Slam is not the right word

[vicarz]

I went with Janna to the DC poetry slam finals last night. It was the finals and I was bored. I know slam is supposed to be casual, and I'm sensitive to being called a conformist anti-conformist. I don't even care about that issue - it's just that they all harped with the same style of voice about the same issues.

Like many I pictured myself on the stage, but did not think I'd seek approval. I wanted them to "win," to prevail, but listening to people run on, and on, about white on black discrimination issues PLUS the constant invocation of rape of wymyn, by men, I wondered if slam was just another distraction preventing progress - facebook in person.

Each person got up, crying the same dated cliches, invoking the same emotions, speaking in the same dialect and meter - black, white, azn, latino, and the racial flush that got privilege on super-multi-racial victimization hands to parade around like a badge of honor; each was in perfect harmony with this song. Each person was received well, with low scores an 8/10 for not invoking slavery-racism-rape. To get a 10 was to combine rape with white-against-african-american racism.

I fantasized about being the least popular slam poet since the meta-technique critiques. I thought if I had a message to deliver, it would be to stop the bleeding and leave the room. Get out in the sun, my brothers and sisters, the same sun that rose in africa today, and do something with your life. Something measurable. I'd harp "walk away from affirmation without substance." Get a job for short. Seek affirmation from a more diverse audience, with multiple measures of success. Find a winning emotion other than anger.

Each received affirmation for doing nothing but preaching to the dated choir. Each was rewarded for having opinions further and further out of line with mainstream realities. Each cried out with their message to stand strong and overcome, but none gave an example of what they did, what they produced, what they accomplished, what they achieved.

I'm rooting for them but I think the more they succeed in licking their perceived wounds in public the less likely they are to make an actual change. Slam scares me like political messages in facebook, where people feel like they accomplished something for sharing a picture of words to their isolated same-minded friends, and then fail to vote or attend a community meeting. People get the emotional masturbatory pleasure of telling people they care, sucking the affirmation for being a good person, but not actually helping the cute puppy in the picture. Slam poets were sharing but not helping themselves.

Or that was my fear after 2 hours of meter. I'm routing for you but not sure you succeed if you win that game.

Comments

[mai-neh.livejournal.com]

I guess it would sound more authentic coming from non-white-males who don't hold law degrees and six-figure salaries, but I agree with you there needs to be a next step beyond decrying racism and sexism and heteronormativity and inequality.

Whatever your position in the grand social network of humanity may be, somebody's got more than you, and somebody's got less than you. Except for those two actual people who have the most and the least, out of the 7.166 billions.

Bill Gates having resumed the #1 position this year, and we'll never know who is # 7,166,000,000.

On a global basis, median per capita household income is less than $3,000 per year. I'm betting most of your poetry slam folks receive more than $3,000 per year ...

The most important question is always, "So what are you doing about it?"

Talk is cheap. But saying so at a poetry slam would be highly insensitive ;-)

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Well sure and I can play my bi-mixed-race card, and if I do it with the right rehearsed inflection somebody might snap. But it won't fix anything.

It's easy to point to my white and salary, easy to note my educated parents in the 'burbs. More complex to cite how I got here. Less sexy to note I also had the family problems, the bankruptcy, the loans and collections, and really hard to describe the years of hard work, of beans and rice, of an old honda when my peers got new acuras - but I can get the finger pointed at me as the problem! I'm a rich white male! I was made this way and don't even know it!

I'm also a symptom of the solution - working hard over decades of life with a plan, adjusting that plan, can lead to some measure of success. Not much of a poem though.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

I think what you're missing is that these stories and voices aren't heard by or don't matter to most cis/hetero white men. Slam is an artform that's rooted in anger at the system that keeps us down, and really good slam goes viral on occasion which makes the issues visible at least for a moment.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'm missing that at all - I'm more familiar with the issues and allegations that most. I also know the counter arguments. Perhaps if the issues get publicity then it's a good thing, but here I felt like they were too busy licking each other to get better; worse, the affirmation was for their expressed outrage and anger, from which I fear people will get lodged rather than growing.

Perhaps when they improve their situation they leave slam?

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

I know of several slam poets who have gone on to publish books, write for magazines TV and the web, etc to continue to grow. It seems like slam is, a stepping stone into the larger literary/ journalistic world,. Kind of like a writing program without the hoops of academia.

[alumiere.livejournal.com]

It also comes across as a young minority centric community, a space to speak your truth and be recognized, maybe win some $. At the same time, to hone your craft... oh, and some terrific actors and filmmakers started in slam too.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

Well if it's a stage from which people grown I'm happier.

[eac.livejournal.com]

I have heard many good slam poets, and admired several, but the usual cadence gets really tired (for me) after a while...

[vicar.livejournal.com]

There is a neat internal criticism of referencing "slam bingo," by which all the cliche's are noted

[frontdoorangel.livejournal.com]

I can think of several medical procedures I'd rather endure than attending a poetry slam. I find absolutely nothing of value in it. However, if people find some sort of affirmation in attending or participating in one, more power to them. It irks me though that it's considered an art form and I've very rarely seen or heard anything from one that I'd actually consider poetry. The style is outdated, the song is the same.

I particularly liked this section of your post:

"I fantasized about being the least popular slam poet since the meta-technique critiques. I thought if I had a message to deliver, it would be to stop the bleeding and leave the room. Get out in the sun, my brothers and sisters, the same sun that rose in africa today, and do something with your life. Something measurable. I'd harp "walk away from affirmation without substance." Get a job for short. Seek affirmation from a more diverse audience, with multiple measures of success. Find a winning emotion other than anger."

[vicar.livejournal.com]

(thank you)
It drives me bonkers because they're lovely and I'm rooting for them, while worried they're affirmation sucking rather than succeeding. Hope it's a stage on the way.

Says me, an affirmation whore. With a job.