Poetry slams have been around a long time and the scene has undergone a lot of changes. I used to take part in slams in the days when it was almost a sport, with an element of competition a bit like wrestling. Contrived to please. Audience participation was part of the performance. Whoops and shrieks and loud cries of “Yay!” as a good point was made. Laughter at a piece of wit or a terrible rhyme. The people who were there judged the contest. Sometimes a team at a table who assessed response along with craft, sometimes just on strength of applause. But it was always taken seriously by the performers and always extremely good fun. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Gradually the content moved on from the days when lowest common denominator stuff was par for the course, when a bit of juggling or an accompanying soft-shoe shuffle would score points and a “fuck” would guarantee a laugh, to gatherings where good poetry would win. The audiences began to demand more of the performers. I can remember some wonderful stuff in my head and heart that wouldn’t have had the same impact on the page. I recall one set in particular. A tall slim black lad who strolled up to the mike and appeared to lose confidence, looking around him, then peering off to the left with his hand to his brow – an apologetic giggle – then
da-da-da-da (theme from Jaws) and the audience laughing uncomfortably. Then, with all the time in the world - “there’s a lone shark on the horizon…” clowning with the thought and then gradually altering the rhythm of the line until the lone shark became a loan shark and the poem exploded into a great, glorious condemnation of what inner city living has become. The silence at the end, followed by the appreciative roar, symbolised what slam was all about in its heyday. “Listen and I’ll show you” was different from “Read and understand”. And I believe it did bring a new audience to poetry. An audience that learned from what they listened to and grew to understand quality within the wider spectrum.
Several of the younger published poets writing today cut their teeth in the slam arena. Some are just writing down what they would have stood up and said and that still feels to me like second-rate material when judged by page standards, and other have evolved into (pagewise) good poets and one or two are reaching towards greatness.
But, oh, the fun of it all. Slam events took place as part of the major poetry festivals and for a while we ventured into the hallowed world of the Cheltenham Science Festival with a series called “Slam the Atom”. I remember taking part with a few biodiversity themes; the idea was to entertain a science-oriented audience. One year all the big cheeses in popular science (Robert Winston etc.) had moustaches, so all the slammers wore them, too. We did not mention it. We just performed as “scientists”. The great slam organiser of the time was Marcus Moore and he told me that he loved those gigs because scientists were so much less far up themselves than poets. (Though I believe he said “most poets” in a “saving your presence” sort of way.)
Historically, slam has its beginnings in the mead-hall bards and the troubadour tradition. Even now, if I am booked to read to a group or function, it feels as if I am “singing for my supper”. The competitive element has roots in the “flyting” tradition that we tried to resurrect on D&A.
I was delighted to discover that the Decima, a form that I love almost as much as the sonnet (I have used them in a sequence, like spacer beads, to hold a collection together) is in itself a form of slamming in the linguistic land of its birth…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXV588lIHm0
.