Poetry Slam
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A poetry slam is a competitive art event in which poets perform
spoken word poetry Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of ...
before a live audience and a panel of judges. While formats can vary, slams are often loud and lively, with audience participation, cheering and dramatic delivery. Hip-hop music and
urban culture Urban culture is the culture of towns and cities. The defining theme is the presence of a great number of very different people in a very limited space - most of them are strangers to each other but still try to be polite to each other more times ...
are strong influences, and backgrounds of participants tend to be diverse. Poetry slams began in Chicago in 1984, with the first slam competition designed to move poetry recitals from academia to a popular audience. American poet Marc Smith, believing the poetry scene at the time was "too structured and stuffy", began experimenting by attending open-microphone poetry readings, and then turning them into slams by introducing the element of competition. The performances at a poetry slam are judged as much on enthusiasm and style as content, and poets may compete as individuals or in teams. The judging is often handled by a panel of judges, typically five, who are usually selected from the audience. Sometimes the poets are judged by audience response.


History

American poet Marc Smith is credited with starting the poetry slam at the Get Me High Lounge in
Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...
in November 1984. In July 1986, the original slam moved to its permanent home, the
Green Mill Jazz Club The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge (or Green Mill Jazz Club) is an entertainment venue on Broadway in Uptown, Chicago. It is known for its jazz and poetry performances, along with its connections to Chicago mob history. History Originally named Po ...
. In 1987 the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam was founded by Vince Keuter and eventually made its home at the Heidelberg (moving later 2010, 2013, and 2015 to its new home at Espresso Royale). In August 1988, the first poetry slam held in New York City was hosted by Bob Holman at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. In 1990, the first
National Poetry Slam The National Poetry Slam (NPS) is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and, occasionally, Europe and Australia, participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year an ...
took place at
Fort Mason Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 188 ...
,
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
. This slam included teams from Chicago and San Francisco, and an individual poet from New York. Soon afterward, poetry slam increased popularity allowed some poets to make full-time careers in performance and competition, touring the United States and eventually the world. In 1999, National Poetry Slam, held in major cities each year, was in Chicago. The event was covered nationally by ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' and ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique styl ...
'' (CBS). ''60 Minutes'' taped a 20 segment on slam poetry with live poetry scenes at Chopin Theatre. In 2001, the grounding of aircraft following the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
left a number of performers stranded in cities they had been performing in. After the attacks, a new wave of poetry slam started within San Francisco. , the National Poetry Slam featured 72 certified teams, culminating in five days of competition. Today, there are poetry slam competitions in a number of countries around the globe. Poetry Slam, Inc. sanctions three major annual poetry competitions (for poets 18+) on a national and international scale: the National Poetry Slam (NPS), the individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS), and the Women of the World Poetry Slam (WoWPS).


Format

In a poetry slam, members of the audience are chosen by a Master of ceremonies or host to act as judges for the event. In the national slam, there are five judges, but smaller slams generally have three. After each poet performs, each judge awards a score to that poem. Scores generally range between zero and ten. The highest and lowest score are dropped, giving each performance a rating between zero and thirty points. Before the competition begins, the host will often bring up a "sacrificial" poet, whom the judges will score in order to calibrate their judging. A single round at a standard slam consists of performances by all eligible poets. Most slams last multiple rounds, and many involve the elimination of lower-scoring poets in successive rounds. An elimination format might run 8-4-2; eight poets in the first round, four in the second, and two in the last. Some slams do not eliminate poets at all. The Green Mill usually runs its slams with 6 poets in the first round. At the end of the slam, the poet with the highest number of points earned is the winner. The Boston Poetry Slam takes a different approach; it uses the 8-4-2 three-round format, but the poets go head-to-head in separate bouts within the round. Props, costumes, and music are forbidden in slams, which differs greatly from its immediate predecessor,
performance poetry Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe p ...
.
Hedwig Gorski Hedwig Irene Gorski (born July 18, 1949) is an American performance poet and an avant-garde artist who labels her aesthetic as "American futurism." The term "performance poetry," a precursor to slam poetry, is attributed to her. It originate ...
, the founder of performance poetry as a distinct genre, saw props, costumes, and music as essential for a complete theatrical experience while also following theorist
Jerzy Grotowski Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He was born in Rzesz ...
's Poor Theater by blurring lines between the real person, actor, and speakers in scripted literary art. Gorski, Hedwig. (2015) ''Booby, Mama!: Surreal Cut-Up Spoken Word, 1977'' Introduction. CreateSpace. . Other rules for slams enforce a time limit of three minutes (and a grace period of ten seconds), after which a poet's score may be docked according to how long the poem exceeded the limit. Many youth slams, however, allow the poets up to three and a half minutes on stage.


