I mitten av 80-talet startade Marc Smith poetry slam i Chicago.
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Marc Smith
slam philosophy
You're reading this page because I created a show in Chicago at The Green Mill called "The Uptown Poetry Slam". It's approaching its fourteenth year anniversary. It has played to over sixty thousand faces, tongues, and pairs of ears. It has pissed off a lot of people and made others feel divine.
A regular feature of this grab bag, variety show, which mixes together an open stage, special guests, musical and dramatic acts, and lots of audience interaction, is a mock competition between poets scored by judges selected from the crowds that pack the place every Sunday night.
Even though The Uptown Poetry Slam has always placed more emphasis on the performance aspects of this cabaret styled show, the competition, because of its gimmickry and dramatic nature, has been the media-generated cause for its spread to a couple hundred cities worldwide. Is this a good thing? Sometimes I think no.
But the Slam does not belong to me. It belongs to the thousands of people who have dedicated their time, money, and energy to this Chicago-born, interactive format for presenting poetry to a public that has a zillion other barks and belches and flashes to hold its attention. Am I proud of the community that has grown from my small efforts? Yes, and I hope that it continues to grow in accordance with a few philosophies that have become what I consider to be the back bone of what we call the "Slam Family":
The purpose of poetry (and indeed all art) in not to glorify the poet but rather to celebrate the community to which the poet belongs. (This idea is paraphrased from the works of Wendell Berry)
The show and the show's effect upon the audience are more important than any one individual's contribution to it.
The points are not the point, the point is poetry. (Alan Wolfe)
The performance of poetry is an art -- just as much an art as the art of writing it.
NO audience should be thought of as obligated to listen to the poet. It is the poet's obligation to communicate effectively, artfully, honestly, and professionally so as to compel the audience to listen.
The Slam should be open to all people and all forms of poetry.
With respect to its own affairs, each Slam should be free from attachment to any outside organization and responsible to no authority other than its own community of poets and audience.
NO group, individual, or outside organization should be allowed to exploit the Slam Family. We must all remember that we are each tied in some way to someone else's efforts. Our individual achievements are only extensions of some previous accomplishment. Success for one should translate into success for all.
The National Slam began as a gift from one city to another. It should remain a gift passed on freely to all newcomers.
Such philosophies might sound a high tone in your head and leave your cynical self muttering "What Bull!" . Sometimes it is. The idealism and cooperative forces of the Slam are in constant conflict with the competitive and self-serving appetites of its ambitious nature. This struggle has taught us much, but threatens to obliterate all that has grown to be. I , as surely you have guessed, am on the side of idealism and hope.
Marc Smith (so what!)