| You're reading
this page because I created a show in Chicago at The Green Mill
called "The Uptown Poetry Slam". It's approaching
its fifteen year anniversary. It has played to over sixty thousand
faces, tongues, and pairs of ears. It has pissed off a lot of
people and made others feel divine.
A regular feature of this grab bag, variety
show, which mixes together an open stage, special guests,
musical and dramatic acts, and lots of audience interaction,
is a mock competition between poets scored by judges selected
from the crowds that pack the place every Sunday night.
Even though The Uptown Poetry Slam has always
placed more emphasis on the performance aspects of this cabaret
styled show, the competition, because of its gimmickry and
dramatic nature, has been the media-generated cause for its
spread to a couple hundred cities worldwide. Is this a good
thing? Sometimes I think no.
But the Slam does not belong to me. It belongs
to the thousands of people who have dedicated their time,
money, and energy to this Chicago-born, interactive format
for presenting poetry to a public that has a zillion other
barks and belches and flashes to hold its attention. Am I
proud of the community that has grown from my small efforts?
Yes, and I hope that it continues to grow in accordance with
a few philosophies that have become what I consider to be
the back bone of what we call the "Slam Family":
*The purpose of poetry (and indeed all art)
in not to glorify the poet but rather to celebrate the community
to which the poet belongs. (This idea is paraphrased from
the works of Wendell Berry)
*The show and the show's effect upon the audience
are more important than any one individual's contribution
to it.
*The points are not the point, the point is
poetry. (Alan Wolfe)
*The performance of poetry is an art -- just
as much an art as the art of writing it.
*NO audience should be thought of as obligated
to listen to the poet. It is the poet's obligation to communicate
effectively, artfully, honestly, and professionally so as
to compel the audience to listen.
*The Slam should be open to all people and all
forms of poetry.
*With respect to its own affairs, each Slam
should be free from attachment to any outside organization
and responsible to no authority other than its own community
of poets and audience.
*NO group, individual, or outside organization
should be allowed to exploit the Slam Family. We must all
remember that we are each tied in some way to someone else's
efforts. Our individual achievements are only extensions of
some previous accomplishment. Success for one should translate
into success for all.
*The National Slam began as a gift from one
city to another. It should remain a gift passed on freely
to all newcomers.
Such philosophies might sound a high tone in
your head and leave your cynical self muttering "What
Bull!" . Sometimes it is. The idealism and cooperative
forces of the Slam are in constant conflict with the competitive
and self-serving appetites of its ambitious nature. This struggle
has taught us much, but threatens to obliterate all that has
grown to be. I , as surely you have guessed, am on the side
of idealism and hope.
-- Marc Smith (so what!)
|
