Slam poetry
Tuesday 3 July 2007
On the 15th July, the Rise Festival in London will be hosting the London Youth Slam final live in front of a huge crowd. Youths from 12-18 years old, will be competing to be crowned top of the slammers. n2k finds out what slamming is all about.
Slam definition
Slam poetry is a form of spoken word performance poetry, held at a competitive poetry event or ‘slam’. Poets perform their own work and are judged by randomly picked members of the watching audience, who vote their favourites by giving them a score
Birth of slam
The first recorded Slams were held in the late 1970's and early 1980's in the USA, and were sometimes staged as verbal boxing matches - complete with a boxing ring and bell to mark the end of time.
In the 1990’s slam became more of a combination of hip hop and ‘dub poetry’, a type of spoken word that came from the Caribbean.
Today slam is no longer associated just with hip hop but instead a broad spectrum of voices, styles, cultural traditions and approaches to writing and performance. This can include rapping, straight up poetry, chanting or even beat boxing.
Slam needs you
One of the goals of slam poetry is break down the barrier between performer and audience by giving members of the audience a chance to become involved. The audience is encouraged to speak up and support the performers as well as keep the energy high and encouraging. They are also able to score each poet. As only the poets with the best scores go to the final round of the night, it’s really the audience that gets to choose whom they want to hear more from.
Slams can get quite fierce, with the crowd becoming as loud as football fans at a match supporting the different poets.
Since 2002 The Poetry Society in the UK has been running the Youth Slam for young performance poets age 12-18. The top 12 slammers get their chance to record a CD and perform at the Mayor of London's 'Rise Festival' in London. Listen to some of the finalists.
The rules
Rules vary all over the world but there's some slam basics that everyone follows.
- Slams have two to four rounds. Most poets write and perform different pieces for each round and those who score well get most time to perform.
- The standard time limit for a poem is three minutes and performers can be penalised if they go too much over time.
- Only the human voice and body may be used in performance. Even wearing sunglasses can be seen as a costume, and, if taken off or put on during the performance, can be seen as a prop.
- Scoring is done by members of the audience chosen at random. The scoring systems vary all over the world but usually involves the judges holding up scoring cards of between 1-10. At the end of each performance the judge hold up the card for everyone to see and the numbers are added up. The highest scores go to the next round.
Get involved
The London Youth Slam final will take place on 14th July at the Rise Festival in Clapham Common 12-8pm with young poets covering topics from racism to gun and knife crime, all under the theme of respect. You can help decide the winner! Find out more.
