It seems like we’re in a bit of a dry spell these days for performance poetry. We used to be something of a hotspot in the national poetry slam scene, but the last several years have seen plenty of reasonably good attempts at bringing it back sputter and fail. Any thoughts on why this has happened?

poets talked;
critics balked.
Interest fell,
did not swell,
and at last,
it was past.

well there is actually a poetry scene every first sunday of the month at temptations in the red room in downtown asheville. there is a poetry open mic and a poetry SLAM it starts at 7 pm.

Slam is dead, lets leave it buried (for the love of Jebus please lets leave it buried).

I hope slam is dead - it’s the hollywood of poetry.  Competitive poetry is like angry Buddhism.

But open mic sounds good!

what are you guys talking about SLAM is dead? there are more SLAM teams that wanna go to the nationals then there has ever been. i would call that far from dead. i think plenty of good poets do SLAM poetry and if you came to the red room last night you would have seen that SLAM is not dead and it is a good way to get people out and listening to poets. who cares if it’s competitive?
Slam poetry is a good way to get the crowd involved in the entertainment and to throw on a good show. “the hollywood fo poetry”. how? because you get judged for it? thats just stupid.
so no slam is not dead actually it is far from dead and i think slam venues around the country are one of the few places where people can speak there true emotions and not have to worry about being censored.
SLAM poetry basically is an open mic what is the major differnce? oh the only differnce is you get judged and you allow someone else to openly tell you your poetry sucks.
well there is a open mic at the beganning and ending of the SLAM at the red room every first sunday of the month so come check it out. i was there last night and if you ask me the SLAM was almost exactly the same as the open mic and i think some 30-40 people enjoyed it just as much.

that “competitive poetry is like angry buddism” remark is completly useless and makes no sense. why dont you go in depth as to why you dont liek SLAM?
since we all know its not dead or even close to it.

Doug A.K.A. Sir Real is Him - 03 March 2008 03:09 PM

that “competitive poetry is like angry buddism” remark is completly useless and makes no sense. why dont you go in depth as to why you dont liek SLAM?
since we all know its not dead or even close to it.

Ok, i’ll admit i’ve only been to several poetry SLAMS and it isn’t dead.  But neither is American Idol, which is what it reminds me of.  The poet who delivers the most obvious and angertainment-driven slam poetry is rewarded and the poet who struggles with truth, at least with two of my friends felt like they were being judged on their feelings, instead of their performance and their flashiness in poetry.  It all seemed to be as much about slamming beers as it was poetry.  Cheering on winners and hissing losers.  The speed-dating of poetry. Maybe your SLAMs are different, and i hope they are, but it’s just got a made-for-tv poetry about it that doesn’t much interest me.  Maybe because it’s for the masses and i ain’t them.  But it didn’t seem to be about the uncharted waters of self-development, it seemed to be more about someone yelling at me, running for poet president of the night.  That’s why i said competitive poetry is like angry buddism.

Rap is poetry too and i don’t always like it; and just like SLAM poetry isn’t all bad.  Just not good enough to keep my interest.  I’m not going to apologize for what i like and don’t like, but it’s just not generally the kind of stuff in the kind of environment i like to hear.

I have nothing to add except that I thought Zen’s “angry Buddhism” comment was not only spot on, but had six times the depth, and 11 times the poetry, of anything I have ever heard at a “Slam event”. 

thank you, that is all.

have you ever been to one?
you obviously are against slam poetry for something besides its ability to have talented acts perform.

so i am glad you didnt try to argue that slam poetry is dead.

i dont mind if you dont like it.

but it is still a good place to go for poets to go to get there poetry heard. that really isnt debatable.

zen - 03 March 2008 04:19 PM

Doug A.K.A. Sir Real is Him - 03 March 2008 03:09 PM

that “competitive poetry is like angry buddism” remark is completly useless and makes no sense. why dont you go in depth as to why you dont liek SLAM?
since we all know its not dead or even close to it.

