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Poetry slams can cause nausea.
Vincent B. Rain letter published in Westword newspaper September 4, 2003

Poetry slams are tragically stupid. The oft-strange nuance of poetic expression cannot be reduced to a beauty contest, especially within environments that have stylistic preferences, sometimes even xenophobic fervor for insiders over outsiders. The best writers and poets are ideally outside of all movements, especially those that regard themselves as utmost hip by some affiliation or associative succession. The best way to judge poetry is to let it simmer on the aftertaste of humanity for a hundred years after its author is gone. The open mike is not a place for snap judgments fit for a totem pole.

Slams are intended to showcase leaders in a world where heroic figures are desirable among those who seek to keep movements in thrust. The Beat founders, in particular, seem to be sorely missed and cause for nostalgic regurgitation. It is quite ironic that a poseur "beatnic" lifestyle was born in the 1950s to imitate Beat styles without any connection to core Beat philosophy -- namely, the philosophy of finding liberation in the perseverance of real identity amid being beaten down on a very personal level, repressed and excommunicated from social mainstays. Putting ambient music or bongos to poetic words is about as close as beatnic gets to Beat. Slammers likewise are totally out of touch with the muse -- but are certainly in love with their own egos.

Ranking poets for "performance" and declaring some of these poets superior can be discouraging to rank amateurs, whose poetic expression is often superior to competitive poets. I'll take the painfully shy twig of a girl poet any day over the rhetorical spout, the charlatan, the slammer or the audience who thinks rank is important or in any way close to accurate.

In a mere generation I expect you will find that slam is but a plastic niche soon to be exceeded by the anti-slam movement, currently microscopic in size but with at least one active poetry group in New York, and slam haters found all over the Net. Any poet who writes to impress his peers or to gain "credibility" is pretty much misguided and has no clue. Winning a slam can even discredit you in the eyes of some poets.

Forget the glory of winning! Screw the empty rhetorical milieu of the slam. Fix your heart and mind on some durable hard-beaten rubber soul, preferably your own. Then maybe you'll slowly become a poet. Even bad poets are often better writers and orators than great masters of verbosity. These cliquish scenes and popularity contests and those who promote them implore my most passionate indifference. I hear the muse, not some naive starstruck dupe in the local Earth-mother granola salon.

- Vincent B. Rain

footnote: When I wrote the above letter to Westword, I felt sure that there must be others like myself. Then I discovered that I was not alone in my detesting slams. Notably there was a young woman nicknamed "Saint Reverend Jen" (Miller) and others.....

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© Vincent B. Rain

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