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Blog Entry 111 of 194 Dial 'T' for Tabitha
I'm a bicycling poet who lived in Parker for several years and worked at YourHub.com, covering Parker and Franktown for two years.

I am studying poetry at CSU in the Master of Fine Arts program ...

I hope you can post a comment or two and that you will enjoy my blogs.

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Blog Url: http://denver.yourhub.com/~MusingsOfTabithaDial

Egomaniacal poets visit Arapahoe Community College

Contributed by: Tabitha Dial, YourHub.com   on 11/16/2006

Some might call slam poets harbingers of lyrical anger, young men and women who spout their pain, their disgust, their fears and anything else that gets in their emotional way on stage, competing with one another, performing for applause and fame and notoriety.

Sometimes, such wordsmiths come together, creating an art larger than the sum of their parts. To be at Poetry Slam 101in the Half Moon Room at Arapahoe Community College on Nov. 15 was to pay witness to Denver's slam scene, to peer just a little bit into the lives of six individuals who have adopted spoken word as their vehicle for expression.

Isis, of the 2006 Denver Slam Team, said that "Individually, we're egomaniacal poets" when she helped introduce the team to a crowded Half Moon Room.

Collectively, the team has defeated 500 poets and 72 slam teams in their last competition.

During the Nov. 15 workshop, Denver Slam Team slam master Paulie Lipman told how poet Marc Smith got tired of the open mic poetry scene in Chicago decades ago, when Smith began to create the art of spoken word. "The audience was bored to tears (from all the polite clapping). Why do (the poets) need an audience?" said Lipman.

It was time to shake up the stage, to strip poetry away from the beatniks, to splatter it with color, to force the poet to earn his time on stage, to have judges rate their offerings and "get a number to someone's pain," said Lipman.

"At a poetry slam, you can react at any point, at any volume," said Lipman. And as audience members, you are expected to let the judges know if you don't agree with their scores.

Not only is such an environment entertaining for the audience, it also has significance for the slam poet. Every single night, there is an E. E. Cummings or other great poet waiting to emerge, said Isis.

"We are the contemporaries," she said.

Denver Slam Team member Ken Arkind used fellow contemporary Kay Crowne, a Denver poet now transplanted to Chicago, to explain slam poetry. He said she called it "the re-birth of Shakespeare," adding his own definition of "beautiful poetry put in the theatre realm."

During the slam workshop, Lipman advised performers to genuinely return to the psychological and emotional state that fostered the poetry they want to present. "As long as you are honest, you will be rewarded," he said.

Denver Slam Team member Jen Rinaldi, an English and drama teacher at South High School in Denver, spoke of rewards slam poetry has given to her circle of influence. She said that her students can now see themselves as poets, after going to the monthly spoken word competitions she helped establish at her school. She said the competitions are the most popular events at the school and that it helps her get students interested in Walt Whitman and other poets.

"The point is (for you to think), 'I can do that!' Everyone can do this, That's what a slam is," said Lipman.

A listen and view of this podcast and this video will give you an idea of Denver Slam Team member Panama Soweto's performance at ACC. He performed the second poem, What Would George Bush Do? at ACC on Nov. 15.

To read a wikipedia definition of slam poetry, click here.

To read rules and more about poetry slams, click here.

What do you think about slam poetry? Post your comments in the comments box below.


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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments
Submitted By: Tabitha Dial
posted on 11/23/2006 @ 6:33:04 AM
Rated Blog Entry
Brett, yes, the Beatniks are remembered. Slam poetry was a way of making such performances less "polite", encouraging audience members to interact more with the poet as s/he performs and turning the performances into competitions. I was a Beatnik for a day in high school for a humanities class. Still have the bongo! Thanks for the read.
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Submitted By: Delete Me
posted on 11/18/2006 @ 8:42:28 PM
Rated Blog Entry
Does no one remember the old beatniks of the 60's? Take away the Jazz drum and upright bass and you have a Slam. For that matter, it is how hip hop got started. Poetry on the street corner.
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Submitted By: Ariana Marsh
posted on 11/17/2006 @ 3:36:08 PM
Rated Blog Entry
thats cool you went up there! i have never seen slam poetry before but it sounds cool!
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Submitted By: Kristin Osani
posted on 11/17/2006 @ 3:14:37 PM
(Not Rated)
Slam poetry, huh? I've never heard of it before now... I don't think I could do it--mainly 'cause I'm more of a short story writer than a poet, and even then the poems are less than a page. Still, it sounds like it'd be something really entertaining to watch.
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Showing 1-4 of 4 comments
CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Tabitha Dial

Denver , CO

Tabitha Dial has posted 194 blog entries and 816 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Tabitha Dial's average blog rating is 4.96.
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