Ok, i’ll admit i’ve only been to several poetry SLAMS and it isn’t dead.  But neither is American Idol, which is what it reminds me of.  The poet who delivers the most obvious and angertainment-driven slam poetry is rewarded and the poet who struggles with truth, at least with two of my friends felt like they were being judged on their feelings, instead of their performance and their flashiness in poetry.  It all seemed to be as much about slamming beers as it was poetry.  Cheering on winners and hissing losers.  The speed-dating of poetry. Maybe your SLAMs are different, and i hope they are, but it’s just got a made-for-tv poetry about it that doesn’t much interest me.  Maybe because it’s for the masses and i ain’t them.  But it didn’t seem to be about the uncharted waters of self-development, it seemed to be more about someone yelling at me, running for poet president of the night.  That’s why i said competitive poetry is like angry buddism.

Rap is poetry too and i don’t always like it; and just like SLAM poetry isn’t all bad.  Just not good enough to keep my interest.  I’m not going to apologize for what i like and don’t like, but it’s just not generally the kind of stuff in the kind of environment i like to hear.

well i have gone to plenty of SLAMS that people were doing very emotional poems. the fact that you say it is all angry and made for TV shows you dont know much about it. and no people do not boo the losers and cheer for the winners. people cheer for the poems they like and i have never been to a poetry slam where someone got boo’d after doing a poem (though i am sure it can happen) i have been to slams though that judges got boo’d for giving to low of a score.  and who cares if people are drinking ,smoking and whatever else, havent poets been doing that stuff for thougsands of years or did that start with SLAM?
really you have already admited you dont know much about slam poetry and your tries at generalizing it have proved that you really dont. why dont you try actually looking into something before making up such blatent opinions of it.
thing with slam poetry is it is how you present it and alot of the people who are judging you might not ahve ever read a poem before in their life (which makes it awesome) so your ability to capture a crowd with your words and body languege is important. some poems are easier understood when read and some forms of artist or emotional expression are easier to understand when the person is right infront of you.
the way you just boxed a form of free expression into one catagory....cause slam does have no rules (exeopt no props and a 3 minute time limit) shows that your mindstate is not far from the the mindstate of the masses.

PS i go to slams and i do rant political stuff sometimes. but i also do things on relationship and many other subjects. fact is that most slams i go to dont have someone screaming at me and really most people who do scream like that dont get high scores.

american idol....sorry just dont get that remark either. like i said if you have been to a slam and dont like the fact that it gets judged that is cool. maybe it is cause you got a low score at one? or your friends did? and just couldnt exept that “the masses” didnt enjoy their poems?
i am sure the dalai lama would be very impressed with the emotion and the ability to express true emotion that is displayed in many slams. i just wonder though if he would box it in a catagorize it as “this” or “that” like the majority of the masses do.

i dont wanna post too many cause really to change your opinion is not my job but it would not be hard for you to step outside yourself and change your own

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I didn’t say i didn’t know much about poetry SLAMs, but that i’d only been to a few.  Because your SLAM experience is different from mine, and your preferences are different from mine your immediately conclusion is that i obviously know little about it.  How many times should i go to something i don’t like before i’m allowed in your ‘box’ to not like it?  Well, i’ve been to Italian opera several times too and that was enough to know it wasn’t for me - despite it being a very high cultural and moving form.  I’m not saying that poetry SLAMs suck.  I’m expressing how i feel about them.  Supposedly these poetry competitions are raw emotions about how someone feels about their world, but if i express it in a post on MountainXpress, suddenly i don’t know what i’m talking about.  Good poet.  You say ‘to change my opinion is not your job’ so i’m guessing it must be to get agreement among other tortured poets.

You’ve used Taylor Mali as an example to showcase SLAMs.  He is a good “talented act” as you call ‘em, but he didn’t represent the experience i’ve had with SLAMs.  I’ve heard Taylor Mali, in fact i recorded his “How to Write a Political Poem (And how to deliver it with UHNN Power)” at UNCA.  But the truth is he still sounds to me like he’s yelling a kind of a cross between stand-up comedy and rap as well-thought-out as it may be.  And the majority of poets just copied one another in their need to tell me what a f*cked-up world i live in and how i’m being manipulated, which is angertainment to me.

