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I'm Alicia Anstead. This is the Cali cross to show. The 1980s gave us the Rubik's Cube and parachute pants. Totally Awesome big hair and Pac-Man but it's also the era that gave us the poetry slam. Chicago is the bird city with SLAM. That's where a construction worker turned poet formed a poetry reading and a former speakeasy gangster tavern. And turned poetry into a spectator sport part wordplay body language and ball park noise. The Slam has become a serious form of expression in community life across the world. Next week with the National Poetry Slam exploding in Boston we're turning the hour over to the spoken word. Up next you think Ellsbury has been hitting it out of the park. Stay with us. Today were slamming. First the news. From NPR News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst. Concerns about struggling economies in

Europe are weighing on Wall Street today with a broad sell off at one point the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 350 points erasing this year's gains. NPR's Tamara Keith tells us what's happening. Well the market appears to be driven by a number of factors. There's suddenly a lot of talk about a double dip recession again but even more significantly today is the European debt issues. They've really heated up again. Another thing weighing on the markets could be tomorrow's big government jobs report. There are a lot of people worrying that the numbers will be disappointing again. NPR's Tamara Keith right now the Dow is down 267 points the Nasdaq is down 66 and the S&P 500 down 30. They're looking for an alleged gunman on the campus of Virginia Tech today. The alert that went out house people go inside secure themselves until further notice and that's what we're still asking people to do. The campus is on lockdown after three children attending a summer camp say they may have seen a man with a gun. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports authorities are still searching.

Authorities are taking the report seriously in the aftermath of a 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead. But so far law enforcement officials say they haven't found anyone suspicious on the campus in Blacksburg Virginia. Juveniles attending a high achievement summer camp there reported seeing a white man with light brown hair carrying what could be a handgun shortly after 9:00 a.m. they said the man was walking near a dining hall toward volleyball courts. School administrators say only a few thousand people are on campus. Local police and the FBI are on the scene and helping with the search. Carrie Johnson NPR News Washington. Wind and rain from Tropical Storm Emily is lashing Haiti today. NPR's Greg Allen reports the storm's main threat comes from rain which could accumulate to as much as 20 inches in some areas. Emily as moderate as tropical storms go with a disorganized center and sustained winds near 50 miles per hour. The storm's path has been something of a puzzle for meteorologists. It's already tracked further west than predicted by some models which has been good news for Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The

current projected path takes Emily over Haiti as Western and it's still expected to turn to the northwest and graze the eastern end of Cuba before heading toward Florida's Atlantic coast. The models disagree about when the storm will turn and how much it will strengthen as it hits the warm water in the Florida Straits. The National Hurricane Center says if Emily doesn't begin that Northwestern turn soon it may put South Florida under a tropical storm watch later today. Greg Allen NPR News Miami. Oil is tumbling to the lowest level in more than a month as the dollar strengthens benchmark West testing West Texas rather intermedia crude for September delivery is down a dollar fifty one to ninety dollars 41 cents in New York Mercantile Exchange trading. And again on Wall Street the Dow is down 265 points right now the Nasdaq is down 66 points to twenty six twenty six. S&P 500 down 29. This is NPR. The child sex assault case of polygamist Warren Jeffs in Texas is heading to closing arguments today. Jeffs asked that the trial be put on hold for two days so he could call more witnesses saying he didn't have enough time to prepare from

jail. The judge rejected that claim though because Jeffs didn't offer any names of people he wanted to call. He is accused of sexually assaulting a 12 year old and a 15 year old girl he had taken his so-called spiritual wives. And Oklahoma City woman claims to be the niece of the infamous D.B. Cooper who hijacked a plane and then disappeared in 1071 from member station KOSU Michael Cross reports the information may have led the FBI to announce a credible new lead in the case this week. Well a Cooper says she remembers seeing her uncle live. Doyle Cooper after the hijacking in 1971. Bloody bruised and claiming he had been in a car accident. Cooper remembers her father in 1995 made an offhand remark about her uncle saying Don't you remember he hijacked that plane. She says her uncle disappeared soon after the hijacking and died in 1999. In an interview with ABC Cooper says she contacted the FBI and is writing a book about her uncle but says that's not the primary motivation for her coming forward. D.B. Cooper parachuted from a plane he hijacked on November 24th 1971 with $200000 and

