Slam poetry is slowly making its way to the frontline of entertainment. It’s a little bit hip hop, a little bit poetry, a little bit rap, and many bit performance. You can read a slam poem but not know what the piece means to the writer. Attending a slam show is like crawling into the minds of poets—which can admittedly be a bit dramatic. Luckily for me, the Youth Speaks Seattle group vs. Seattle Slam Poets was a knock-out show.
Picture a crowd with mostly underage Seattle hipsters complete with skinny jeans, eye liner, a few with iPhones, fedoras, and short, baggy floral print dresses with low pockets. When I first observed the scene at Neumo’s on Wednesday, I thought the evening would be as clichéd as this image. Youth Speaks Seattle is a non-profit literary arts organization that provides youth in the Puget Sound area with the opportunity to learn, explore, and perform slam poetry. On Wednesday these youngsters—ages ranging from 13 to 19—went head to head with the 21+ slam crowd of Seattle for a three round battle. No surprise to me, Youth Speaks won, and in my opinion they should have won by a landslide.
I would be lying if I said at times I didn’t smile with glee at the thought that teen angst is a part of my past. Were there a few lines that made me want to roll my eyes? Yes. But I feel that way about most poets (except for e.e. cummings who in my opinion cannot write one word that does not fit into his poems’ entirety). Am I comparing these teens to famous poets? No. But do they have the capability to move masses with their messages and, more importantly, with their energy? Abso-freakin-lutely.
When was the last time you heard a high school boy admit fear? Express beauty? It may have been more than a few years since I was in high school, but I’m pretty sure, even with the onslaught of emo/hipster culture, boys are still under a lot of societal pressure to be “manly.” That is, tough and aggressive, and though this is not something I support or believe whole-heartedly, it's something I know to be true. With all of the displays of “manly” behavior on Wednesday night, what was most impressive was young Corbin Bugni’s poem about the speaker’s brother in Iraq. The brother has “been gone for eight postcards” – a phrase that caught me so off guard I drooled. Literally. My mouth hung open and in the corner of my mouth saliva collected and tipped over my lip.
I found Bugni the most impressive of the group because he was the most surprising. I expected to hear young girls talking about bad choices; I expected to hear about the privileges of people who don’t seem to deserve their luck and the hypocrisy of our nation and our nation’s leaders. I was not expecting to hear a young man share his feelings about a topic that can be considered so simplistically “masculine.” I think that is what slam poetry is all about. You could call it pushing the line but frankly it’s just impressive.
I could not leave out the other performers who I have pages of attempted quotes. Forgive me, it was dark, and they talked fast. Among my favorite phrases came from a poem called “Hold Out Your Hands,” in which the poet spoke about the judgments she has faced in her church when confronted about her bisexuality. She asks “how can you be a bitch and still call yourself a Christian?” Huzzah! A pair of other youths declared “You have too many churches but not enough gods.” Double huzzah!
Don’t let anyone tell you that the youth of today is lazy. If anyone tells you that, tell him or her to find a poetry slam. Tell everyone.
