A case for new work in slam
(Preface: I’m not using this article in my regular “Poetry is Doomed” column space on GotPoetry.com because it’s too Slam-centric. Sure, I’ve talked about poetry slams a couple of times there in the last few years, but rarely. The audience for my column tends to have a broad appreciation for poetry, and I try to cater to that by addressing issues with broad appeal. This topic, however, is directed at poetry slammers. It may have interest for non-slammers, but I’m really only talking to slammers and their ilk.)
There are valid points on both sides of the new work/old work Slam argument (itself pretty long in the tooth). As someone who strives to put on engaging poetry shows, I like putting on slams and I like it when slams have a variety of voices and stories. I also like it when the work in those shows is told in compelling ways, and sometimes compelling means “not boring”, and boring sometimes means “overdone”. I recognize that while I place a high premium on fresh work from poets who make it their business to participate in poetry slams regularly, there are a lot of good things to be said for having the old stuff on hand to work with, both as a poet and as an organizer.
But that is about as bi-partisan as I am on the matter and I don’t want to talk about those points now. That part of the argument at this point in Slam’s development is for people who’ve never had it, not for people who have had it a hundred times. So I don’t even want to talk about this from the perspective of whether or not it makes for a good show. Too many other factors contribute to a good show, and suggesting that poems that have been performed a dozen times in the same number of months help a show more than it hurts a show is, again, a different argument (and one you’d lose anyway).
I am also largely uninterested in how this plays out on the national competition stage, with its revolving door of host cities and problems larger than whether or not Taylor Mali is going to beat everyone with some 15-year-old poem about teaching again. This issue isn’t making or breaking anything at that level of Slam analysis. It’s just something for people who are bored of those poems who have been to those events more than a couple of times to argue about over too much beer, too much internet, or both.
No, I want to speak to the contingent that is actually out there dedicated to winning these things but isn’t, the ones who maybe use the same handful of poems over years of time with some success, but not consistent success or close-the-deal success. I call many of them “Fivers”: poets who I have seen no less than five times and have seen from them no more than five poems.
(Why five? It seemed fair. I could make a case for seeing the same poem from any poet twice, especially a poet I’ve seen once or twice a year. I can make that case a little less at three or four appearances. But I refuse to make that case for a poet who can’t be bothered to rotate out five poems in as many showings - or worse, years - anywhere.)
Now that we’re clear on whom I’m talking about, let’s talk about one of their biggest problems: burned poems.
Burned poems are poems that you’ve read in a place so often that it no longer has the impact it used to, and may even be hurting you. It’s the poem you read one time too many, no matter how long you space it out. There is no magic number of times that one should read a poem in a regular reading. That number will be different from poem to poem and venue to venue. Rest assured, however, that every poem has a number. Some poems have a number that’s very tight, like 2…say, a funny poem that relies very heavily on its punch lines. Some poems seem to be the kind that a room is happy to hear over and over again.
Why is this number so important in Slam? Simple: judges largely don’t come up with scores in a vacuum. They are all influenced by the audience to varying degrees, in essence riding the same wave of engagement that the rest of the room is on. Sure, you may have one stand-out judge who seems to be in his own world, but everybody knows one judge doesn’t make or break a poet in a slam. And when that poem is being delivered, once again, in a room that has heard it a bunch of times and the reactions die down or the jokes don’t fly or, at worse, there is an obvious deflation of attention and energy in the room after the first couple of words: an audible sucking of the teeth or a break for the bathroom. A poet who is a superior performer with a strong poem could lose a slam to a poet who isn’t either of those things if they perform overdone work. I’ve seen poets win slams that, given a fresh audience, would have been lucky to hit the middle of the field, save that some shoe-in veteran performed a poem the room was sick of. The Slam wave ebbs and flows, and a poet who relies on the history of a poem’s scoring ability more than a sense of what would ignite a room does themselves a grave disservice.
And while we’re here, let’s get one thing straight: an old poem is not a burned poem. If I pull out a poem I haven’t read in ten months and it fits the room I’m in, I stand a very good chance of beating the poem you did in last week’s open mic in the same room. There are poets who slammed years ago, so long ago most of the people who slam now probably never heard of them, that could come back right now and win your local slam with work they performed ten years ago.
Really, the argument should be changed to “new work/tired work” (except that something might be tired upon its first performance) or “fresh work/stale work” (except that something might be stale the first time someone performs it). I guess “fresh work/overdone work” is about as close as I can get it, but really, that covers a lot of territory.