Competition types

In an "Open Slam", the most common slam type, competition is open to all who wish to compete, given the number of slots available. In an "Invitational Slam", only those invited to do so may compete. In 1998, spoken word poet
Emanuel Xavier Emanuel Xavier (born May 3, 1970), is an American poet, spoken word artist, author, editor, and LGBTQ activist born and raised in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. Associated with the East Village, Manhattan arts scene in New York City, he emerged ...
created the House of Xavier and the Glam Slam, an annual downtown arts event staged at the
Nuyorican Poets Cafe Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, or of their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the N ...
(and later at the
Bowery Poetry Club The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space founded by Bob Holman in 2002.Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe. (2008). ''Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam.'' Chapter 26: What the ...
). The fusion of
ball culture The Ballroom Scene (also known as the Ballroom community, Ballroom culture, or just Ballroom) is an African-American and Latino underground LGBTQ+ subculture that originated in New York City. Beginning in the late 20th century, Black and Latino ...
and poetry slam competitions featured four open categories such as Best Erotic Poem in Sexy Underwear or Lingerie, Best Verbal Vogue and Best Love Poem in Fire Engine Red (alternately Best Bitter Break Up Poem in Blue). Winners of each category received a trophy and went on to compete for the Grand Prize title of Glam Slam Champion. The annual competition was first held in New York City and then London until 2010. Poetry Slam, Inc. holds several national and international competitions, including the Individual World Poetry Slam, the National Poetry Slam and The Women of the World Poetry Slam. The current (2013) IWPS champion is Ed Mabrey. Ed Mabrey is the only three-time IWPS champion in the history of the event. The current (2013) National Poetry Slam Team champions are Slam New Orleans (SNO), who have won the competition for the second year in a row. The current (2014) Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion is Dominique Christina. From 10–11 December 2016
Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian) is the List of cities and towns in Austria, fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the ...
,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
held a world-record poetry slam competition (28 hours of classic slam poetry) and broke the so-far-record of Nuremberg, Germany (25 hours) by Michl Jakob. The winner of the competition (Friedrich Herrmann) scored one point better in the finals than the second ranked (Darryl Kiermeier). The event was organized by Lukas Wagner (Slamlabor) and took place in the SN-Saal of the Salzburger Nachrichten. Similar to the House of Xavier's Glam Slam, a "Theme Slam" is one in which all performances must conform to a specified theme, genre, or formal constraint. Themes may include
Nerd A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, introverted or lacking social skills. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly tec ...
,
Erotica Erotica is literature or art that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erotic art may use a ...
,
Queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
, Improv, or other conceptual limitations. In theme slams, poets can sometimes be allowed to break "traditional" slam rules. For instance, they sometimes allow performance of work by another poet (e.g. the "Dead Poet Slam", in which all work must be by a deceased poet). They can also allow changes on the restrictions on costumes or props (e.g. the Swedish "Triathlon" slams that allow for a poet, musician, and dancer to all take the stage at the same time), changing the judging structure (e.g. having a specific guest judge), or changing the time limits (e.g. a "1-2-3" slam with three rounds of one minute, two minutes, and three minutes, respectively). Although theme slams may seem restricting in nature, slam venues frequently use them to advocate participation by particular and perhaps underrepresented demographics (which vary from slam to slam), like younger poets and women.


