It’s coming up to ten years since me and Stu Freestone ran our first Say Owt Slam. I can’t quite remember the first slam I took part in, but I remember Bang! Said The Gun in London and Hammer & Tongue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe being much learning moments for me. I’d nervously unpack and repack poems in my head beforehand, gauging the audience and responses to other poet’s pieces. I started writing poems that would fit the three minute format, that would elicit the emotional response from an audience, that would give room to stretch my performing skills. I was writing Slam Poetry. And I’m here to tell you…don’t do that.
There’s no such thing as ‘Slam Poetry’. Only Poetry That Tends To Do Well At Slams.
There don’t seem to be so many slams these days, but we’ve kept Say Owt Slam as our flagship event, usually attended by around 100 people cheering on poets vying to be titled a Say Owt Slam Champion! Some of these people come back and keep gigging with us, others we never see again! And that’s OK, there’s something thrilling, strange and scary about slams. And sometimes, once you’ve cracked the competitive code, you don’t need to keep on proving it.
I recently did a PechaKucha talk in York: HOW TO WIN A POETRY SLAM which you can watch here:
https://www.pechakucha.com/presentations/how-to-win-a-poetry-slam-henry-raby
And maybe it’s because slams are becoming less part of the UK poetry ecology, but I have been asked a few times about ‘slam poetry’ and I don’t actually think it exists as a genre.
A slam exists as a structure to share poems and spoken word pieces. As a format, it can vary depending on time limits, how judging works or even whether props are allowed. It’s essentially a competitive open mic, and an excuse to add some stakes and energy into the dynamics.
(a Literature Festival once ran an ‘Open Mic Competition’, claiming the term ‘Slam’ puts people off. For me, this boils down to semantics and branding).
So what is a perceived ‘slam poem’?
Slams were born from a need to shake off the stuffiness of traditional poetry. Within that competitive structure, some poems work better than others. Most obviously, on a blunt level, it’s those delivered with energy and stage presence. This means poets bubbling in spoken word/rap/hip-hop scenes (or even punk scenes) which are rooted in confident performance do better than readings born from literary/page poetry. Poetry (as story-telling) has existed as an oral form across the centuries as communities share tales around fire and use rhyme in ballads to pass down epic tales across the centuries, from Beowulf to The Lion & Albert (both about devouring people…).
In defying norms and part of a marginalised, underground scene, the poetry at slams lends itself to political poetry. Critics also cynically claim that political poems - those urgent pieces about class, disability, race, gender, sexuality - do well because they appeal to an echo chamber and judges dare not give low scores to these important topics. But all art spaces should a space to share politicised stories of self and poems of resilience, defiance, anger and hope, it's no surprise this yeilds good scores when spoken with power and purpose.
The fact Harry Baker is a World Slam Champion does challenge this perception, as Harry’s style of poetry is playful, cheeky and geeky. In my experience of slams, a poem is scored well if it causes a reaction in the audience, whether stirring political feelings, personal, powerful connection or hilarious humor. I think people want to laugh and it’s actually a rare skill for poets to get that kind of reaction. So comedy poems have their place as well as the personal and political. I’ve seen all types of content win, and sometimes a clever fusion of forms, topics and deliveries will take the winning scores.
Slams have been associated with Button Poetry and American scenes, and have been parodied in different media, and those tend to focus on the performance rhythms, and raw politics. So when people say ‘Slam Poetry’, I think this is what they tend to imagine.
I stopped nervously rewriting and sussing out the judge’s vibes before a slam long ago. I stopped writing poems specifically to win slams and just wrote for myself.
Poems That Do Well At Slams are the ones which cut out the BS. Poems crafted knowing they will be shared live to eager ears. Ones which reflect this moment, right here and now, in this space. Whether that’s to erupt laughter, joy, anger or grief. They make our brains fizz, our hearts skip and hands clap. Poems which you want to perform because you love them. Poems that say more about you than a hundred biographies. So really the secret to a successful slam poem, is a fucking good live poem.
Or maybe I’ve got no clue whatsoever. If so, score me a 1/10.