As to who could come back to Slam right now and serve you? Here’s a short list of eight - JUST EIGHT - poets, embedded with some givens and assumptions. It’s always dangerous to start a list that can never be sufficient or complete, but I don’t care about politics and everybody knows I don’t memorize shit. These are poets who used to slam that, if they walked into your venue tonight, would serve your hot poets’ asses back to them…and yes, probably with a poem that’s ten years or older. If the names on this list are foreign to you and you’re a slammer, you have officially been given an executive order signed by the President of Poetry Slams to do some homework:
Regie Gibson
DJ Renegade
Regie Cabico
Lisa Buscani
Lucy Anderton
Patricia Smith
Jack McCarthy
Beau Sia
There are valid points on both sides of the new work/old work Slam argument (itself pretty long in the tooth). As someone who strives to put on engaging poetry shows, I like putting on slams and I like it when slams have a variety of voices and stories. I also like it when the work in those shows is told in compelling ways, and sometimes compelling means “not boring”, and boring sometimes means “overdone”. I recognize that while I place a high premium on fresh work from poets who make it their business to participate in poetry slams regularly, there are a lot of good things to be said for having the old stuff on hand to work with, both as a poet and as an organizer.
But that is about as bi-partisan as I am on the matter and I don’t want to talk about those points now. That part of the argument at this point in Slam’s development is for people who’ve never had it, not for people who have had it a hundred times. So I don’t even want to talk about this from the perspective of whether or not it makes for a good show. Too many other factors contribute to a good show, and suggesting that poems that have been performed a dozen times in the same number of months help a show more than it hurts a show is, again, a different argument (and one you’d lose anyway).
I am also largely uninterested in how this plays out on the national competition stage, with its revolving door of host cities and problems larger than whether or not Taylor Mali is going to beat everyone with some 15-year-old poem about teaching again. This issue isn’t making or breaking anything at that level of Slam analysis. It’s just something for people who are bored of those poems who have been to those events more than a couple of times to argue about over too much beer, too much internet, or both.
No, I want to speak to the contingent that is actually out there dedicated to winning these things but isn’t, the ones who maybe use the same handful of poems over years of time with some success, but not consistent success or close-the-deal success. I call many of them “Fivers”: poets who I have seen no less than five times and have seen from them no more than five poems.
(Why five? It seemed fair. I could make a case for seeing the same poem from any poet twice, especially a poet I’ve seen once or twice a year. I can make that case a little less at three or four appearances. But I refuse to make that case for a poet who can’t be bothered to rotate out five poems in as many showings - or worse, years - anywhere.)
Now that we’re clear on whom I’m talking about, let’s talk about one of their biggest problems: burned poems.
Burned poems are poems that you’ve read in a place so often that it no longer has the impact it used to, and may even be hurting you. It’s the poem you read one time too many, no matter how long you space it out. There is no magic number of times that one should read a poem in a regular reading. That number will be different from poem to poem and venue to venue. Rest assured, however, that every poem has a number. Some poems have a number that’s very tight, like 2…say, a funny poem that relies very heavily on its punch lines. Some poems seem to be the kind that a room is happy to hear over and over again.
Why is this number so important in Slam? Simple: judges largely don’t come up with scores in a vacuum. They are all influenced by the audience to varying degrees, in essence riding the same wave of engagement that the rest of the room is on. Sure, you may have one stand-out judge who seems to be in his own world, but everybody knows one judge doesn’t make or break a poet in a slam. And when that poem is being delivered, once again, in a room that has heard it a bunch of times and the reactions die down or the jokes don’t fly or, at worse, there is an obvious deflation of attention and energy in the room after the first couple of words: an audible sucking of the teeth or a break for the bathroom. A poet who is a superior performer with a strong poem could lose a slam to a poet who isn’t either of those things if they perform overdone work. I’ve seen poets win slams that, given a fresh audience, would have been lucky to hit the middle of the field, save that some shoe-in veteran performed a poem the room was sick of. The Slam wave ebbs and flows, and a poet who relies on the history of a poem’s scoring ability more than a sense of what would ignite a room does themselves a grave disservice.
And while we’re here, let’s get one thing straight: an old poem is not a burned poem. If I pull out a poem I haven’t read in ten months and it fits the room I’m in, I stand a very good chance of beating the poem you did in last week’s open mic in the same room. There are poets who slammed years ago, so long ago most of the people who slam now probably never heard of them, that could come back right now and win your local slam with work they performed ten years ago.
Really, the argument should be changed to “new work/tired work” (except that something might be tired upon its first performance) or “fresh work/stale work” (except that something might be stale the first time someone performs it). I guess “fresh work/overdone work” is about as close as I can get it, but really, that covers a lot of territory.
As to who could come back to Slam right now and serve you? Here’s a short list of eight - JUST EIGHT - poets, embedded with some givens and assumptions. It’s always dangerous to start a list that can never be sufficient or complete, but I don’t care about politics and everybody knows I don’t memorize shit. These are poets who used to slam that, if they walked into your venue tonight, would serve your hot poets’ asses back to them…and yes, probably with a poem that’s ten years or older. If the names on this list are foreign to you and you’re a slammer, you have officially been given an executive order signed by the President of Poetry Slams to do some homework:
Regie Gibson
DJ Renegade
Regie Cabico
Lisa Buscani
Lucy Anderton
Patricia Smith
Jack McCarthy
Beau Sia