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Underground > Creation >

Just, Just SLAM!

Rev. Jesse

04:53 / 10.07.01

da-du-da da-du-da

let the poets be slammers

So who here slams poetry? Who doesn't? Why do you? Why don't you?

I think I heard Grant said he slammed, or at least made a comment re: FL's national teams and their ability to obtain illicit substances.

Anyone else?

-Jesse

I have heard that FL's teams are a good deal better than they were in years past, but it looks like Atlanta may be the team to beat.

-Rev. Jesse

The Return Of Rothkoid

07:44 / 10.07.01

Explain the slamming. I think I recall some tag-team poetry in Sydney, but that consisted more of getting pissed and either conversing completely in rhyming couplets, or speaking with no thought to structure or sense whatsoever. Talk me through it.

"He's not ee cummings! He's just shitfaced!"[/LIST]

ynh

15:20 / 10.07.01

I don't, but I've watched. I guess I look enough like a slammer that they let me into all the events for free at last year's National Competition: a hot sweaty Providence affair with much drinking and merriment.

I dunno if the UK slams? But here's a link to the 2001 nat'l's site. Livepoets has profiles, links, and if y're lucky audio or video by some of the most well known, and damn good, folks. grant's always talkin' up Saul Williams. Beau Sia, Staceyann Chin, Taylor Mali, and Jason Carney are good as well.

edited due to more concise info below...

[ 10-07-2001: Message edited by: [Your Name Here] ]

Rev. Jesse

15:27 / 10.07.01

So slammming is competitive poetry. You get up, read you work, and then are judged by five, supposedly random (unless you are Boston), judges who grade the poem on a 0-10 scale. Drop the high, drop the low and you have a score between 0(yeech) and 30 (orgasms across the room).

There are a few rules, no props, costumes, or animal acts and there is a time penalty for going over 3:10. Generally, you must read a piece written by yourself.

That's slam in a nutshell. There are variations (prop slams, cover slams, speed slams etc).

Generally slam attracts loud, bosterious poets who read poems to receive crowd reactions. Generally form poetry is rare and longer poems often score better than shorter ones.

For more info check out The Poet's Asylum(my home) and Poetry Slam Inc's Home

Enjoy.

grant

17:24 / 10.07.01

I'm more of a perennial judge, but I've placed a few times and qualifed to slam off for the Regional/National team in West Palm. (Didn't compete cuz I knew I couldn't go.)

Actually, I'm a bit of a groupie.

Slamming sort of comes out of hip hop culture in the sense of competitive rhyming, but also out of literary appreciation (poetry reading) and improv theater.
In West Palm's case, this includes performance art.

Whisky Priestess

21:59 / 16.07.01

There's some kind of workshop going on in August at Hammersmith. Will dig some info if I remember.

Also a lot of lit fests in England (Cheltenham, Alderbury), have slams these days to, you know, communicate with the kidz. Despite the fact that their slammers are almost invariably lonely, intellectual men over thirty or mad menopausal women.

deletia

10:37 / 17.07.01

Ah yes, the great English Poetry Slam - hip hop but for middle-aged white men with no sense of rhythm who want to fuck teenaged girls, and 20something whiter-than-white trustafarians who want to be black. And fuck teenaged girls.

Niiice.

Whisky Priestess

21:48 / 17.07.01

Let's not forget the loopy menopausal women who want to f*ck teenaged girls. There are more of them than you think.

Cavatina

10:38 / 18.07.01

Performance poetry, O.K. Haven't encountered 'slamming' and don't think I want to.

But 'mad menopausal women'? The alliterative phrase slips a little too easily off the tongue, methinks.

The Return Of Rothkoid

11:42 / 18.07.01

So: like Theatresports, but with brainy aspirations?

(Speaking of which: is there a theatresports group in London?)

grant

17:41 / 18.07.01

a bit more overwrought than theatersports.
and with lots of internal rhyme.

Dharma Bum

09:33 / 20.07.01

Well, this is going to sound dorky, but, uh, I was part of the slam team for my high school...I have to say, we probably had far less fun than any adult slam team, just due to, y'know, the whole vastly underaged thing. But it was still good stuff.

I've seen a lot of slams held weekly at joints around DC, and I can vouch that at least in these smaller venues (as opposed to the big auditorium-style ones) the poets and poems are EXTREMELY diverse. A lot of younger folk, but also a lot of older folk. Men and women. Broad racial spectrum. Everything from diatribes on black nationalism to anti-capitalism to the food in someone's refrigerator to having great sex with one's girlfriend.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone else who's into slamming noticed that the grading gets pretty inflated? You rarely see anything below a seven, just because none of the judges want to hurt anyone's feelings...

ynh

09:33 / 20.07.01

Yah, I noticed that at last year's Nationals. A couple folks in the non-event slams even slammed about it

grant

11:19 / 20.07.01

That's why I like judging.
To make the poets cry.
I'm slammastering while one of the regular teams is off at regionals (or is it already nationals?) in two weeks.

I'm making them do a haiku round.

Proper protocol will be observed.

Ria

16:54 / 20.07.01

quote:

Just out of curiosity, has anyone else who's into slamming noticed that the grading gets pretty inflated? You rarely see anything below a seven, just because none of the judges want to hurt anyone's feelings...

yes I had noticed and that the audience's scores then goes higher and higher after.

Rev. Jesse

18:10 / 21.07.01

Re: Dharma Bum's comments on scoring:

Score creep suck. I went 1st in my semifinals and last in the 2nd round, it was awful.

At least I could go off the hook on my 2nd piece cause I knew I was coming in last. My scores for the 2nd piece ranged from 7 to 9.7, widest range in the reading.

I rember in the nationals last year, a judge gave a poet a 1. I heard the poet stalked the judge for the rest of the nationals.

Problem is, with random judges it is fucking impossible to maintain any sort of regularity in the judging. Plus there's the issue that you can't really judge poetry anyway.

Last time I slammed in VT, one judge gave 3 10s in a 12 poet round, yes, he was replaced in the 2nd round.

-Jesse

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