was never found. Well the FBI on Monday claimed to have new credible evidence. Agents aren't saying if it's connected with Marla Cooper's uncle. For NPR News I'm Michael Cross in Oklahoma City. Eating healthy is good for you but it could hit your pocketbook. A new study from the University of Washington says eating healthy could cost hundreds of dollars more per year. Again recapping Wall Street the Dow down 295 points right now. S&P 500 down 33. This is NPR. Support for NPR comes from America's Natural Gas Alliance whose members are participating in an online registry providing drilling information to the public. Frack focus. Dot org. Good afternoon I'm Alicia ANSTEAD in for Kelly Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show next week the national the national poetry slam. Well to put it literally hits Boston to get in the spirit of poetry we're spending this hour looking at the art and the craft of the slam. We're kicking off the conversation with a look at Louder Than a

Bomb. A teen poetry slam based in Chicago. It's the subject of a new documentary film also called Louder Than a Bomb which will be screened next week at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge as part of the National Poetry Slam. I'm joined by Ana West and Adam Gottlieb and a West is a poet an artist and co-founder of Louder Than a Bomb the movement itself. Adam Gottlieb is one of the slam poets featured in the documentary Louder Than a Bomb. He's about to be a senior at Hampshire College in Western Mass where he's studying poetry education. Welcome to you both. I hi hi and are you there with us. Yes I am. And Adam are you with us also. OK we'll get Adam. All right. And since we have you I'd like to start by asking just what is a poetry slam in the most basic terms explain to us what it is. A Poetry Slam is a sort of a game using spoken word poetry where performers perform original poetry that they've written themselves in front of a

live audience. And then there's an Olympic style panel of judges that score those poems between zero and 10 10 being the highest and being the lowest just based on their gut reaction when they hear the poem. And so it's a competition where poets come in just for more than a champion title with one another. Great. And you say the competition what are the rules are there time rules proper rules you know it's only a little bit about the rules. Absolutely there's there are no props there's no musical accompaniment. You have three minutes and there's a penalty if you go over time. And other than that it's wide open you get up there and you and you do what you want of course. B you know it is a poetry slam and so the expectation is that you that you perform a poem of course is the spoken word poetry which is a form of poetry that's performed live and that incorporates both writing the thing that you've written and some performance that you're expected to really you know have a poem memorized and perform it there in front of the audience.

Are there are there rules around language you can use I mean you work with young people often. Do you limit them to no profanity or no topic is everything game. Well it just depends on where you are and different and different organizations have to have different perspectives on that young Chicago authors which is the organization that runs Louder Than a Bomb in Chicago has for this event because it's such a huge public event does have a restriction on language so. So poets are asked to keep their poems P.G. 13 and do you know just to keep it a safe space so that when people come to the audience that they're not offended or you know people with different beliefs and so and we also of course as the poets I mean this is this is a pretty important rule to respect the audience you know respect the space that they are in terms of the kind of thing. They bring to the base and in turn the audience is told to respect the mike. You know so there's a norm of respect that is kind of gently police. They're true in the community now a slam you know slam poetry gets a lot of attention you know but of course it comes out of a larger

cultural movement which is a spoken word poetry and a lot of times when they're young people that are in these programs get together they're not slamming they're not necessarily competing. We have a lot of open mic events and things like that. So this was the actual competition. Right and so the slam and a lot of the Obama plan is a festival that happened one year where you have teams usually coming from high school but some of them coming from youth organizations and there's four to six poets on a team and they prepare all year long. I just think you know like a big sports tournament. Right right. And it at this point there's maybe even over 60 or 70 teams in Chicago it's the largest festival of its kind you know anywhere in the world. So you have hundreds. Hundreds of young people preparing for the year the same way the track team is preparing you know. We have the poets and performers preparing and then they come and they compete in a series of bouts against one another and some of the teams advance on to semifinals and finals.

