What Kwan is wary of is how slam can be reduced to its more mechanical elements, offering a cautionary example about the roboticism that occasionally creeps into competitive dance routines. “It’s all ‘How many high-kicks can you do? How many pirouettes can you do?’ Sometimes these art forms that we love so much can feel like just the tricks and the flashy parts,” Kwan says. Kwan rejects the rationales of those who feel like they need to give in to an oppressive system to get a good score and shares Marshall’s view that one of SOL’s goals is to transcend slam’s more conformist elements, but also believes that the competitive nature of slam fosters artistry by dramatizing questions already present in poets’ minds.
“What’s the context? What has the audience seen before? What will come after? These are questions that already exist, but slam brings them to the forefront of the poet’s mind, and that’s just fun.” For Kwan, the battle is the essence of the art.
{shortcode-43479c44569aca0533afc00843e0c532b9ca1a88}
THE SHOWCASE AND THE TRUTH
Each poet’s booming voice reverberates off the wooden walls of Holden Chapel and into the ears of enthusiastic audience members. The five CUPSI poets, along with guests from other Boston schools, are hosting a send-off spoken word event before their departure for Boulder. Despite the fact that the showcase is primarily for friends of SOL and doesn’t have an official winner, yellow scorecards and comment sheets still grace the insides of the programs—any pre-CUPSI criticism can help.
Due in part to the highly personal nature of much of slam poetry, SOL has a well-defined privacy policy about printing the specifics of individual poems, but the issues the CUPSI team discussed ranged from gentrification to immigration, from parental expectation to the pressure on poets to discuss social justice. A running soundtrack of gasps of approval, extensive snaps, and supportive shouts comes both from their teammates and the rest of the crowd. The positivity of the audience was astounding. When poets stumbled, they received more applause. When they revealed deeply personal truths or just offered a light quip, they were met with the same enthusiasm and joyful noise.
Jalem D. Towler ’15 and Henri C. Garrison-Desany ’16, still noticeably amped up from their performances, discussed the importance of presenting emotionally honest sketches of their lives through their poetry. For Towler, who is involved with youth tutoring in Roxbury, the first priority is transmitting his passions. “I like to tell stories with my work,” he says. “The kids that I work with in Roxbury, God and my faith, and personal experiences are all central.” Towler’s desire to get at the truth of his experience has caused him to minimize his initial interest in the competitive aspects of slam. “When I first came into poetry slam, I was definitely focused on competition, catering to my audience, scoring well, and having my art be appreciated,” he says. “At the end of the day, that’s no longer my purpose for getting on the mic.”
Garrison-Desany, a Human Evolutionary Biology concentrator, often injects scientific concepts and logic into his ruminations on love, loss, and the confusion of college life. Like Towler, he believes the authenticity of his work is more important than any external judgment. “Some poets do put a lot of weight on scores, and by that sometimes the art has suffered,” he says. “I’ve seen teams that are very closed off from other teams and in their own competitive bubble.”
Garrison-Desany says he thinks this entirely defeats the collaborative purpose of the form and is grateful SOL doesn’t fall into a similar mindset. “We keep our poems honest and real, and that is the growing sentiment within the slam community, ” he says. Garrison-Desany suggests that SOL’s closeness and passion for their art allows them to hold each other accountable for creating truthful, expressive poems rather than ones that conform to slam norms.
REMAINING POSITIVE
The judgment inherent in slam poetry carries with it pressure to create overly familiar work that is likely to please audiences, as well as the potential for inter-team animosity and a more general critical atmosphere. The members of Speak Out Loud, however, have managed through their philosophical framings of slam, managed to transcend the petty pitfalls of standoffish slamming. Euphrat Weston’s desire for polish, Marshall’s for subversion, Kwan’s for sport, Towler and Garrison-Desany’s for truth, and, Watsky’s suggestion of the importance of community and respect, all combine to create a welcoming and warm community and space for artistic expression. If Speak Out Loud and history are any indication, the spoken word world has managed largely to stave off the competitiveness and hostility that can come with the tournament format, instead managing to preserve the spirit of warmth and inclusiveness for which it is known.
—Staff writer David J. Kurlander can be reached at david.kurlander@thecrimson.com.