When I first heard about slam poetry I was really taken by it. It was performative, non-conformist, and dynamic. However, the more I observed this genre the more I started to distinguish some very problematic traits that place these performances on a different end of the artistic scale: more of a stand-up (ish) contest than poetry.
Slam poetry is competitive spoken word poetry. And while it being competitive has served to awake or revive young people’s interest in poetry, it has also served to constrict the art to the boundaries of numeric scores.
There are many reasons why, in my opinion, slam poetry isn’t really poetry anymore:
Slams are beginning to sound all alike
The inflection many slam performers use; the intonation that exaggerates the ending syllable, to accentuate the delivery, is extremely overused. It seems mandatory that spoken word poems should sound this way and it is being repeated to the point that all the pieces sound the same, even when this intonation doesn’t work or when the performer can’t execute properly.
The intonation takes over the meter and the rhythm of the poem, therefore the poetry is lost.
The content takes over the form
This is a different problem. Poetry has some form requirements to be called poetry. There should be verses for once. Poetry has meter, rhythm, and rhymes that can be analyzed. When the poet only cares about the content of what she or he has to say, the piece ceases to be a poem, and it becomes prose, a monologue maybe.
They lack subjective identity
The context of slam poetry is heavily influenced by the scoring system and the scrutiny of the judges. There will always be a winner, based on a numeric system, which contributes to making it objective. However, no form of literature, —or art, for that matter, should ever be objective. The motivation to win the contest will inevitably affect the way the slam is written, therefore stripping the words of subjectivity and art.
Poems are more likely to win a slam if they elicit strong, positive, palpable reactions from the crowd. The audience cheering and gasping becomes a part of the performance, acting as exclamation marks that bring emphasis to the words spoken by the poet. A lack of such reactions diminishes the excitement judges may feel about a particular poem.
Non-competitive poetry is more intimate. The poet does not rely on the reactions of an audience in order to win. He or she stands independent of their approval.
They have to be simple enough
This constriction is very problematic. Poems are more likely to win a slam if they can be understood upon first performance. Because the poem is performed once, the audience cannot go back and reconsider any part of the poem. Thus, a poem that is too subtle, that meanders around itself, may not be well-received by the audience or judges.
Stripping the poem of subtleties and complexities means that most of the content has to be somehow part of the common ground. Everyone needs to know what the performer is talking about. There is very little room for innovation and independent non-conformist opinions when all the content has to be explicitly and easily delivered.