And this is not the first time that I've heard the poetry slam compared to sports and in fact I think it's the only art form that I consistently hear compared to sports. Do you think that that's helped. Well let's just say brand. Sure I mean the whole genesis of the idea of poetry slam came from Mark Smith who was the person that began the game at a bar called the Green Mill in Chicago. The his his idea was how do I get my friends who are construction workers interested in the bar having a drink how do I get them to care about listening to poetry. I know what I'll do I'll just throw some I'll throw some numbers to the whole thing and make it and put Gores on it. Now here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand about Lambeau is that that piece from the insiders for the poets who are performing it for the people who are putting these on the competitive piece is kind of like a joke at the gimmick it's a way to get an audience involved it's a way to get the audience cheering and booing and not booing the poets but booing the judges.

And really you know no one actually participating with it really believes that those points matter and the refrain that you'll hear again and again and the poetry slam is the points are not the point the poetry is the point. Well it is a bit of a. Right right but let's talk about that audience participation because it seems to me that there are a couple of components that have to be in place for a poetry slam tour. One is obviously the poet and the poem but the audience is very integral to this and you're doing something that arts organizations around the country are trying to figure out how to do and that is to engage the audience in a kind of curatorial role a participatory role where they actually have a say in what is art and what is not Art what is good art and what is not good art. How does that work out I mean you just can't stand up and say Hey I hate your poem can you but there is a lot of audience chatter going on. Right absolutely you are so on point with that question I think it's one of the things that makes the whole discourse folk N-word such a vibrant and living space. So the audience is is very participatory and it's not that they give and there's feedback being

given but that feedback is not in the form of it. I think oftentimes people hear the words slam and I think that audiences like booing maybe you know the poet the whole thing is really built up to support the person on stage right. You know there's a lot of love that they have given the host of them be that host the event really coaches the audience to come into a dialogue with the stage. Right. First thing that the host says when they get on the mike is you know Boston where you at makes them know right in the audience is expected to make noise at the time they're engaged in a game of call and response where they're sort of shouting back at the stage and there's a lot of opportunities to participate between the audience and the stage. So it's expected if you're in the in the audience a plan that you're going to make noise that you get to stand up that you're going to hoot and holler and clap. I'm always being stared at in funny ways when I'm like at my son's preschool graduation ceremony for example cause I'll start bailing. Well who went and never went. Laughing lightly because this is what you do when you're in the audience at these events

and and then the panel of judges are chosen randomly from the audience right. So they're not experts or anything there and they get booed also. Right they become the scapegoat for the spectacle. Right so when the OT is when a judge puts up an 8.5 right in the end the host of the event says let the judges know what you think about that right and then the audience will yell at the judges listen to the poem you know and you know and they'll chide the judges and try to get the judges to give higher Highers to court now the judges are coached Of course you know stick to your guns. You're the expert. They don't know what they're talking about. So if it's all a game right. Right right now. Adam are you there Adam Gottlieb are you with us now. I am. You're not welcome Adam. Adam what's it feel like on stage when people are saying well I'm not going to presume that people have been that you've been booed off of stage I've heard your poetry it's smart and bright and vibrant and penetrating. What's it feel like up there for

you I mean are you addicted to that feeling. Who Wow good question. Yes I am addicted to that feeling. I always love the spotlight but the slam is really special because you feel people they're excited to hear what you have to say and excited to hear your stories you know so it's like all these listening ears and it creates this feeling of like a family there. So. Well that's the other word that comes up a lot in discussions about poetry slams and spoken word events is family that there's a sense that the teams that are working together are a family and I have to say that the theme of family seems to be a recurrent one in a lot of the poetry. You know maybe maybe that's something you have witnessed too it certainly was the theme of a number of the pieces in the film Louder Than a Bomb which follows four teams

as they prepare for competition. Adam you were one of those team members do you feel that these are people who if not for your whole life you'll carry with you in some part of your heart you will always carry them with you. Yeah definitely. Yeah. Chicago teen Poetry Slam is organized and one of the things that's unique about that poetry slam is that young people are our in team right. So there are four to six members of the team. There's a lot of poetry that you go to where you come as an individual to compete. But that process of being on a team and preparing throughout the year is really an intense process of well. Creating something together of creative work and working it out with one another. And that's one of the things that that has you know young people have said again and again is a really valuable part of the experience is the experience that they have from being on the team and then coming to Bestival and hearing all these other teams you know and then realizing like hey we thought we

