Dictionary.com merely defines “spoken word” as “a word that is spoken aloud”.
But that’s not quite it, is it?
So here we are in the Artists’ Quarter in downtown Saint Paul, a bar jazz club tucked into the basement of the historic Hamm Building. The place starts out sparsely filled, mostly poets who know each other, regulars, friends. The sign up list for the slam fills quickly, and Sierra DeMulder, Soapboxing’s guest host, is scrambling to find judges. A medium sized, low stage is at the back of the bar, and poets are accumulating at tables to the right of the stage, hugging each other, making fun of each other, and going over what they’re going to perform this evening. Soon, Sierra’s got her judges and the club keeps filling.
Soapboxing is one of the Twin Cities’ two monthly poetry slams, and has staked its claim on the first Monday of each month, except in case of radical takeover of St. Paul or Slam Nationals. There are a number of ways one can approach the whole “poetry slam” thing, and a number of levels upon which to enjoy it. December 1, 2008 was probably the best example of a night to be introduced to slam. The sign up list for the slam closes at 10 competitors, but Sierra is a softie and lets an 11th stay in the running. The list includes at least one nationally ranked slam poet, poets from both the St. Paul and Minneapolis nationals teams, veterans, and folks who have never before graced the AQ stage.
The judges are picked at random from the crowd, preferably audience members who do not know any of the poets, for better or for worse. Given a score pad of some sort, judges are instructed to rate the poets 0.0 – 10.0 on their poems, on their presentation, and whatever other criteria they deem necessary. Often, judges have never seen a slam before, may not be familiar with slam poetry, or any kind of poetry for that matter. 5 judges or judge-teams are chosen, and when they rate a poem, the low score and the high score are dropped from the final score, leaving the poet with a score somewhere between 0 and 30 with which they will either move on to the next round or be surpassed by higher scoring poets.
Soapboxing has 3 rounds, 1 round of 10 poets (11 if you’re too soft to drop an extra poet), 1 round of 8 poets, and a final round of 5 poets. The crowd is alternately hushed, energized, laughing, or thoughtful. Before the final round, Sierra announces the feature: Minnesota’s Hip-Hop duo Ill Chemistry.
After the featured Artists, we’ve been narrowed down to the top five poets. A newcomer, Gary Dop has already become a crowd favorite with mock serious poems that leave the crowd holding their sides. He is nerdy, but well in control of the microphone, Sierra will later inform him that all of the poets have a new crush on him. (Internet says, Gary’s a stand up comedian.)
Ezra is a skinny hiphop artist, and follows the well received poem with a pithy poem of his own, which makes fun of another man’s attempt to wax poetic to a romantic interest, declaring, “Baby, you’re my house!” In a button-up shirt and tie, Ezra hardly looks the type to be the player.
6 is 9 hits the audience hard with a well-worn favorite, “Her Name”, which feels almost as much like a dramatic monologue as it does a poem. Indeed, 6 is 9 often approaches the stage with all the energy and drama of an actor, and is a nationally ranked slam poet.
Jenn Smileyface follows 6 is 9 with her own hard-hitting killer of a poem, “Roses”. Curvy, with a childlike demeanor, Jenn somehow escaped my camera this time, but we’ll get her next time.
Casey Degnan, a white-t-shirted academic poet who returns to the cities in spite of having just moved to Chicago, tosses a wry smirk at the audience. Casey has a quirky, raspy voice like a cartoon character, and lets his pages of poetry drift to the stage out of his hands as he is done with each.
The winner of the slam was newcomer Gary Dop. Apparently the poets were not the only ones who had a crush on him. Here’s an excerpt from his last poem.
Slam poetry seems like one of those things- everyone always reads poetry like they’re M. Doughty, no one knows how it works, no one knows where or when it happens. Are they old beret-wearing beat poets? Are they rappers? Actors? Comedians? Scholars? So, that’s going to be some of the brunt of this weekly blog. Follow some of the spoken word scene and make it a little more accessible to the general public, get a calendar going, and highlight the featured artists. I’ll start with slam, but I’ll be hitting open mics, storytelling events, and probably hip hop and comedy shows, too. Come here to see photoshoots with spoken word artists, get a taste of different venues’ open mic nights, read interviews with spoken word artists, and see video clips from different spoken word performances around town.
Speaking of…..
