A Small Rant About Slam Poetry

So, my grandparents came over recently. And my grandma has been bugging me forever to give her a copy of my slam poem from english class last semester, because I got to perform it in front of the school and I came in second place with it (always second. Sigh.....) (But honestly, the kid who won is my friend, we were going to start a poetry club together, and his was SO SO GOOD. He totally deserved it).

But it occurred to me that my grandmother had never actually really had any experience with slam poetry. This seemed strange to me, kind of, and really hard to explain.

"Well, it's just reading them aloud, right?"

"No. Well, I mean, kind of..."

You write slam poetry to be slammed, right? They have a certain rhythm to them, a certain style of performance that's different than regular poetry. I demonstrated by slamming my poem for her, and she loved it (she has to, she's my grandmother), but I didn't think she really, y'know, got it, so I showed her a few examples of my personal favourite slam poems. And, for the sake of reference, and also because I love them, I'll show them here too, I guess...

This one is one of my ultimate favourites. The humour to draw you in, the softness that keeps you captivated, and that ending... fabulous.

This one is a little more gimmicky, but it is to make his point. And I can't help but love the way he performs it. George Watsky is just all around great.

This one's a little more grim, and I didn't show it to my grandmother for that reason, but it is masterful the way she pulls it all together. I get goosebumps every time.

I could go on and on with some of my favourite slam poems on Youtube (Siri: a Coping Mechanism by Patrick Roche is always good. 21 by him gives me chills. Etcetera.) but I want to get to my point.

After showing these to my grandma, she said she didn't like this style very much. And whatever, you know, she's entitled to her opinion. But I do remember her saying something about, "Poetry is supposed to be soft, you know... this sounds like rap without the music." (Which is funny because George Watsky actually is a rapper, and I think you can kind of tell...)

I don't want to argue with her, and I'm not making this post to argue with that opinion, but I just want to talk about the reasons that I love slam poetry. 

To me, words are always so much more powerful when they're given a voice. That's what makes slam poetry magical. It's one thing to read things on a page, but it's a whole other thing to hear people speaking it. It's the same reason Shakespeare makes that much more sense when spoken aloud, it's the same reason that I sometimes read aloud to myself when no one else is around. I love that they can give rhythm to it. It's like listening to music. When Watsky starts speeding up in his poem, for instance, it's a crescendo, a drum roll, because the final show-stopping number is coming up. When Megan Falley pauses in hers, you know we're moving into the key change, the part that'll change how you listen to it. I think the best way to put it, to talk about the comparison between rap and slam poetry is this: in rap, your voice is an instrument. In poetry, your voice is the music.

I like it because the people who write and perform these have the courage to not be soft about it. How often do people get up in front of crowds and open their hearts with such confidence, and how often are people as non-judgmental as the poetry slam audiences are? You can't get up in front of crowds and talk about assault with such confidence usually, but with poetry it's just different, somehow. Even the poem I slammed for the school, I like to think I performed it with confidence (in spite of the fact that my legs shook for minutes afterward), but if anyone wants to just talk with me about it, I get shy about it. Slam poetry is magic. 

So much more magical and so much more musical.

Hah. Funny. I talk about how I want poetry in my music, then talk about how I want music in my poetry. Wow. My mind has one track apparently, eh?

But, yeah. That's why I love slam poetry. Sure, something can be said for the more traditional, more "soft" style of poetry, but I definitely prefer slam poetry. I can appreciate the skill it takes to create a well-written poem within the rules and parameters of, for example, a sonnet, but to me, there's something terribly cold about reading these things off a page. Isn't there so much more warmth, and with that, power, in something that was designed to be heard instead of read? 

I definitely think so.