The Dynamic Interaction Between the Poet and the People in Slam Poetry

Abstract

Slam is a revolutionary force in contemporary American poetry, and, increasingly, in global poetry. Much of the power of this movement harkens from its ability to draw upon ancestral memories, restoring poetry to its roots as an oral tradition. Marc Smith, the founder of slam poetry, said that, "When I started, nobody wanted to go to poetry readings . . . I think when poetry went from the oral tradition to the page, someone should've asked, is that really poetry? I think slam gets poetry back to its roots, breathing life into the words" (quoted in Eleveld 2). Slam allows the audience to appreciate the rhyme, meter, and other acoustic elements of the poem even as the audience is able to appreciate the words themselves. However, at the exact same time, slam poets are taking full advantage of modem broadcast media in order to spread their words as far as possible. A union of primeval human interactions and modern technology, slam is changing the form of American poetry. Beyond this, slam poetry gives power to the common people; it takes poetry out of the hands of academics, preventing them from having a monopoly on verse, and gives anyone willing to attend a slam the right to judge, or at least try to sway the judging of, the poetry, the performance, and the performers. Smith states that, "slam gave [poetry readings] life . . . a community where you didn't have to be a special something, feel bad that you weren't educated a special way . . . " (Eleveld 2). The result is that common people have the ability to comment directly on the poetry, in turn influencing the creation and presentation of these works. Indeed, the dynamics between the audience and the poet are one of the key forces underlying the format and presentation of slam pieces. [From Afterword]