Inventing the Poetry Slam
Twice 5 Miles Radio welcomes spoken-word artist Marc Smith, the poet who invented the Poetry Slam in the early 1980s. Inventing the Poetry Slam, here’s how it happened.
By now, you’ve likely heard the term Poetry Slam. You may know that a Poetry Slam is a spoken-word-performance-poetry competition judged 0-10 like a diving match. Judges are chosen randomly from the audience.
Does slamming a poem means that two poets meet at the microphone and slam each other down on the stage?
Well, my friend, that’s not what it means at all. Here’s the real inventing the Poetry Slam scoop. The term Poetry Slam takes its inspiration from the Grand Slam in baseball.
It’s the bottom of the 9th inning. The bases are loaded. The count is 3-2. The batter hits a home run. The team wins the World Series. The fans spring to their feet in boisterous roars.
To slam a poem means you must connect with your poem emotionally, physically, spiritually, and psychologically so that your audience responds like you just hit a Grand-Slam home run and won the world series.
You got it; most slam poets don’t hit it out of the park. But they try. That’s why people love to watch Poetry Slams. That’s why, over the past 30 years, the Poetry Slam has changed the the world of poetry. Indeed, the Poetry Slam is a true domaine changer.
How did it happen?
How did all this inventing the poetry slam happen? Well, my guest today, Marc Smith, is here to tell you how it happened. Marc, in collaboration with the Chicago Poetry Ensemble, invented and developed the Poetry Slam over five years in the early 80s.
In this interview, Marc will tell you that the Poetry Slam was wacky, unpredictable, unruly, creative, wild, experimental, and primarily poetic back in the day. How could Marc have known that the Poet Slam would grow into a spoken-word movement that would spread worldwide? In Germany, some poets call Hamburg, SLAMberg.
Many of the slam poets from the early years have gone on to achieve significant recognition in the world of American letters. The Poetry Slam continues to thrive across the globe.
Even though many years have passed since those early inventing the Poetry Slam days in Chicago, at its core, the Poetry Slam remains democratic. All you have to do is show up, add your name to the list, and when the Slammaster calls your name, you walk on stage and take your swing.
We’re lucky to have Marc Smith here to tell us all about how it started and why it was, and remains to this day, an essential art form: The Poetry Slam.
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