Poem

Poetry slams can feature a broad range of voices, styles, cultural traditions, and approaches to writing and performance. The originator of performance poetry, Hedwig Gorski, credits slam poetry for carrying on the poetics of ancient oral poetry designed to grab attention in barrooms and public squares.Gorski, Hedwig & Cole, Joy. (2006). ''Intoxication: Heathcliff on Powell Street'' Slough Press. . Some poets are closely associated with the vocal delivery style found in hip-hop music and draw heavily on the tradition of
dub poetry Dub poetry is a form of performance poetry of West Indian origin, which evolved out of dub music in Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1970s,
, a rhythmic and politicized genre belonging to black and particularly West Indian culture. Others employ an unrhyming narrative formula. Some use traditional theatrical devices including shifting voices and tones, while others may recite an entire poem in ironic monotone. Some poets use nothing but their words to deliver a poem, while others stretch the boundaries of the format, tap-dancing or beatboxing or using highly choreographed movements. What is a dominant / successful style one year may not be passed to the next.
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz ( ; born November 26, 1978) is an American nonfiction writer and poet. Life A native of Philadelphia, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in 1996 and received a B.F.A. in Dramati ...
, slam poet and author of ''Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam'', was quoted in an interview on the Best American Poetry blog as saying:
One of the more interesting end products (to me, at least) of this constant shifting is that poets in the slam always worry that something—a style, a project, a poet—will become so dominant that it will kill the scene, but it never does. Ranting hipsters, freestyle rappers, bohemian drifters, proto-comedians, mystical shamans and gothy punks have all had their time at the top of the slam food chain, but in the end, something different always comes along and challenges the poets to try something new.
One of the goals of a poetry slam is to challenge the authority of anyone who claims absolute authority over literary value. No poet is beyond critique, as everyone is dependent upon the goodwill of the audience. Since only the poets with the best cumulative scores advance to the final round of the night, the structure assures that the audience gets to choose from whom they will hear more poetry. Audience members furthermore become part of each poem's presence, thus breaking down the barriers between poet/performer, critic, and audience.
Bob Holman Bob Holman is an American poet and poetry activist, most closely identified with the oral tradition, the spoken word, and poetry slam. As a promoter of poetry in many media, Holman has spent the last four decades working variously as an author ...
, a poetry activist and former slammaster of the
Nuyorican Poets Cafe Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, or of their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the N ...
, once called the movement "the democratization of verse". Algarín, Miguel & Holman, Bob. (1994) ''Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe'' Holt. . In 2005, Holman was also quoted as saying: "The spoken word revolution is led a lot by women and by poets of color. It gives a depth to the nation's dialogue that you don't hear on the floor of
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
. I want a floor of Congress to look more like a National Poetry Slam. That would make me happy."Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe. (2008). ''Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam.'' Chapter 26: What the Heck Is Going On Here; The Bowery Poetry Club Opens (Kinda) for Business. Soft Skull Press, 288. .


