It's My Blog and I'll Critique If I Want To ...

[ocvictor]

Very sorry to anyone who's annoyed at the sheer amount of navel-gazing poetry slam theory I've been spewing lately. I'm working on writing something, and the blog's always been my best sounding board, and frequently, I find myself arguing against myself, just to test things out in my head.

Still, I understand slam's more than an academic concept to

Comments

[scottwoods]

Is it that point in the cycle again? Man, let me break out my shroud and cowbell.

I'm with Darby: Have any of these critics been to a haiku deathmatch? A dead poets slam? A group piece showcase? A prop slam? The thing can't be dead if it's constantly changing its focus and presentations and range. There are plenty of slams in plenty of places - more than we'll ever know for sure - that don't just go 3-minute-yell/score-of-10. As a movement, this is natural and pervasive development. It's the sort of thing that probably isn't much of a minority anymore at the local level if anybody bothered to do the math.

So as a criticism, try telling me something that I can't anticipate because I've heard it all. Tell me something new about Slam that is bad that wasn't said about it five years ago. Or ten years ago. Show me a new criticism, because I can surely show you ten poems for every point you make at any given National Poetry Slam (or iWPS or WOWps) that prove you wrong. And that's just out of a pool of 300 poets (or 60 and 60 respectively, many of whom appear in all national competitions).

And let's not even get started with the ghettoization of poetry that journals create.

This is why no one is allowed to criticize Slam but me; because everyone else is stoopid.

[scottwoods]

Hear hear! As a librarian, that's another one to not get me started on. I am constantly amazed at the willful ignorance of most poets.

[ocvictor]

Let me where my Devil's Advocate hat for a moment, and ask a question:

What's more interesting, from the media's perspective -- the slam as it exists now, or what poets do after they leave slam?

[scottwoods]

Of COURSE it's as it exists now. You'd be hard pressed to find a Slam credit in a former slammer's bio that's worth talking about at the national media level.

Oo snap!

[ocvictor]

Snap? Dude. I have no idea what you just said!

[twosnoos]

Neither -- it's that mainstream audience remain interested in poetry at all.