SLAM POETRY final in Brno (CZE), 11. 11. 2006
UPDATED: Bootleg of the show in mp3s!!
Fresh feelings of the yesterday’s slam poetry final round.
Beware of the intellectuals! Got some? Slam ‘em.
Monolectics!
Slam poetry is a poetry contest, as you might have realised… the aim is both recitation and performance. The authors are trying to say something, but they also care for the way they do it, which can involve into great gigs, but also a bit thick shows full of swearing and vituperation which is rather boring.
The origin gets back to the Get Me High Lounge in Chicago 1984, where Marc Smith gave birth to this genre. In the nineties, slam poetry vastly spread around the US and even more over the world. Nowadays there is remarkable scene in Germany, Austria, Nepal, the Netherlands, UK and many other countries.
Just becoming popular
The first contest in Czech Republic dates to the year 2003. Yesterday’s attendance at Fléda, Brno was quite rich as well as reactions of audience. Two rounds of ten contestants had kinda logarithmic mood - first round upward-sloping, another one downward (reversed order of the contestants), since the impression of the authors was widespread across the scale of juiciness. Some of them shot the spirits to the stars, like the winner Vladimír Vacátko, whose holler-performance was quite amusing, refreshing and his ecstasy credible.
The evening was supported by a vocal band Kačka-la, bringing pleasant melodies across the musical spectrum, their last act was a bit spoiled by descending mood-trend of the second round and blithe behaviour of the audience. Nevertheless they did a descent job and a build-up for the final moments of the contest - naming a winner, which was poeted by the last-years champion, Bohdan Bláhovec. Saturday’s Fever-like afterperty directed by DJ Opia pushed my evening to the end.
Result? Amazing remedy of a fucked-up Saturday.
Want a proof?
I’ve bootlegged the whole show, so I am about cut the best bits and upload one or more mp3, so let’s hear it. Apologise for non-czech readers: everything concerning Czech Slam Poetry is in czech :o)
More about Slam Poetry
Slam poetry is a contemporary form of postmodern performance poetry that occurs within a competitive poetry event, called a “slam”, at which poets perform their own poems (or, in rare cases, those of others) that are “judged” on a numeric scale by randomly picked members of the audience. It can also consist of several poets performing without being judged.
In the view of its exponents, the point of slam is to challenge the authority of anyone who pretends to know absolutely what literary quality is. The poets that embrace slam poetry seem to wish to give audience members the power to become part of each poem’s presence, thus breaking down the barriers between poet/performer, critic and audience. Bob Holman, a poetry activist and former slammaster of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, once called the movement “the democratization of verse.” Since only the poets with the best cumulative scores advance to the final round of the night, the structure assures that the audience gets to choose whom they want to hear more from (and conversely, who they think should shut up).
Read more at Wikipedia
Interview about Slam Poetry in CZE with Bohdan Báhovec on Czech Television (Culture in regions)
Photos: saruska. Photoreport at Brno Info
Let’s hear it!
Yes, a more or less listenable bootleg [mp3, 128kbps, mono] of some of the contestants. (Yes, that silly laughter is mine and my friend’s.)
December 12th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Vacatko je muj spoluzak a vsichni se mu porad smejou. Tedy ne smejou, posmivaji :)
December 18th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
beannshie> It’s no wonder :o)