What is a Poetry Slam?

Simply put, poetry slam is the modern day remarriage of the art of performance poetry with the art of writing it. Established in the mid-80s as a means to heighten public interest in poetry readings, slam has evolved into an international art form emphasizing audience involvement and poetic excellence.

Stumble into any bar or coffee shop during a poetry slam, and you'll witness poets slinging words !Out Loud! to win the adulation of an audience and/or the high scores of judges. You might think that’s all there is to it, but if you stick around and listen, you’ll discover that a poetry slam isn't just high-volume reading or a heated head-on competition.

Many people erroneously equate slam poetry with competitive poetry. That a very narrow equation. To dispel the misconceptions of what slam is or is not and to steep you in its root spirit so that you don’t miss out on the best that slam can offer, here's a few definitions that will show that the "points are not the point." The point is poetic performances that connect to and compel an audience to listen.

The Big Definition of Slam

So if it isn’t just a poetry reading and it isn't just a competition, what is it?
A Poetry Slam is a word circus, a school, a town meeting, a playground, a sports arena, a temple, a burlesque show, a revelation, a mass guffaw, holy ground, and possibly all of these mixed together. Slam poetry is performance poetry. It’s the marriage of a text to its artful presentation onstage to an audience that has permission (and perhaps a responsibility) to talk back. The audience is the primary judge of the quality of the poetry and its presentation.

When most people hear the word “poetry,” they routinely visualize blocked out stanzas on a page - a text. After all, for the past 200 plus years, the printed word has reigned supreme. Poets in print could win Pulitzers - or even a Nobel Prize; a poet screaming award-worthy verse on a street corner in New York could maybe win a night in the slammer. But if, by default, you found yourself seated in the front row of a poorly ventilated auditorium listening to that Pulitzer Prize winning poet recite the best of his works, you might be sorely disappointed. Time and time again, the crème de le crème of the printed page have displayed no interest in performing, or even a faint desire to add a little inflection to drive home a hot metaphor. They smugly drone on like dust caked ceiling fans.

Slam strives to invigorate poetry by giving as much weight to the performance as it does to the text. At a poetry slam, a light-hearted scrap of doggerel performed passionately can prove stronger than a superbly crafted villanelle recited by a poet who barely exhibits any signs of life, and by the same token a fine poem partnered to a fine performance can bring the rafters down. The goal of performance poetry is to couple the best possible text to the best possible performance - to compose superior poems and perform them with razor-edged precision.

Standing on the sidelines at your first slam competition witnessing the crowds roar and the poets strut, you might exclaim, “These slammin’ poets take themselves way too seriously!” And you’d be right. But hang for awhile and you’ll discover that the competition is not the be-all end-all of slam poetry. It’s window dressing. The tournaments, the battles, the bouts are merely, yet importantly, a theatrical device:, a mock battle intended to stoke the innate competitive fires, encourage crowd participation, and pump some entertaining fuel into an evening of poetry, interaction, and camaraderie. When the poetry is compelling and the performances inspired, no matter who nabs the top prize, all involved – the slammers, the organizers, and the audience – walk away winners.

"The points are not the point... the point is poetry."

Thiat adage was coined by slam poet and organizer Allan Wolfe of Asheville, North Carolina and is often repeated at the commencement of slam competitions around the world to remind us that competing in a poetry slam is not about getting the highest score, walking away with a pocketful of cash, or trying to fill a trophy case. The true goal is...

"... to inspire people from all walks of life to listen to poetry, appreciate and respect its power, and ultimately to take the stage and perform their own original works."
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The competitive aspect of slam poetry has succeeded at achieving this goal. Slam draws droves of people, some of whom swore off poetry in high school and college, to its bosom, and most are shocked to discover that they actually like it, or at least like some of it.

PSI, the national non-profit organization representing a large portion of the slam community, makes no mention of "competition” in its mission statement. Its mandate is to promote the awareness of and interest in performance poetry, not competitive poetry.

In the majority of slam series, organizers stage weekly or monthly events in a public space, such as a bar or cafe. Poets wishing to read, recite, perform, an/or compete sign up with a host, and the host steers the audience through an evening of passion, laughs, and often controversy. In the competitions poets must follow a series of rules such the poems must be of each poet's own construction, the poet may not use props, costumes, or musical instruments, and if the poet goes over the time limit (three minutes plus a 10-second grace period), points are deducted from his or her score. But the rules change from city to city, from nation to nation. Judges, usually chosen from the audience, are encouraged to factor both content and performance into their evaluations. Scores can range from from 10 points down to the pit of minus infinity. To insure that the entire audience is involved, the host encourages everyone to respond to the poet in any way they see fit, be it impassioned cheering, lusty booing, snapping, stomping, or the dreaded feminist hiss.

By adhering to a structure that factors in the audience at such a basic and integral level, slams have emerged as the most vital and best-attended of many cities' regular poetry events. Whereas many open mike events tend to serve either the poets who participate or a particular target community, slam's emphasis on addressing the audience has garnered slam a more inclusive, more diverse audience than the typical poetry reading. By marrying poetry with competition, slam has allowed non-traditional audiences a tangible and intriguing avenue for experiencing poetry in a live prime-time setting.

For all there is to know about slams and slammin' pick up a copy of Marc's books Stage a Slam and Take the Mic at Sourcebooks.com.