2016- Year of the Slam

AKeem Jamal Rollins (photo from cleveland.com)

Nikki Delamotte of Cleveland.com says, How 2016 became the year of Cleveland's slam poetry revival. Horray to Akeemjamal and Cleveland's slam team!

And you can join them at Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern (11625 Euclid Ave) Thursday, Dec. 15; 9 p.m.

Vertigo Xavier adds that he has not stepped down as the slamministrator of Lake Effect Poetry (the Cleveland area slam team)-- but Lake Effect Poetry has passed its status as a PSI Certified Slam Venue on to AKeemjamal Rollins’ new The People Slam.  The People Slam takes place on the second and fourth Thursday of each month at the Happy Dog Euclid.  Follow the series on Facebook.

Or check out:

• OneMicOpen
• OneMicOpen Facebook page

Lake Effect Poetry in the Slam semifinals

Cleveland's Lake Effect Poetry team has made their winding way to the National Poetry Slam, and have now won their second bout, making their way to the semifinals. They're competing at 8 pm tonight against San Diego, Slam New Orleans, Bowery, and Dallas.
Go, Cleveland, go! Slam those puppies, and show them how it's done!

• About the National Poetry Slam
• Lake Effect Poetry Facebook Page

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack...

Let's talk about team sports for a minute. Let's set aside the Indians' tugging of our playoff hopes back and forth. Let's forget about the Browns' draft picks. NEO's Lake Effect Poetry Slam Team is heading to Boston for Nationals in a few weeks, and they need our full attention.

When I first started dipping my toes into the poetry reading scene, I didn't know anything about slam other than what I could glean from the comments of other poets and snippets of Def Poetry Jam I might have caught once or twice. I filled in the blanks with a lot of misconceptions.  Such as:

Poetry slam is for teenagers. Slam is like hip-hop. Slam is for street poets. Slam is not for little, Catholic, white girls. Slam poets need to rhyme their poems. Slam poets need to improv their poems. Slam poets need to memorize their poems. Slam poets...need to...recite their...poems...like this... Poetry slam is about pitting one artist against another in a mean-spirited fight. Poetry slam isn't "real" poetry.

I quickly learned that slam was none of those things I used to think it was.

Slam is a poetry performance competition. Some poems lend themselves more readily to performance competition than others, but there is no defined genre for slam. Slam showcases a skill that every poet in every venue needs:  the ability to not only write an effective poem, but to then read/perform it in an engaging manner. Yes, there are some bad slam poems, but there are also some bad academic poems. And some of the best slam poems I've heard were on page.

Fast forward six years from those first open mics, and I found myself in Charlotte, NC for the 2012 National Poetry Slam, as Northeast Ohio's Grand Slam Champion. It was thrilling, terrifying, and inspiring to be around so many poets, to hear so many different voices, to be in front of so many different people.  Writing is a solitary activity, but slam is a team sport--a team sport with a national community.

National Poetry Slam is a chance for poets to stand in front of people from across the country and show off what we're doing here at home. And with this year's team--AKeemjamal Rollins, Caira Lee, Ariana Cheree, and Christine Howey--Boston's going to be buzzing about Cleveland.

But Lake Effect is still short of funds needed to get to Boston. The good news is that they have a handful of fundraiser events coming up in the next couple weeks before they leave. The better news is that you still have a chance to hear their poetry before they leave. Check out the schedule of Lake Effect fundraisers and readings, wish them well on their trip, and root root root for the home team!

Support the Lake Effect!

Lake Effect Poetry is the Cleveland Akron and Canton slam poetry team.

The new Lake Effect Poetry 2013 Team Anthology has been printed -- spread the word! This anthology features poetry from your 2013 Lake Effect Poetry slam team: AKeemjamal Rollins, Christine Howey, Caira Lee, and Arianna Cheree, and also poems from the local greats such as Redd's, Eris Zion Venia, Theresa Göttl, Carla Thompson, Skylark Bruce, Joshua Gage, and Azriel Johnson, not to mention a cover by, uh, that would be me. And, the money raised by sales of the book goes towards a good cause-- getting our team to National Poetry Slam in August!  Boston, look out: the Lake Effect is coming!
Only ten dollars, including shipping-- order it now.

(and, for the full set-- order the 2012 Lake Effect anthology for only $6.00, or buy 'em both for $15!)

Academic poetry, versus slam poetry, versus underground poetry

Azriel, over at the Writing Knights roundtable blog, comments on the difference in feel between what he calls "academic" poetry, versus "slam" poetry, versus a third category, "underground" poetry-- and then is challenged to define what he means by the categories.

"What are "slam," "academic," and "underground" poems...how are you defining these terms? I'm going to make the argument that there are some craft techniques that are universal to all of these styles of poetry, or make all of these styles of poetry stronger or weaker through their use or lack thereof."

Ah, I love categorizing things. It's a game you can just keep on playing.

Of these, slam poetry is the easiest one to nail down-- it's the poetry you get in a poetry slam.  A slam poem isn't really about the poem in itself-- it's all about the performance.  And, more to the point: a slam poem has to get its reaction immediately. It's not one where, hours later, you wake up in the middle of the night realizing you can't stop thinking about that one image, or working through some train of thought the poem had kicked off.  A slam poem kicks you in the gut fast.

"Academic" poems (I think he means what I would call "page" poems-- poems that are meant to be read on the page, not necessarily performed), can work slow.  They can layer on imagery, can take multiple readings.  Many page poems, of course, read very well-- the rhythm and poetry of language can work in readings as well as on the page.

"Underground" poems, I guess, are the ones that don't fit either category-- the true underground poems are edgy, want to make you think or react or feel, want to break rules just for the sake of getting a rise. 

Which, I suppose is as good a segue as any to mention that the Lake Effect poetry team, Cleveland's own slam performers, will be doing their Lake Effect Poetry 2013 GRAND SLAM, the final competition to see who will comprise Cleveland's National Poetry Slam team this year, on Saturday, May 11th at 7:00 PM at 4700 Prospect Ave, Cleveland, OH 44103. There will be a $5 entry fee at the door to attend the Grand Slam. Half of the money collected at the door will go towards getting our team to NPS, the other half will go to the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland.

You want to see slam-- here's the place to find it!

Poets who will be competing in the GRAND SLAM are:
AKeemjamall Rollins
Redd
Eris Zion Venia
Caira Lee
Azriel Johnson
Skylark Bruce
Arianna Cheree
FREE
Christine Howey
Joshua Gage

• Check out the event's facebook page

Slam this!

Here is a report, from The Isthmus, on the National Poetry Slam:

Spoken word artists are naturally a loquacious bunch, so it’s only natural that more than a few are sharing their experiences at the National Poetry Slam in Madison, Wisc., this week. The five-day showdown opened on Tuesday with a series of 12 bouts between 48 teams, less than a third of the total in the two preliminary rounds of competition. Poets from several teams competing on this opening night have plenty to say about their own and others’ bouts on the first night of the slam.

One member of the Worcester Poets Asylum team the scores from his bout at the Brink Lounge, in which the squad from central Massachusetts finished second to Chicago Mental Graffiti and ahead of Boston Lizard Lounge and Accident Slam from Eureka, California. The poet also provides the score and comments on the winning effort put in by Boston Cantab at the same location earlier in the evening. “New England had a very good night tonight,” he declares, “and I hope it will continue for the rest of the week.” Read more here.