 Tyehimba JessFriday 02.10.06 From Slam to the Academy—Is It Really That Long a Stretch? I learned a lot about poetry on the stage of the Green Mill, the birthplace of the National Poetry Slam. There, I was able to hone the art of delivering a poem, and I was able to learn a few things about how to write a poem. Slam, for the uninitiated, is a kind of Poetry Olympics, where competitors hurl their no-more-than-three-minute poems off of a stage with no props or music, while a group of random judges gives scores from 1 to 10, 10 being the best. You can get more info at http://www.poetryslam.com The beautiful thing about slam is that the audience, often a beer soaked crowd of regular folks, from electricians and janitors to doctors and elementary school teachers, is very loud and clear about what they like and don’t like. Marc Smith, the founder of the Slam, encourages the audience to boo a boring poet off the stage, and is not shy about wisecracking about your poem after you finish—so you gotta be thick-skinned to get in front of the slam audience! Poetry is NOT for the weak of heart! Common criticisms of slam are for the poems’ lack of craft, their reliance on identity politics, and over-exuberance in the “performance” of the poems. I am not going to deny that many of these things are true—I have sat through many a slam poem and wanted to roll my eyes and walk out the door. But it ain’t like I haven’t wanted to shoot myself in the head when reading or listening to many of the boring, uninspiring, academic poems that get published in many of the “academic” journals out there! One of the things that bothers me about many “academic” poets is that they have never been to a slam and wouldn’t be caught dead at one—that is a shame. They will miss out on the sheer fun of the folks there, and many of them could learn from the care and passion that slam folks put into their readings. They eschew the idea of “performance” poetry—but aren’t we all “performing” somewhat when we read our poems aloud? If the audience gets no insight at all from a monotone, dry reading of your work, nothing they couldn’t get from reading it at home sitting on the commode, then why exactly should they come out to see you read? On the other hand, many slam poets would do well to learn from the craft and care that “academic” poets have labored hard to achieve. A LOT of slam poets don’t read anything beyond other slam poets’ chapbooks. Fortunately, there are those who are walk both sides of the academic/slam line—folks like Patricia Smith (winner of the 2005 National Poetry Series and four time National Poetry Series Champ) Jeffrey McDaniels (author of three books of poetry and a NEA award winner), Regie Gibson (National Slam Champ and just had a poem published in Poetry Magazine) … the list of slam poets who are infiltrating the academy is growing each year—and I’m lookin forward to it. CommentsOn 02.10.06 olivia a. wrote: our professor (ruth ellen kocher) gave us a link to this due an interesting discussion about "literary" vs. "performance" poetry that spurred from reading/hearing certain poets on fishousepoems.org. you highlighted very interesting points...one question i have for you is why do you think academic poetry is so much more elitist (in a hierarchal kind of way)? i mean, as you mentioned, slam poets walk along the academic side as well, but hardly the other way around. what is it about "western" culture that highlights academia as better than "performance," as if one kind of mastery is better than the other? why is "intelligence" much more valued in the academic sense? why not in the emotional/social/spiritual sense? sorry, that was supposed to just be one question :) On 02.11.06 Michael Broder wrote: Hope I'm not too late to comment... You did a great job hosting this journal this week, Tyehimba. I enjoyed reading your posts and all these comments. On 02.11.06 Karma wrote: i need to second the harmonic notion of doing away with the hierarchies...perhaps one reason for the rigidly enforced and false dichotomy between page and performace is that the academy is one of bastions of patriarchy, which thrives among other things on classification and stratification. Poetry in the academy is a male blood sport to some degree--but then competition is no joke in the slam either--interesting though that in slam many women prevail, many folks connect across class, and any other line you can think of, and this doesn't happen much in the realm of page snobs (of which I am one by the way, hee hee) On 02.11.06 Tyehimba Jess wrote: what excellent questions! I do not know of too many "academic" poets that are workin' the slam, but I am sure they are out there. I can definitely think of some who are more performative than others - Billy Collins, for instance, has poetry that is very accessible, and knows how to read a good poem. Olivia, I think you raise interesting questions as well. I think that the issues of heirarchy and intelligence(s) are worth keeping in mind. Often, I have done a reading, and folks have then come up to me to comment on my "performace." I have had to ask myself - is it only because of the way I read the poems? Does the idea of performance, in some way, degrade the audience's perception of the event they are witnessing? Is it safer to think of an artist of color giving "performance" rather than a "reading?" I believe that whenever we step to the podium or mic to read a poem, we are engaging, on some level, the idea of performance. So if a poet reads dryly, or mumbles, or reads poems really quickly with almost no break between title and poem, in monotone, is it not still a "performance?" And how does our reading of poems serve the audience? I think these are critical issues that we should think about during our journeys as artists - how do we worry the line? How do we tow the line? Where exactly IS the line?
On 02.16.06 Larry Sawyer wrote: I think whomever reads aloud in front of the audience is performing whether they are aware of that fact or no...seems like we need to go beyond the dichotomy that dictates that a poet is either academic or slam. Of course, it's much more complicated than that. Is that how the dialogue plays out in other cities? Because Chicago is the mecca for slam poets (or was) there seems to be a real division between experimental and academic poets here. Tyehimba, when you read at Myopic I really marveled at your excellent timing but saw it only as a performance in the sense that a musician gives a performance. I was listening to the words you wrote. A poet should be able to read a well-written poem in a convincing way without getting flak from anyone who might think they were too animated. Yet, entertainment value shouldn't detract from aesthetic value--but it does. Why is this? I think poets who are less effective readers of their work may be a bit jealous of those who excel at that. Conversely, however, many slam poets I've seen rely on cliche or trite subject matter, recite their piece in a singsong sort of whine, and do use gender politics to get a knee jerk reaction by stating the obvious (i.e., rape is bad, racism is bad). These poets often get the audience all worked up about something BUT then offer no solutions for the social ills Labels tend to limit. Of course, for the sake of discussion, labels are necessary. But some use these terms to discriminate. Aren't slam poets more than slam poets? Why is the adjective so necessary? I'd like to see how a group of slam and academic poets might all perform the same poem like Ron Padgett's ... Nothing in That Drawer Nothing in that drawer.
On 05.04.06 Valerie Esker wrote: Interesting thoughts here. I've only done a slam once. Enjoyed it and scored fourth place, although there was not a large amount of competitors. |
 Tyehimba Jess’s first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. A Cave Canem and NYU alumni, Jess received a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2004, and was a 2004-5 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He won the 2001 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award, an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Poetry for 2000–2001, and the 2001 Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award. He was on the 2000 and 2001 Chicago Green Mill Slam teams. Jess also won the 1994 Sister Cities Poetry Contest, and served as Chicago’s Poetry Ambassador to Accra, Ghana. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. |
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On 02.10.06 Shelagh Patterson wrote:
love this dispatch. so often i hear academic poets bemoaning that there is such a small audience for poetry, when really it is that there is a small audience for their poetry. Do you know if any academics fed up with obscurity have inflitrated the Slam scene yet?