JRM: “… it’s the ones who are SHAMELESS self-promoters, and rise up with an undeniable, unquenchable THIRST for the spotlight!” That’s very much the case, in my experience at least. And, from a media perspective, it’s usually the band/artist/theatrical company/poet that bothers to write a press release and tell people what they’re doing, where they’re doing it, when it will be, how much it will cost and where you can download a photo that gets the coverage.

A great example of this is someone like Tyler Ramsey, who is an outstanding musician, but who never really bothered with self-promotion until someone who saw that talent (Echo Mountain, in his case) came along and did it for him. Meanwhile, there are dozens of middling singer/songwriters making decent cash on the regional circuit on a zip-lock bag if talent and a whole lot of self-promotion. It works.

indeed really my problem isnt that someone might be against the competitive side of slam poetry. it is that he was saying SLAM poetry is just angry people screaming and whatever one attracts the most attention wins. the comments about how all people are doing is beer guzzling or booing the losers. the guy who won the slam this past sunday named stevie B did not raise atleast in my opinion and he won cause people liked what he said. as a matter of fact the loudest poet there was doing poems about ovaltean and winning a life contest or something against god.if you dont like to compete and you write poetry on for your own personal self devolment thats cool but dont put down a performer who will go an compete.

promotion is important if you are lookingt o make any sort of living of your art form. i think slam poetry is a good place for poets of all genres to go and get there poetry heard and noticed so that when they do have a book of poems out or whatever other art they can get people interested in hearing it.

it’s not really about the competion to me it is about going out and having a good time that revolves around poetry and have the crowd feel involved in the event.

i meant to say “stevie B didn’t raise his voice”

Doug, the blue bar on a post that you type will have the word ‘edit’ and you can actually have made that change in the post itself.  Just so you know. :)

The point that i’m making is that the nature of the SLAM poetry itself is a result of the competition, not that that poetry people all write angry poems.  Of course people will write poems they want to yell to the public and those that they’d rather whisper in their audience’s ear.  It’s just that the competitive SLAMs that i’ve gone to tend to promote and foster those types and styles of poetry that do get loud and to me, tend towards obnoxiousness.

I’ve been to plenty of poetry readings, i’d guess more than you, and i have even edited a poetry magazine in the 80’s and helped, contributed to others in poems, reviews, layout and money, and am saying that i simply don’t prefer the competitive quality because i think the poetry suffers.  I am not saying it’s all angry poetry because there was plenty of angry poets and poems pre-emo-rap, but it just seems to me that the medium frequently overtakes the message in cases where hot, angry poetry wins out in competitive poetfests where there is a rating scale.

And please remember what you may not see.  For every winner there will be losers even if you’re not booing them.  Losers because they were not viewed as winners and so perhaps stop writing poetry because they didn’t have the Army of One quality to their nature.  Or perhaps your children will discover them after they’re dead.  With competition, those who don’t win will be enticed to copy those who did rather than strike out on their own path.

well i am sorry you have had bad experience at slams. and i dont feel we need to discuss this much more.
but losing can be just as motivating as winnning and if you let losing change you or make you wanna stop what your doing then that is not anyones fault but your own.
SLAMS have helped me devolop how i am really feeling about a poem and to rely on my body languege just as much as my words.

anyways slams arnt dead
there are many very talented poets that do slam poetry
and i hope you can find it in your heart to go to another slam with an open mind. there is a slam once a month here in asheville at the red room on this first sunday and another at dripolator on the last sunday of this month. there is also a nice one in greenville SC that is back of a coffea shop that is very chill and would def change your viewpoint on slam, i think

the red room will have drinking and is 21 and over. more of a party vibe than the drip or greenville one.

Poetry is a written word and has to sink or swim on the page.

Slams are performance art ... I don’t have a problem with slams, but I tend to agree with Zen the two I have attended were competitive and really seemed more about emoting .....

Slam is fun, but it is a very different kind of poetry, with an emphasis on performance.

Hip hop is cool, too, but it’s not quite poetry either.

poetry is a form and as such has some rules(of course rules are meant to be broken, but they do exist)

if it requires a performance to be appreciated then it is a performance piece ...

and besides hip hop is not calling itself poetry ........... it may be poetic, but it is a form of music ...