What Is Slam Poetry?

Look at this I’m actually blogging two days in a row. A record for me.
And what’s it about? Definitions.

For years I’ve been answering the same questions over and over and over. Today’s offering is and answer to the most frequently asked question and the one most often skewered by narrow points of view.

As the slam movement has expanded, its history and identity has sometimes been distorted by people (especially in the electronic media) like to pigeon hole complex concepts into bite size chunks of sound and light they can easily pack into 30 seconds of on-air broadcast or cocktail conversation. That can’t be done with the slam. It’s too big. It’s multi-headed. It refracts a very broad spectrum of human activity and exprsssion.

So, the question What is slam poetry? demands several definitions. Here a few of them in order of importance.

Slam poetry (which is synonymous to performance poetry) is the re-marriage of the art of performing with the art of writing poetry.

That doesn’t raise many eyebrows these days, but in 1984 Chicago (and the rest of the USA and most of Western Europe) to perform poetry was a radical departure from how poetry was “supposed” to be presented orally. The establishment circles of proper poets (the “famous nobodies” we called them) scorned and dismissed those of us who dare perform poetry calling us clowns, hack actors, and unfunny comedians. “A true poet allows the words to speak for themselves” was their mantra.”

“Hmmm?” I wondered, “How do words speak for themselves.”

A poetry slam is any interactive, highly entertaining performance poetry show/event modeled after the original Uptown Poetry Slam started (and still running) at the Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago twenty-two years ago.

There is a legacy of hundreds of (maybe a couple thousand) spin-off shows that have inspired other shows that have inspired still more. But the Green Mill slam is the one that began them all and has remained the most authentic model of slam.

A poetry slam is an interactive performance poetry competition.

You can go to the Poetry Slam, Inc. and read their narrow definition of slam competitions and all the associated rules and qualification paperwork for yourself. Most slams have a competition incorporated into their events, but to say that slam poetry is simply competitive poetry is a distortion.

Any event that showcases performance poetry and encourages audience interaction is a slam whether it includes a competition or not. The competition format (a splendid theatrical device) has merely been the easiest for journalists to report on and for the less creative programmers to duplicate.

Poetry slam is a worldwide social/literary performing arts movement, a network (sometimes called a family) of performance poets, organizers, patrons, and audience members who love and passionately support performance poetry.

Poetry slam is made up of every kind of person you can imagine – scientists, grandpas, punkers, grade school kids, ex-cons, teachers, plumbers, cops, professors, homeless folks – all races, all nationalities, all ages – men, women, boys, girls. It celebrates all forms and styles of poetry: haiku, free verse, rants, sonnets, ballads, limericks, hip hop, villanelles, narratives, and even non-poems if they have something to say. It’s the big house of poetry where all are welcomed – where everything gets said that needs to be said.

For more slammin’ terms and definitions, check out our Slam Glossary.

Tagged as: Performance Poetry, poetry competition, Poetry Slam, slam poetry definition, spoken word