I’m sorry if you are somehow threatened by how i feel about SLAMs and someday i may revisit them and i’ll be the first to tell you that they’ve changed and i was wrong.  And i’m sure you’ll know how the Dalai Lama would feel about that, too.

you dont have to agree but i am saying to say slam poetry is all angry is wrong. it’s like saying poetry is sad. though some or alot might be it is not true. slam poetry can make you laugh,cry,wanna fight,scream,depressed it can do alot of things to you. it is a form of expressing yourself. you said that you had 2 friends who said this about slams and that you had only been to several.well i dont kno where they were or who was at them. but dont say slam poetry is angertainment to someone who has seen alot of slam poetry and who does slam poetry and not expect them to tell you thata you are completly wrong. it’s likeif you were to say all rap is about cars and drugs. i would have to tell you that you were wrong and that you were basing your opinion on only watching Mtv or top 40 radio. slam poetry is poetry it is a one man stand up act show. i mean so alot of it can come off like angery. well whatever i see alot of reasons today why someone would feel angry, but thats not all slam poetry is.
just like there is alot more to say zen then the masses may think and stereo tpye someone who is into zen as it is the same for SLAM poetry. just cause you had a few experiences with angery poets dont run around blabbing about how it is all anger.
it’s all good i know plenty of poets that dont do the compition side of slam poetry anymore cause they dont agree with it but they dont put down the whole art form and create a box to throw it in like you had done.

hey i come off angry in alot of my poems if it calls for it and i rhyme alot. but i am on the greenville team this year and there is only one other poet who rhymes and there is a story teller poet a guy who writes about relationship and love a woman who rights about relationship and love another woman who writes about god and social issues and another guy who writes funny little rhyming stories. reall i am the only one on the team of 6 that gets on preachy political tangents. which i think do have there time and place.

feel free to check out my written poems and my spoken word on my page http://www.myspace.com/doughasspoken

i do not plan on getting you to agree with me. but i am gonna get at you if you try to say something is ALL 1 thing when it is actually just as diverse as poetry in it’s written form. sure more things are popular than others but that soesnt mean it is cut and dry like that.

Yeah yeah Doug-E.........we’ve heard it all before.  I mean, my God dude, next thing you know you’ll be defending jam rock on these boards!  Oh wait a minute....that job’s already taken.

Having helped facilitate the INSANELY SUCCESSFUL debut of the Red Room Slam last weekend, I am very pleased and proud of what you have worked hard to create.  And now I’m going to tell you something you don’t know about me, Doug:

My senior English thesis at Mars Hill College (’91) was entitled:

‘Art for Competition’s Sake’

And it was basically a 30 page research paper arguing why, much like your sparring partner above, I felt that a poetry slam was an abomination of the art I had so ravenously devoured and ruminated over while earning my B.A. in Literature.  I made all the same points, although I do like the invocation of the term ‘angertainment’ (which ironically, I find to be the modus operandi of a depressingly significant contingent of MTX forum responders!).  But, obviously, my perspective has changed.

You see, having spent those 4 years submerged in my Shakespeare, my Blake, my Chaucer, my Spenser, my Frost, et. al. I just thought that the kind of poetry that reigns in performance poetry circle was passe and basically an exercise in ‘to the loudest and most boisterous and outrageous go the spoils.’

But now, with over 15 years experience in performing my original songs, etc. I realize this one thing that the academic world would conveniently like to ignore (and DOES ignore, particularly in liberal arts colleges/programs) this simple fact:

THE ARTS ARE FUNDAMENTALLY COMPETITIVE!  Not everyone gets to be the one that people listen to.  Not even the most talented artists, poets, musicians, etc. turn out to be the ones that get their moment to potentially influence others or connect with them........it’s the ones who are SHAMELESS self-promoters, and rise up with an undeniable, unquenchable THIRST for the spotlight!  Yeah, there’s a bunch of ‘I’ve studied the masters, learned all the scales, blah blah blah’ musicians hiding in the anonymous ether of this forum too, ready to strike out at anyone trying to ACTUALLY DO IT and transcend some kind of local ‘smarter and cooler than thou’ Asheville nonsense. 

Doesn’t it make sense that someone like me is an affront to them?  Or that someone like you, with your potentially VERY influencial new scene at the Red Room on the first Sunday night of every month ;) YES someone like you and the Slam itself is offensive to some others?

Like I was saying, do you want the over or under one year?