Criticism

At the 1993 National Poetry Slam in San Francisco, a participating team from Canada (Kedrick James, Alex Ferguson and John Sobol) wrote, printed and circulated an instant broadside titled ''Like Lambs to the Slammer'', that criticized what they perceived as the complacency, conformity, and calculated tear-jerking endemic to the poetry slam scene. Over time, slam poetry has been criticized for lacking depth and for its features, i.e.,
slam voice
" which may limit the range of emotion it can express. In an interview in the ''
Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phil ...
,'' literary critic
Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking wor ...
wrote
I can't bear these accounts I read in the ''Times'' and elsewhere of these poetry slams, in which various young men and women in various late-spots are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other. The whole thing is judged by an applause meter which is actually not there, but might as well be. This isn't even silly; it is the death of art.
Poet and lead singer of
King Missile King Missile is an American avant-garde art rock band best known for its 1992 single "Detachable Penis". Vocalist John S. Hall has fronted several disparate incarnations of the group since founding it in 1986. History King Missile (Dog Fly Rel ...
, John S. Hall, has also long been a vocal opponent, taking issue with such factors as its inherently competitive natureAptowicz (2008), p. 290. and what he considers its lack of stylistic diversity.Aptowicz (2008), p. 297. He recalls seeing his first slam, at the
Nuyorican Poets Café The Nuyorican (Puerto Rican New Yorkers) Poets Cafe is a nonprofit organization in Alphabet City, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It is a bastion of the Nuyorican art movement in New York City, and has become a forum for poetry, music, hip ...
: "...I hated it. And it made me really uncomfortable and ... it was very much like a sport, and I was interested in poetry in large part because it was like the antithesis of sports. ... seemed to me like a very macho, masculine form of poetry and not at all what I was interested in." The poet Tim Clare offers a "for and against" account of the phenomenon in ''Slam: A Poetic Dialogue''. Ironically, slam poetry movement founder Marc Smith has been critical of the commercially successful
Def Poetry ''Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry'', better known as simply ''Def Poetry Jam'' or ''Def Poetry'', is a spoken word poetry television series hosted by Mos Def and airing on HBO between 2002 and 2007. The series features performances by estab ...
television and Broadway live stage shows produced by
Russell Simmons Russell Wendell Simmons (born October 4, 1957) is an American entrepreneur, writer and record executive. He co-founded the hip-hop label Def Jam Recordings, and created the clothing fashion lines Phat Farm, Argyleculture, and Tantris. Simmons' ...
, decrying it as "an exploitive entertainment rogram thatdiminished the value and aesthetic of performance poetry".


International awards and Poetry Slam World Cup

At European level, the European Poetry Slam Championship (or European Slampionship) takes place every year. The Poetry Slam World Cup (Coupe du Monde de Slam, organised in France) also takes place every year. In 2022, Italy won the XVI Poetry Slam World Cup for the second time, represented by performance artist, writer, poet, and actor Lorenzo Maragoni, member of the artistic collective WOW - Incendi Spontanei, same as the former world champion Giuliano Logos.


