Although slam poetry has been around for over three decades, I didn’t know what this genre was until last week. Then I heard five talented poets of “Hear, Here!” Colorado Springs present their work before they competed in this week’s 2015 National Poetry Slam in Oakland, California. [A YouTube sample of slam poetry is at the bottom of this blog.]
The Urban Dictionary describes slam poetry as: “A type of poetry expressing a person’s personal story and/or struggle usually in an intensely emotional style. Very powerful, sincere, and moving.” The “slam” part is that poets recite their work under a time clock and are judged by an audience, receiving points for creativity and presentation. If audience members appreciate what they hear they stomp, snap fingers, shout out, rub their hands together, etc. The experience is not far from the gospel audiences of “Preach it, Brother!” and “Amen!” It also may have some roots in the 1950s “Beat Generation” writers.
Slam poetry is a long distance from sixties poet Rod McKuen, who died this past January at age 81. Long ago, he was nominated for a Pulitzer and two Academy Awards. For perspective, you may want to Google his Grammy award-winning
album: “Lonesome Cities” and that poem “My Friend The Sea,” recited over music, wave crashing, and bird song. Ah, these works are so gentle and melancholy. Slam Poetry is harder on the listener, passionately taking up social injustices like race and sex discrimination, and personal pains like bulimia, depression, self-identity. There are some poetry prompts that offer humor: “What is a Nerd?” Generally, however, the poems offer a stinging social point.
Slam poets bare their souls under the spotlight. Sometimes they write and present in teams. Their rhetoric is powerful, fast and flowing, witty, passionate. Their poems are full of long sentences and big words (pronounced correctly)! A listener has to pay attention, and this can feel like work, especially if one wants to understand. Although the poet usually stands in one spot, he or she creates a theatrical presence with gestures and voice inflections. (Slam poets joke about inadvertently spitting on the audience, so if you attend a slam, don’t sit on the front row.)
At least part of the success of slam poetry is that a poet’s secrets are spoken out loud, empowering the secret keeper. The slam audience is encouraged to be a safe place for the poet to speak. I am not convinced poets with a message outside politically correct boxes would feel as welcomed with the open mic. After all, points are awarded by audience members. Introvert talents wouldn’t shine either using this medium. But the venue obviously works for performing writers, who also are poets.
For a sample of the genre, I offer you Canadian dancer/poet Sabrina Benaim’s poem, “Explaining My Depression to My Mother.” It’s a heartbreaking poem, but it shines in defining depression. Ms. Benaim’s poem is transcribed below, taken from her website at https://shesaiddig.wordpress.com. Following the transcription is her YouTube presentation.
“Explaining My Depression to My Mother”
By Sabrina Benaim
Explaining my depression to my mother–a conversation.
Mom, my depression is a shape shifter. One day it is as small as a firefly in the palm of a bear; the next, it’s the bear. On those days I play dead until the bear leaves me alone! I call the bad days “the dark days.”
Mom says, “Try lighting candles.”
When I see a candle, I see the flesh of a church; the flicker of a flame; sparks of a memory, younger than noon. I am standing beside her open casket. It is the moment I learn every person I ever come to know will someday die. Besides Mom, I’m not afraid of the dark. Perhaps, that’s part of the problem.
Mom says, “I thought the problem was that you can’t get out of bed.”
I can’t! Anxiety holds me a hostage inside of my house, inside of my head.
Mom says, “Where did anxiety come from?”
Anxiety is the cousin visiting from out of town–depression felt obligated to bring to the party. Mom, I am the party! Only, I am a party I don’t want to be at.
Mom says, “Why don’t you try going to actual parties–see your friends?”
Sure, I make plans. I make plans, but I don’t wanna go. I make plans because I know I should want to go. I know sometimes I would have wanted to go. It’s just not that much fun having fun, when you don’t wanna have fun, Mom!
You see, Mom, each night, insomnia sweeps me up in his arms, dips me in the kitchen in the small glow of the stove light. Insomnia has this romantic way of making the moon feel like perfect company.
Mom says, “Try counting sheep.”
But my mind can only count reasons to stay awake. So I go for walks, but my stuttering kneecaps clank like silver spoons, held in strong arms with loose wrists; they ring in my ears like clumsy church bells, reminding me I am sleep-walking on an ocean of happiness I cannot baptize myself in!
Mom says, “Happy is a decision.”
But my happy is as hollow as a pinpricked egg! My happy is a high fever that will break!
Mom says I am so good at making something out of nothing, and then flat out asks me if I’m afraid of dying.
No! I am afraid of living! Mom, I am lonely! I think I learned how when Dad left: how to turn the anger into lonely, the lonely into busy. So when I tell you, “I’ve been super busy lately,” I mean I’ve been falling asleep watching Sports Center on the couch to avoid confronting the empty side of my bed, but my depression always drags me back to my bed until my bones are the forgotten fossils of a skeleton sunken city–my mouth a boneyard of teeth, broken from biting down on themselves! The hollow auditorium of my chest swoons with echoes of a heartbeat, but I am a careless tourist here.
I will never truly know everywhere I have been.
Mom still doesn’t understand!
Mom, can’t you see that neither can I?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aqu4ezLQEUA%3Frel%3D0frameborder%3D0allowfullscreen