were we were on this team coming to compete with all with all these other young poets. But actually we as a whole are part of this movement together and let's actually and this competition is a joke you know we kind of let them in on that that when they get there that they've been sort of set up to think that they're competing in the open secret and and actually we're here to listen to each other and to build community with one another and the way that that's the way that the events are structured. Absolutely emphasizes that sense of community of family of listening to one another and and anyone in the audience knows that they could become a poet and a point you know that line is very easily crossed you know to be from audience to poet. And when did you know you could become a poet. Well let's see I started to write poetry kind of in a secret way. How well do you know now. I think I was I was in middle school. I was in middle school and and I think that you know what happens is that we begin to experience the complexity

of the world and really don't have a lot of outlets for that in adolescence too. Expressed the complexity that we see in the world around us. You know there's not a basement school and there's not faced off in our peer group. Just say how complex the themes of the language of poetry allows for a kind of complexity. And Adam how old were you when you when I came to slam poetry was freshman year of high school and it was my first year and a lot of the I've been kind of flirting with poetry as long as I can remember before then. But yeah it brought it to a new level when I when I experienced this feeling that so eloquently talked about the community and the family. Right. Were you always a reader Adam. Is that something that started even before this. Yeah always poetry on ovals.

Yeah yeah I love reading I've always loved books. I definitely resonate with the expression that Emily Dickinson says that the books are the Kinsmen of the shelf. And so I was a big fan of Shel Silverstein from a really early age. Another Chicago poet. Right. Yeah yeah. Right right. OK I want you to hang on we have to take a break. We're talking about slam poetry with poets Anna West and Adam Gottlieb. This is Alicia answered with Cali Crossley Show will be back after this break to talk about the National Poetry Slam. Keep your dial on eighty nine point seven. WGBH. Support for WGBH comes from you and from Newberry court. A full service

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Boston gear up to host the National Poetry Slam next week. I'm speaking with Anna West a poet and co-founder of Louder Than a Bomb which is a slam poetry festival in Chicago and I'm talking with Adam Gottlieb one of the slam poets featured in a documentary film about Louder Than a Bomb. Welcome back to both of you. And you were talking earlier about Mark Smith I think sometimes called Slam Poppy who started the movement slam the poetry slam about 25 years ago which is you know I just got to say is that awesome or what. To start a poetry movement. I mean really now why Chicago and why did this happen in Chicago I mean we have places around our country that are known for various arts the visual arts in Maine in upstate New York you know and you know music in. Well not too far from your hometown in New Orleans I know you're in Baton Rouge but why Chicago why did this grow up in Chicago.

Yeah I think that you know there's a rich literary tradition there and so and there was a group of poets that had been experimenting with how to have some how to have poetry readings in bars and that had been going on for a little while from what I understand and and how to really you know bring you know there's of course of course across time you know people figured out like how do we keep poetry you know in the street that I would keep it with the people and not let it just get dusty on a bookshelf somewhere or in a dry library you know where there are two people in the audience. How do we keep it alive. And so you know there were quite a Chicago is the crossroads of. Of community work of cultural work I mean it's a great place to go I mean it's a city of Jane Adams. You know in the body of Carl Sandburg as a steady of Gwendolyn Brooks writes of there's a powerful literary tradition that that runs into a tradition of social change and community development there so

it makes so much sense to me that that those two things came together there in poetry slam. And you know do you feel that it's related to other poetry movements such as the Romantics or the beats or literary salons I mean is it in that tradition. Well it comes out of a number of traditions. There's the Black Arts Movement I think has been very influential because the Black Arts Movement is all about how can poetry be responsive to the daily life of people and how can people themselves be participants. You know in the work rather than having an elite class of poets over here and every day people over here so that that's one thing that they rise from and then of course the orality of the Black Arts Movement as well as the beat. But you know you sort of see this tradition of orality falling and rising you know throughout the tradition itself of poetry throughout the entire tradition. So I think you can hear that too in the cadences that some of which are shared by a number of the slam poets and some that