Academia

As of 2011, four poets who have competed at National Poetry Slam have won
National Endowment of the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
(NEA) Fellowships for Literature: *
Hal Sirowitz Hal Sirowitz (born 1949) is an American poet. Sirowitz first began to attract attention at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe where he was a frequent competitor in their Friday Night Poetry Slam. He eventually made the 1993 Nuyorican Poetry Slam team, and ...
(who was on the
Nuyorican Poets Cafe Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, or of their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the N ...
Poetry Slam team in 1993Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe. (2008). ''Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam.''
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
: Soft Skull Press. "Chapter 14: First and Always; Graduates from the NYC Poetry Slam's First Wave" p. 122. .
) won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 1994 *
Jeffrey McDaniel Jeffrey McDaniel (born 1967) is an American poet. He has published six books of poetry, most recently ''Holiday in the Islands of Grief'' (University of Pittsburgh Press). He is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National End ...
(who was on numerous DC and California slam teams in the mid to late 1990s) won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2003 *
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz ( ; born November 26, 1978) is an American nonfiction writer and poet. Life A native of Philadelphia, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in 1996 and received a B.F.A. in Dramati ...
(who was on the NYC-Urbana Poetry Slam team in 1998, 2001, 2003 and 2010) won an NEA Fellowship in Poetry in 2011 As of 2017, one poet who has competed at National Poetry Slam has won the
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for Poetry:
Tyehimba Jess Tyehimba Jess (born 1965 in Detroit) is an American poet. His book '' Olio'' received the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Biography Early life Tyehimba Jess was born Jesse S. Goodwin. He grew up in Detroit, where his father worked in that city's ...
, who competed as a part of Chicago's Green Mill team twice. A number of poets belong to both academia and slam: *
Jeffrey McDaniel Jeffrey McDaniel (born 1967) is an American poet. He has published six books of poetry, most recently ''Holiday in the Islands of Grief'' (University of Pittsburgh Press). He is the recipient of a creative writing fellowship from the National End ...
slammed on several poetry slam teams, and has since published several books and currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. * Patricia Smith, a four-time national slam champion, went on to win several prestigious literary awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA Fellowship, and being inducted into the International Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent in 2006. *
Bob Holman Bob Holman is an American poet and poetry activist, most closely identified with the oral tradition, the spoken word, and poetry slam. As a promoter of poetry in many media, Holman has spent the last four decades working variously as an author ...
founded the Nuyorican Poetry Slam has taught for years at the New School, Bard, Columbia and NYU.
Craig Arnold Craig Arnold (November 16, 1967 – April 27, 2009) was an American poet and professor. His first book of poems, ''Shells'' (1999), was selected by W. S. Merwin for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. His many honors include the 2005 Joseph B ...
won the
Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition The Yale Series of Younger Poets is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the debut collection of a promising American poet. Established in 1918, the Younger Poets Prize is the longest-running annual literary award in the Uni ...
and has competed at slams. *
Kip Fulbeck Lawrence Keith "Kip" Fulbeck is an American artist, spoken word performer, filmmaker and author. Fulbeck's work explores identity politics. His mixed race ethnic background is English, Welsh, Irish and Cantonese. He is best known for his work a ...
, a professor of Art at the University of California, Santa Barbara competed in slam in the early-1990s and initiated the first spoken word course to be taught as part of a college art program's core curriculum. *
Javon Johnson Javon Johnson is an American spoken word poet, writer, and professor. He is the director of African American and African Diaspora Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, an ...
was national slam poetry champion in 2003 and 2004, wrote his dissertation on slam poetry and published an article in text and performance quarterly about black masculinity and sexism in the slam community. * Susan Somers-Willett wrote the book ''The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry'', exploring the relationships between slam, identity, and politics. *
Karyna McGlynn Karyna McGlynn is an American poet and editor associated with spoken-word, New Sincerity, and Gurlesque. Biography McGlynn earned a BA from Seattle University, a MFA from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Literature and Creative Wri ...
has devoted much attention to the merging of the poetry slam community and the academic community in her works.
Henry S. Taylor Henry Splawn Taylor (born June 21, 1942) is an American poet, author of more than 15 books of poems, translation, and nonfiction, and winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Taylor was born in Lincoln, Virginia, in rural Loudoun County, ...
, winner of the 1985
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...
, competed in the 1997 National Poetry Slam as an individual and placed 75th out of 150. While slam poetry has often been ignored in traditional higher learning institutions, it slowly is finding its way into courses and programs of study. For example, at
Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...
, in Boston, slam poetry is now available as a Minor course of study.


