Slamming in the Steel City
The Shadow Lounge, on the corner of Baum Blvd. and S. Highland in East Liberty, has been packed the third Tuesday of every month for almost the entire 2004 Slam Poetry Season this year in Pittsburgh. But tonight, even though Justin Strong, the young owner of the Shadow Lounge, has replaced most of the couches and coffee tables with individual fold-up chairs, the Slam Poetry Finals are standing room only 5 minutes before the Slam is officially slated to start. There is nervous but excited tension in the room – tonight the 11 top-scoring poets from the 2004 season will compete for the top 5 scores of the night – tonight is the night the Steel City Slam Poetry team will be decided.
Christina Springer brought Slam Poetry to Pittsburgh in the early 90s. Poets first practiced at the Pollinator Lounge above the old Beehive in Oakland and then at the Brew House (Space 101) in the Southside before settling into their current home.
Originally, the Slam began at the Green Mill Lounge in Chicago, where its "creator" Marc Smith decided it was time to take poetry out of the hands of academics and put it back where it belongs, in the hearts and minds of every day people. In 1985, Smith, a construction worker and poet looking for a way to breathe life into the open mike poetry format, started a poetry reading series at a Chicago jazz club. The series’ emphasis on performance laid the groundwork for the poetry which would eventually be exhibited in slam. Smith drew on baseball and bridge terminology for the name, and instituted the basic features of the competition, including judges chosen from the audience and cash prizes for the winners.
Unlike some other coffee house poetry styles, the spoken word/performance poetry exhibited in Slam has a beat and a flavor that reaches out to people of all backgrounds and experiences. Like the Beat poets of the 1950s, today’s Slam poets frequently use their words to express their distrust of capitalism, the US government, big corporations, the comodification of literature, and the status quo. This parallel is made much too frequently however. The modern spoken word poetry movement is often very tied in to hip-hop culture and is more urban than the Beats although the Beat’s obsession with jazz is similar to the hip-hop feel present at Pittsburgh Slams. A hip-hop turntablist, DJ Selecta even provides beats and rhymes in the downtime between each poet.
Last year’s Steel City Slam Poetry Team: Renee Alberts, Ezra, Davu, Matt Borden, Nikki Allen, and Jeremy Shenk, with coach and SlamMaster DJ Brewer, regularly participated as guest poets at the anti-war rallies in March and April of 2003. The team also performed last summer for a fundraiser at the Bloomfield Bridge Tavern for Project 1877 and the Pittsburgh Organizing Group, and were invited to perform last fall at the Andy Warhol museum’s (Anti-)Death Penalty exhibit. While not all performance poetry is overtly political, many of the poems read at these events spoke of the poets’ strong aversion to the war in Iraq, the government’s disregard for the voice of the people, and a racist judicial system that murders mostly the poor and people of color.
Even the very idea of Slams judged by average people is political. Poetry often becomes the plaything of academics or the wealthy and loses its oral tradition. For example, when Laura Bush solicited submissions for a poetry reading at the White House, poets from all over the country submitted anti-war poetry. In a press release, Mrs. Bush stated that poetry is not meant to be political and cited her favorite poets as the politically irrelevant, nature-centric, and much over-studied (due to the Eurocentricity of our education system) Robert Frost and Emily Dickenson.* Ironically, she also mentioned Walt Whitman, who was queer and out, as well as against slavery, racism, and industrialism, as another of her favorites. The First Lady then canceled the event, leading to the Poets Speak Out movement, which culminated in an anthology of anti-war poetry (Poets Speak Out, 2002) and over 100 gatherings in cities all over the US of poets hosting their own, usually outdoor, anti-war poetry readings. In Pittsburgh many spoken word poets participated in this event.
By the end of the night, the judges, randomly selected members of the audience who do not know any of the competing poets personally, had been cheered and/or heckled by the enthusiastic and sometimes rowdy audience into sending Renee Alberts, Nikki Allen, Justin Strong, Vanessa German, and Nathan James to St Louis, MO (August 3-8, 2004) to represent the Steel City. This is an opportunity to meet other spoken word poets from all over the nation – and even from around the world – to exchange ideas, experiences, and thoughts about poetry and how it can help make a difference on an individual, community, and perhaps even national level (for example, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam has its roots in Slam poetry). Poetry-lovers can check out this year’s team at the local Flux event this June and the Rust Belt Regional Slam in Cleveland on June 25.
The Shadow Lounge will host an open mike for Slam poets every Tuesday this summer – partly to raise money for the Steel City Slam team’s journey to the National Competition to MO this year and partly to afford more poets who might be shy about competing during the regular season a chance to stand up and be heard. Admission is $3 and the show starts around 8pm. There is an optional $2 "corking" fee if you want to bring-your-own-bottle but the Shadow Lounge also offers coffee, tea, and other coffeehouse treats. The regular Slam nights will resume again at the end of September (and will be held the third Tuesday of the month for $5).
Slam poets, like most other activists, run on a time schedule all their own – get there early to get a seat, have a drink or a cookie, and get ready to hear the area’s best performance poets speak honestly from their hearts about life, love, sex, Pittsburgh, politics and anything else you can imagine.
- Bridget Colvin and Jeremy Shenk
* Editorial Collective note: Some critics have also said that Emily Dickenson was a closeted queer and that her nature imagery is an encoded way of talking about female sexuality. Another one escapes the First Lady…
Renee Alberts performs (Photo by DJ
Brewer)
Postcard graphic by John Duran