are you know come from I you mean I can hear various oratory is from American tradition whether they're politicians or reformers You can hear all of that happening in fact let's listen to a slam piece from a young woman who's featured in Louder Than a Bomb nova. One of the high school slammers in the film Louder Than a Bomb. You cando always seem to lean to the left the cement windows rusted like overused water pipes. We lived on the first floor. I cando door was tainted right. Like a three year old stock washed every week. The walls were the 49ers and the carpet it was rough. Tangled hair. Everything you had no room for piled on to shelves like children. You would always ask me to make the drinks and there's a liquid with the width of my nine year old fingers for things sangria to gin to tonic and one lemon juice. By the time. I was 10. I was your wife

your sister your mother your best friend and you were bitter. I was free to chicken soup when you were sick. Kiss your forehead to see how bad the fever was. But I'm 17 now and we don't even talk. And sometimes I wish I could tell you how much I miss you. How I want to wrap my arms around your sunken stomach like tissue paper that I love you wish that you were here to be my path with you again so you would know that I have a boyfriend that loves me more than you ever used to. But I guess you're too busy resting like cement windows to notice that your baby girl is a woman and how my memory. Well fade like your forefingers sangria to a gin to tonic. And when the moment. That was no one of the high school slammers featured in the documentary Louder Than a Bomb which is about the Chicago based poetry slam called Louder Than a

Bomb. And tell us a little bit about the format there I mean she's telling us a very intimate story. Are most of the poetry slams story poetry slams they mostly feature stories about individual narratives do they move out into cultural topics. It seems to me that testimony is a big part of the poetry slam. Absolutely yeah. Testimony and witness and particularly I mean we're you know here we're looking at the youth poetry slam in the film a lot of the you know focuses on that youth poetry slam and so. This opportunity too to speak for oneself and to conceptualize one's life and to bear witness to to the experiences that you've had you know that have been hard that have been growing experiences for you. It's a kind of rites of passage really for a lot of young people to take that stage to make of the personal struggles public. And to then be supported you know by their community and listen to and

cheer it on and accept it. So we do hear a lot of personal narrative narratives about family and about the things that people have lived through. Which is one of the reasons I think why this movement is so powerful for you because where else do they have a chance to give this kind of context to their lives and and for and not just for the young person behind the microphone but for everyone listening you know to begin to look at themselves as as a community of young people but also for those of us who are adults. To be able to really listen to young people and understand the complexity of their lives and not just kind of walk them in you know label. All right that's a really great outcome to the work that you're doing. I'm also wondering that as a teacher yourself you know about the importance of measuring results. What are some of the results you've seen coming out of young people participating in slam poetry. It can't just be that moment of performance does that inform their lives as they grow into

adulthood. How does it serve them later in life. Absolutely Adam might be able to talk a little bit about what he and some of his colleagues are doing no you know I mean it's amazing to you how health they're growing. What are you doing Adam tell us. Sure. Yeah it's really amazing the profound impact that lot of than a bomb had on me and a lot of the students you see in the documentary and a lot of my friends when we were in high school and beyond even a lot of the work that the organization young Chicago authors is doing with afterschool programs and teaching artists going into schools. Where the the powerful effect of just the simple act of listening opens up all the space for engaging children or in youth I should say in their worlds and in their own educations and me and a lot of the other you young

people you see in the film and who come out of young Chicago authors are now kind of going into the work of passing the torch and becoming teachers and teaching artists and kind of bringing poetry to the people so to speak to the masses. You talk about you talk about the impact and I wonder has it made you more confident to deal with adults I mean so many of the people who speak in the film have some level of diff disenfranchisement in their lives and you by your own admission are a child of privilege. What what did it give you that you didn't already have that you weren't already born into. What has it moved along in your life. Good question. And yes I mean it really gave me a Cause I'd say something not only a medium that I fell in love with and I came to really believe wow this this could really be my thing.

But beyond that a mission a movement to get involved in and and dedicate the rest of my education and my life to that. This is this is something that's bigger than poetry. You know this is this is about the power of art and youth to to really build communities and conscious communities that will make our cities and make our world a better place. What are you majoring in at Hampshire College. So I'm also very privileged to go to Hampshire College where they don't use majors. So one of those design your own major programs and I mean I've been major in and this really is what I tell people I'm bringing poetry into the classroom as a way of empowering the you know

creative education that will give youth agency and get them engaged in what they're doing. I can't wait to see your degree Summa Cum Laude a slam. You know what. What's interesting is that the poetry slam is 25 years old but this used spoken word work is about 15 years old it's been going on for about 15 years that we're going to organizers and educators have been using poetry as a spoken word poetry as a tool for youth development. I think unity development and so it's a we're in an exciting moment right now where we're seeing a lot of the young people that came up through these programs are beginning to graduate from college and become teachers themselves they're carrying the torch forward. And so we're in a great position right now in terms of developing really a field I mean there's people that contacts me all the time from all over the country to say how do you do this work you know where do I begin. How do I get kids to come to a workshop or an open mike or something you know and.

