Open mic performance poetry, with a jazzy twist or hip-hop edge, everyone, from beat poets to traditional ones, is giving in to the artistic rush of slam.

Slam poetry is linked to the Beat Generation of the 50’s trough its style and trough its regard to spontaneity trough performance. The bang happened with Allen Ginsberg’s Howl which showed the power of the two dimensions, that of the words and that of the body, his readings of Howl were actually performances of a strong politically and socially rooted poem that helped create a new movement with Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. “Beat” was opposing to sexual repression and conformity, themes and ideas that modern day slam poets are gallivanting with.

Slam poetry means performing instead of reciting, adding that arousing humanity that a contemporary audience craves for.

With the growing popularity of hip-hop, another exciting form of poetry emerged trough its verse, with a new set of issues and concerns and a new look and sound to identify the poet with, anti-academic and audience friendly.

The person who wrapped it all nice together was the writer Mark Smith in 1984 trough an open mic night held every week that grew more and more popular over the years and has embraced competition form. Smith believes that the slam gives the poetry back to the people and that “we need people to talk poetry to each other”.

The Loud Mouths

Spoken word artists, performers, slam poets are a couple of the terms used to describe the people behind this form of expression, Anis Mojgani, Suheir Hammad, Shane Koyczan, Andrea Gibson, Sarah Kay are just some of the names of the new generation artists. By considering these particular artists you can get a better picture of what slam poetry stands for, as they all have a different balance between meaning, performance, tonality and cheats.

There are also spoken word performances that resemble the hip-hop culture, more of a “Race, Rap, Redemption” (hip-hop music, poetry, dance event) vibe, with artists like Saul Williams or Maya del Valle who focus on race and identity issues.

Use your cipher to decipher, Coded Language, man made laws.

Climb waterfalls and trees, commune with nature, snakes and bees.

Let your children name themselves and claim themselves as the new day for

today we are determined to be the channelers of these changing frequencies

into songs, paintings, writings, dance, drama, photography, carpentry,

crafts, love, and love.

-Saul Williams- Coded Language-

     image source: vashtie.com

Anis Mojgani and Suheir Hammad got known trough HBO’s Def Poetry series.

“I’m twenty-eight years old and trying to figure out most days what being a man means.

I don’t drink, fight or fuck but these days I find myself wanting to do all three.I don’t really have a favorite color anymore, but I did when I was a kid.
And back then that color was blue, and back then I wanted to be an astronaut, an artist, an architect, a secret agent, a ranger for the World Wildlife Fund, and a hobo.”

- Anis Mojgani- For those who can still ride an airplane for the first time-

Mojgani for example is a geeky-looking guy, with a style inspired by Bukowski and Kerouac and he manages to appeal and leave his audience quivering. He takes the mundane, twists it and turns it and in a funny sounding voice and makes you really acknowledge his words. Some of his works are For those who can still ride an airplane for the first time , The branches are full and these orchards heavy, Shake the dust.

Suheir Hammad leans on the strong political message of her writings sustained by her Palestinian-American heritage, as she is not a great performer. She is a political activist and the influence of her poetry has been recognized and supported by TED, where she presents What I Will and Break clustered.

Shane Koyczan wins with his way of swinging from tragic to funny, he focuses more on the story than others, he stirs emphaty rather than rage, or revolt The Crickets Have Arthritis. Not the case for Andrea Gibson who focuses on gender-related issues, gay rights and directs the emotion towards anger.

Slam poetry and influence on audience

“To have great poets, there must be great audiences, too”

- Walt Whitman- Ventures on an old theme.

I understood a couple of things more about audience mentality when I tried to drag a friend to a poetry reading. He was like “Uhm, I dunno, it depends, how long is it going to take? Is it going to be one of those -pulling chairs altogether listening to some guy for hours?”. Besides starting to have some doubts about my friend, I realized that the problem is not only that the audience is not such a big poetry reader any more, thing that has been subject to debate for some time now, but now the audience has a misconception and is rejecting the open mic session format.

And then in this harsh context, the slam movement comes in and is slowly redefining the relationship with the audience and it manages that by having a stake, and a good one to have. The stake for each poet is who can really really do justice to his or her work trough their performance, and of course there is the secondary one of who wins the thing eventually.

Maybe they are not exactly the “angelheaded hipsters” that Allen Ginsberg was depicting in Howl, but they have revolutionized the popular verse in contemporary culture and continue to do so.

Andra Gheorghiu is a prolific scriptwriter… nah just kidding! Just a scriptwriter…kidding again! She’s just studying the thing…or is she?

Photo credits:

Slam poetry @charlottestylemagazine.com

Saul Williams photo © Liberation Frequency

Anis Mojgani © 2013 RAD Photography