Youth movement

Slam poetry has found popularity as a form of self-expression among many teenagers. Young Chicago Authors (YCA) provides workshops, mentoring, and competition opportunities to youth in the Chicago area. Every year YCA presents
Louder Than a Bomb Rooted & Radical Youth Poetry Festival (formerly named Louder Than a Bomb) is an annual youth poetry slam in Chicago every spring. Founded in 2001 by Kevin Coval and Anna West of the nonprofit organization Young Chicago Authors. It is now the la ...
, the world's largest team-based youth slam and subject of a documentary by the same name. San Francisco-based a non-profit organization Youth Speaks Inc has also been running the
Brave New Voices Brave New Voices was created by Youth Speaks Inc in 1998 (a non-profit organization from San Francisco promoting youth intellectual and artistic self-development) after the inaugural Youth Speaks Teen slam poetry in San Francisco – the first po ...
poetry festival since 1998. The youth poetry slam movement was the focus of a documentary film series produced by HBO and released in 2009. It featured poets from Youth Speaks, Urban Word, Louder than a Bomb and other related youth poetry slam organizations. In a 2005 interview, one of slam's best known poets Saul Williams praised the youth poetry slam movement, explaining: In 2012, more than 12,000 young people took part in an England-wide youth slam ''Shake the Dust'', organized by
Apples and Snakes Apples and Snakes, based at the Albany Theatre in Deptford, south-east London, is an organisation for performance poetry and the spoken word in England. It has been described as the main organisation promoting performance poetry in Britain. ...
as part of the
London 2012 Festival The 2012 Cultural Olympiad was a programme of cultural events across the United Kingdom that accompanied the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics. The Olympic Charter, the set of rules and guidelines for the organization of the Olym ...
. An Open Letter to Honey Singh, a
rap Rapping (also rhyming, spitting, emceeing or MCing) is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates "rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular". It is performed or chanted, usually over a backing beat or musical accompaniment. The ...
video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...
featuring Rene Sharanya Verma performing at
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
Poetry Slam, went viral on YouTube receiving over 1.5 million hits.


In Africa

In 2017 poet Malika Outtara estimated that there were only fifteen African women slam poets in total.


Burkina Faso

One of the most notable figures in the slam scene in
Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...
is Malika Outtara. In 2019 she set up the Slamazone Foundation of which she is President, in order to fund raise for social issues in her country.


Egypt

Slam Poetry has been in
Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
since the twentieth century and was introduced by Hussain Shafiq al-Misry. According to al-Misry, having a variety jobs gave him the experience to understand the struggles of Egyptian people in different classes of life. He had good knowledge of Arabic literature, grammar and some commonly used foreign words as well as slang; which he used to form Halamantishi poetry. Muhammad Ragab Bayyoumi in 1986 wrote an article entitled Hussein Shafiq al-Misry: Ustaz la Tilmeeth lah" (Hussein Shafiq al-Misry: A Teacher with No Student of His) in which he introduced al-Misry's poems and explained al-Misry's literary poetry techniques. In Egypt Performance Poetry is new in popularity, the term "Ash-Shi'r al-Mu'adda" was recently introduced as the term for performance poetry. Poets such as  
Bayram At-Tunisi Bayram or Bairam or Beyram may refer to: * Bayram (Turkey), the Turkish word for a festival or celebration * Bayrami (Bayramilik and Bayramiye), a Sufi order * Public holidays in Azerbaijan There are several public holidays in Azerbaijan. Public ...
, Ahmad Rami, and Kamel Ash-Shennawy paved the way after al-Misry with lyrical slam poems that use a melodic rhythm to attract the audience.


In Japan

In
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, Katsunori Kusunoki, a professor of communications at Toyo University, found a way to incorporate slam poetry into his students’ lives; allowing them to showcase their competitiveness and love of poetry by putting together “poetry boxing” matches. Kusunoki created annual “poetry boxing” tournaments in order to provide a medium for expression and social interaction . The rules are “16 boxers face off in pairs in competitions of stand-up verse that last for three minutes. Winners compete in series of challenges such as timed presentation and a round of improvised jousting.” A master of ceremonies adds to the event by providing nicknames for the competitors. Kusunoki's goal was to try to get his students to open up by breaking language barriers and expressing themselves.


See also


References


Bibliography


External links


International Poetry Slam Portal (European)"An Incomplete History of Slam" at e-poets.net"Verbs On Asphalt: A History of the Nuyorican Poetry Slam"Documentary Film about the National Poetry SlamIndiefeed Performance Poetry Channel Nine-Part Podcast Series on the History of the New York City Poetry SlamDU Poetry - performance poetry and Slam Poetry showcase
{{DEFAULTSORT:Poetry Slam Performing arts Contemporary literature African-American cultural history African-American culture