Come On In!: New Poems

---

In an "Invitational Slam", only those invited to do so may compete. From the 10th of December until the 11th of December Salzburg , Austria hold a world-record poetry slam competition 28 hours of classic slam poetry and broke the so-far-record of Nurembourg, Germany 25 hours by Michl Jakob. The winner of the competition Friedrich Herrmann scored one point better in the finals then the second ranked Darryl Kiermeier. A "Theme Slam" is one in which all performances must conform to a specified theme, genre, or formal constraint.

Themes may include Nerd , [17] Erotica , Queer , Improv , or other conceptual limitations. In theme slams, poets can sometimes be allowed to break "traditional" slam rules. For instance, they sometimes allow performance of work by another poet e. They can also allow changes on the restrictions on costumes or props e. Although theme slams may seem restricting in nature, slam venues frequently use them to advocate participation by particular and perhaps underrepresented demographics which vary from slam to slam , like younger poets and women.

Poetry slam

Poetry slams can feature a broad range of voices, styles, cultural traditions, and approaches to writing and performance. The originator of performance poetry, Hedwig Gorski, credits slam poetry for carrying on the poetics of ancient oral poetry designed to grab attention in barrooms and public squares. Some poets are closely associated with the vocal delivery style found in hip-hop music and draw heavily on the tradition of dub poetry , a rhythmic and politicized genre belonging to black and particularly West Indian culture.

Others employ an unrhyming narrative formula.

Some use traditional theatrical devices including shifting voices and tones, while others may recite an entire poem in ironic monotone. Some poets use nothing but their words to deliver a poem, while others stretch the boundaries of the format, tap-dancing or beatboxing or using highly choreographed movements. One of the more interesting end products to me, at least of this constant shifting is that poets in the slam always worry that something—a style, a project, a poet—will become so dominant that it will kill the scene, but it never does. Ranting hipsters, freestyle rappers, bohemian drifters, proto-comedians, mystical shamans and gothy punks have all had their time at the top of the slam food chain, but in the end, something different always comes along and challenges the poets to try something new.

One of the goals of a poetry slam is to challenge the authority of anyone who claims absolute authority over literary value. No poet is beyond critique, as everyone is dependent upon the goodwill of the audience.

Poetry slam - Wikipedia

Since only the poets with the best cumulative scores advance to the final round of the night, the structure assures that the audience gets to choose from whom they will hear more poetry. Bob Holman , a poetry activist and former slammaster of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe , once called the movement "the democratization of verse". It gives a depth to the nation's dialogue that you don't hear on the floor of Congress. I want a floor of Congress to look more like a National Poetry Slam. That would make me happy. At the National Poetry Slam in San Francisco, a participating team from Canada Kedrick James, Alex Ferguson and John Sobol wrote, printed and circulated an instant broadside titled Like Lambs to the Slammer , that criticized what they perceived as the complacency, conformity, and calculated tear-jerking endemic to the poetry slam scene.

In an interview in the Paris Review , literary critic Harold Bloom said about slamming:.

follow poets.org

I can't bear these accounts I read in the Times and elsewhere of these poetry slams, in which various young men and women in various late-spots are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other. The whole thing is judged by an applause meter which is actually not there, but might as well be.

This isn't even silly; it is the death of art. Poet and lead singer of King Missile , John S. Hall has also long been a vocal opponent, taking issue with such factors as its inherently competitive nature [23] and what he considers its lack of stylistic diversity. And it made me really uncomfortable and The poet Tim Clare offers a "for and against" account of the phenomenon in Slam: Ironically, slam poetry movement founder Marc Smith has been critical of the commercially successful Def Poetry television and Broadway live stage shows produced by Russell Simmons , decrying it as "an exploitive entertainment [program that] diminished the value and aesthetic of performance poetry".

Some renowned poets have competed in slams, with less successful results. Henry Taylor , winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry , competed in the National Poetry Slam as an individual and placed 75th out of While slam poetry has often been ignored in traditional higher learning institutions, it slowly is finding its way into courses and programs of study.

For example, at Berklee College of Music , in Boston, slam poetry is now available as a Minor course of study. Slam poetry has found popularity as a form of self-expression among many teenagers. The first statewide competition for high school students was held at Taos High School in , with the top teams and individual participants awarded plaques. Members of Taos' competitive teams earned athletic letters annually up until Youth Speaks serves as one of the largest youth poetry organizations in America, offering opportunities for youth ages 13—19 to express their ideas on paper and stage.

The non-profit organization provides free workshops for inner-city youth ran by Hip-Hop poet and mentor, Michael Cirelli. The youth poetry slam movement was the focus of a documentary film series produced by HBO and released in In a interview, one of slam's best known poets Saul Williams praised the youth poetry slam movement, explaining:. Hip-hop filled a tremendous void for me and my friends growing up The only thing that prevented all the young boys in the black community from turning into Michael Jackson, from all of us bleaching our skin, from all of us losing it, just losing it, was hip-hop.

That was the only counter-existence in the mainstream media. That was essential, and in that same way I think poetry fills a very huge void today [among] youth. And I guess I count myself among the youth.

Quick Links - Poets.org

In , more than 12, young people took part in an England-wide youth slam Shake the Dust , organised by Apples and Snakes as part of the London Festival. Media related to Poetry slam at Wikimedia Commons. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. Learn how and when to remove these template messages. This article includes a list of references , but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations.

Navigation menu

If as little as that, if it is as little as that that is if it is very nearly all of it, her dear her dear does not mention a ball at all. Actually as to this high or do you do it. Not having been or not having been nor having been or not. Yale University Press, Reprinted with the permission of Mr.

First Turn to Me...

More Poems by Gertrude Stein. See All Poems by this Author. See a problem on this page? More About This Poem. New By Gertrude Stein. More About this Poet.

• Museum Texts: Comunication Frameworks (Museum Meanings)
• Tongue Tied (The Donald Strachey Mystery Series Book 8)
• The Tuttle Definitive: A Serious Horseplayers Guide Towards Professionalism (1)
• The Case Against Paul Raeburn (Inspector Roger West)
• Loves Labours Lost (Penguin Shakespeare)
• barrow chapter one (a barovian tale)