Vantage Point: A new generation’s poetic voice

Written by Wendy Gerber
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 23:00

To many people, the word “poetry” evokes a Shakespearean sonnet or the prose of T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings, or Robert Frost. To others, it stirs the first lines of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl. But to a growing number of teenagers and young adults, poetry has come to be defined by spoken word pieces from other young, often minority, wordsmiths embracing a new style: slam poetry. Typically, such poetry focuses on politicized topics including social and economic issues, gender injustice and racial issues, as well as self-empowering forms of personal expression.

I got a glimpse of the world of slam poetry a few weeks ago, when my daughter, Samantha, performed at the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, a night club/café in which slam poets perform on stage in a small black box theater on East 3rd Street in Manhattan. The evening brought new insights into this art form — the depth and intellect of its content and the pervasive way it is influencing modern culture. Slam poetry is encouraging individuals across broad demographic lines to write and express themselves in a creative and thought-provoking way.

Samantha wrote a witty and satirical poem about female empowerment — a piece that could have easily opened Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, and perhaps will one day. Another woman wrote about the sexual abuse she had endured as a teenager; a young man wrote about coping with his mother’s cancer; and a number of poets wrote about racial injustice. The audience was viscerally touched and impacted by their intelligent powerful words and passionate performances.

Slam poetry has rekindled an interest in poetry and changed its stereotype as a literary art form focused on classroom instruction and literary criticism. Originating in Chicago in the late 1980s, slam poetry was first practiced by Marc Smith at The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, and soon spread across the country, as well as gaining an international following. The Nuyorican Poets’ Café, where my daughter performed, and the Bowery Poetry Club in New York are two popular beacons for slam poetry today. The hallmark U.S. event is the annual National Poetry Slam, which is taking place in Madison, Wisc., this month, in which teams of four compete in a tournament-style format.

Whether written on the page or spoken out loud, for hundreds of years poetry has been the voice of the brilliant, the rebellious, the artists, and performers who have influenced the world with their prose. But this cultural art form has developed new meaning in the last two decades, as poetry has influenced the content of music through rap and hip hop and spoken performance art through slam poetry. These new forms of poetry, specifically written to be spoken, have given a voice to a new generation. In addition to poets competing in slam poetry contests, slam poetry has found popularity as a form of self-expression among many teenagers and young people. This socially charged, self-empowering form of expression can also heighten students’ interest in poetry. Teachers are now including spoken poetry in their curriculum as a means to explore poetry as social commentary and create a voice for the students to express themselves through prose. Today’s spoken world revolution has thus given literary meaning to a new generation of individuals who now have a voice to share their thoughts.

Competitive poetry might seem like an oxymoron, but the expressive, cathartic performing art form of slam poetry has a wide following. A poetry slam is a competition at which poets read or recite original work and their performances are then judged on a numeric scale by “judges” selected from the audience. Poets are judged not only on the content of their slam but also on the manner of delivery and passion behind their words. Anyone may sign up to perform their poetry. Bob Holman, a poetry activist and former “slammaster” at the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, has called the movement “the democratization of verse.”

But the real measure of slam poetry is its impact on the audience. Listening to the poets at the Nuyorican Poets’ Café offered a transparent, thought-provoking glimpse into their emotional and intellectual depths, and left us all looking a little deeper into our own souls and preconceptions. It’s hard to think of a more positive way to inspire social change and self-expression than through poetry. And encouraging individuals to express themselves — and giving them an open microphone to share their thoughts — is a welcome form of literary expression and a poetic way to inspire others.

Columnist’s note: For those who want to experience what slam poetry is about, here’s a link to one of my daughter’s favorite slam poets, two-time National Poetry Slam winner and former World Cup Poetry Slam winner Anis Mojgani performing his poem Shake the Dust: youtube.com/watch?v=0qDtHdloK44.

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