And it's an exciting moment in terms of thinking about ways to engage young people in this work right there in Boston. Mass leape collective which is the literary education and performance collective has started to organize by bringing together spoken word teaching artists and young people and organizations who are interested in this work. And they are hosting a monthly teacher's workshop for teachers who want to incorporate spoken word. And I want to ask you as you think about putting this on a larger platform. Are you worried that it will fall prey to a kind of sold back culture and get watered down or become commercial as it moves into mass culture because you know we we know this happens sometimes. Am I ever. Yeah very worried. And I'm I'm actually really on edge I think about a lot about the you know there's been a lot of attention from media you know so there have been a number of documentaries that have come out recently and there was a television series that came out on

HBO. And you know so I'm really on edge about the way that this gets translated into television and film. Right. Because it is a live performance art and also because what's happening is so as you point out earlier it's so about the audience and performer dynamic right and it's really about taking care of one another the audience taking care of the performer the performer takes care of the audience. So that it can be a positive experience for people. And so you know if we have a lot of work to do as a field as a as a very young field to begin to articulate what our purposes are what our values are not to rigidly define our best practices but to really create ways to have stuff and to have dialogue as a field to the folks that are coming in that want to start doing this work can come in and be part of the learning community you know to think about how to do this in ways that are responsible. Sure sure. You know before we wrap up I just have to ask you

one final question. Is everyone a poet. Great question. Is everyone but everyone can be a poet. Absolutely. Can everyone speak can everyone walk can't you know you name who you know there's that there's the old saying that if you can talk you can sing. If you can walk you can dance you know and I think that if you can string words together then you can. Be a poet. Learn to chill and and and begin to look at the world as a poet and you can be a poet. Well you two certainly have made it possible for other people to explore that in their own lives. We're talking today about slam poetry. I've been speaking with Anna Weston Adam Gottlieb Anna West is a poet teaching artist and co-founder of Louder Than a Bomb. The Chicago based slam Festival which is the subject of the documentary film Louder Than a Bomb. Adam Gottlieb is one of the slam poets featured in the documentary Louder Than a Bomb. He's studying poetry education at Hampshire College. He'll be a senior this fall. You can

catch Louder Than a Bomb at the Brattle Theater next Friday at 11 p.m. as part of the National Poetry Slam right here in Boston. Up next we continue the slam conversation with two Cambridge his own slam poets. Stay with us. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset resenting Linda Eder and her repertoire of Broadway standards with special guest John Pitzer. August 12th at 8 p.m. information and tickets online at the Music Circus dot org. And from the Preservation Society of Newport County presenting the Newport mansions Wine and Food Festival featuring lady of us Janet September 23rd through the 25th you can visit Newport mansions dot org for more information.

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your station for news and culture help keep your community covered call 8 8 8 8 9 7 9 4 2 4 4 Give securely online at WGBH dot org. Celtic music best enjoyed with friends. Join me on Saturdays at 3 with the Celtic soldier on tonight points at WGBH. Welcome back everyone this is Alicia ANSTEAD sitting in for Cali Crossley This is the Cali Crossley Show next week. You can catch the National Poetry Slam right here in Boston in Cambridge Tuesday August 9th through Saturday August 13th. And right now in the studio to talk about the slam competition are Simone Beaubien and Bryan S. Ellis Simone as slam master at the Cantab lounge in Cambridge She's also host city director of this year's National Poetry Slam right here in Boston. And she's competed in six national poetry slams. Bryan S. Alice is a performance

