On Slam Poetry
Slam poetry is really the last ditch of 18th-century romanticism. While the rest of us are sobering up from the mists of genius and inspiration, slam poetry preserves those heated values, lives by them, gets drunk on words, mystical with sentences, high on the oral discharges of language-possessed individuals. Most slammers call themselves poets without a drop of embarrassment, a funny feeling, an icky sensation. You ask: What do you do? They say: I’m a poet. I’m part of that grand tradition of genius, the 300-year history of divine inspiration and all of its unearthly fevers.
Yowza! I’ll be honest with you slam poets: I’m embarrassed to call myself even a writer (it’s so individual, so personal, so touchy). I’d much rather be called a social worker, or a social worder, one who works with others in the gradual process of building sense out of the ordinary stuff of words. And words are not sacred, nor is the mind. If Madonna is a material girl, then I’m a material guy.
at least people can understand what the fuck most slam poets are talking about.
So have you read, seen or heard Budy Wakefield, or any of the other great Seattle poets? Piece? anyone?
I assume you might bash breakdancing too? Or are you even bashing? Wait...what?