Have you ever read, watched, or performed slam poetry?
Because if you haven’t, then you should.
I first experienced it in high school for the first time and
fell in love with it. It’s different than music. There’s a beat, and there’s
words, but the words never get overpowered by any music. And the words aren’t
just words; they’re stories and feelings and tragedies and dreams and all of
these things that make you want to throw away your life and become an artist.
It’s an art what these people do. In high school I decided
to take a poetry elective, and I was pretty good. I would write all these
different things and the teacher would say he liked them and I was pretty
proud. Then one year he asked me to join the competition team, so I went to the
meeting and read a poem for everyone…and they just stared.
See it’s not about writing a poem and then reading it. You
have to take all of the emotion in that poem and throw it out there, throw it
at all of your listeners.
But slams poems, they’re so much more. They’re no
Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson. They come in all shapes and sizes, all rhythms
and languages, and they hit you like a brick wall. These writers make you
understand them and understand you and sometimes I just wish that before
college and before senior year, I had just dropped everything and become one of
them.
After I read my poem for the group, the teacher told me I
needed so much practice that I couldn’t read for him again until I was ready.
So I practiced every day during my lunch period. But you see, I have this wall
up. I hate showing emotion, and I hate being eccentric because I have a fear of
judgment. So I took this friend I had, this girl who had no reservations and
was nothing but theatrical on a daily basis, and made her turn me into her. So
I read my pieces to her every day and she would yell at me and get the emotion
to come out of me until I was no longer reading the poems, I was performing
them.
Seriously, these people are great. And it’s not all just
emotional crap, it’s fear and excitement and comedy and romance and everything
in 3 and a half minutes. Listen to them. They speak wisdom and they speak the
truth.
I swear.
“They say it takes twice as long to forget as it did to get
to know. So now I’m sitting here talking about 6 days down, and six more years
to go.” –Rafael Casal, First Week of a Breakup
“I am missing you most in the silence between songs on my
favorite records. Sometimes it takes too long for the music to start.” –Andrea
Gibson
“I can’t write my way through this bathroom door, so I raise
my hand in class cuz I can’t stand it anymore.” –Rafael Casal, Barbie and Ken
101
“Rock out like you get paid to disturb the peace.” –Anis
Mojgani, Rock Out
“I’m done being seized and I’m seizing my chances.” –George
Watsky
“This was a very special place with very special stores that I had
never seen before, where I could buy anything that I wanted to try: wings that
make me fly, and Courage to make me try.” –Poetri, The Store
