
17. Shock
18. Irony
19. A new twist to an old theme
20. The use of asking questions (and sometimes answering them.)
21. Evoke the senses
22. Create a sense of community
23. Conversational style
24. Alliteration
25. Ask Questions instead of statements (and repeat them throughout the speech.)

"Lisa-isms"



"Steal like crazy until you make yourself up!"
--Lisa