poet and author who's represented Boston four times in the National Poetry Slam. He's now the coach of this year's Poetry Slam team. Welcome to both of you. Thanks for having us. Simone you're a woman on a mission on Wednesday nights at the scene at the Cantab lounge in Cambridge. Set us up tell us what it feels like what it looks like what it sounds like. Give us give us a slice of the scene there. I'll do what I can. They can't have lunch for those who haven't been down and dirty dive bar and we are in the basement. You can actually hear the readline rattling the chairs at times during the poetry which is part of our atmosphere and really the kind of place where Slim was born. We start out at eight o'clock we start the poetry so people start coming in around seven o'clock sometimes we have to close the doors because we're sold out even before 8:00 for the open mike which is really the centerpiece of our night which makes us different from almost every slam in the country. We do about two hours of open mike which sounds like a long time and it is but it's why people come to see us. We usually have in the middle of the night around 10 o'clock a featured poet or poets who are

touring or who are local or who are recently releasing a book and then at the end of the night if you're willing to stay to close the bar that's when we have an open poetry slam when anyone can compete in the three minute rounds. The poetry slam and give us a sense of the proportion of the National Poetry Slam that's going to explode in our community next week. Explode is a very good verb for that. The National Poetry Slam is the Super Bowl of poetry. If we can say that is the sports metaphor again absolutely. Well it's a lamb is it the sport art or an art sport it takes from both its artists participating in a sporting way I suppose and will have more than 300 of those artists in Boston next week. They'll be coming from the 9th through the 13th. Seventy six teams from all over the country from Canada a team even all the way from Melbourne Melbourne Australia which is the furthest as far as I know that any team has traveled to come to the National Poetry Slam. And we love that we have local participants in this too. Here in Massachusetts.

Brian you've been a coach and a participant. Tell us some of the themes that are recurring poetry slams I mean can you categorize that can you say there about thanks to or there are about personal stories. How can you summarize what some of the themes might be. I think Slim is particularly good at the exploration of self because when you go to see a slam there's an individual on stage and I think in a very illustrate of way exploring that individual is something that comes up and slam a lot. You hear a lot about family life too and about politics. Yeah. You know I'm thinking about I was at I was at the Cantab last night listening to the open mike and hearing lots of energy around self-discovery and discouragement with the

economy and you know other other issues so it really has a very broad reach doesn't it in a way. It's a it's a it's a continuing dialogue that occurs between writers and poets. I mean it's sort of I mean in this in like going on the Internet or like going to a message board or something there's like there's topics get discussed. It's it is a subconscious. And unlike the written world. The spoken word poetry or the poetry slam is a very ephemeral thing. I mean you can film it. You can record it but you can never experience it that way again. That's one of the things that I like about it best and there are sometimes complaints from friends or fans of mine that I don't publish my work for instance and people think well why you're a poet and that's what poets do. But what excites me about the slam and about performance poetry is that ephemeral nature that you get one shot to understand

to connect with the poet the performer who is on stage and you don't get to go back and check a stanza that you thought might be about something different you must be in the moment and if somebody coughs or knocks over their beer then that's part of the moment too. And your experience is colored completely by the place that you are and the person who's performing to you and all of those other fabulous variables that are brought together by a community of people listening to poetry. Let's talk about something outside of the poetry world core competencies. What are the core competencies of a slam poet that I feel like that extremely varied. I mean we say in slam that the poet must be a writer and must be a performer so they must be someone who is familiar with the intricacies of language and the way you can manipulate language in a way you can manipulate an audience with it. And then also that the poet must be a performer that you you can be bombastic or dramatic or you can be vulnerable. There

are a variety of ways to engage with the audience but those are those are the two and that's really all that we ask. And do you see the influencers we talked about Mark Smith who's widely considered the founder of the slam poetry movement the Big Papi of Slayer. But are there other influencers I was thinking. I mean we could guess thorough in you know transcendentalists or the romantics as we mentioned in the last segment. But what. Well I don't know Facebook and Bernie man and technology have these influenced the immediacy of the slam movement. Well there's a really good book written by Kristen O'Keefe afterwards that breaks down slam and she writes that there are there have been three distinct waves of slam and that like Mark Smith very much belongs to the first wave of slam which is a very narrative storytelling. And the second level slam which

has a lot more to do with exploring the identity which you know you can hear the voice of Ptolemy see is a big influence in there. Saul Williams another often named one even though he actually only ever slammed for one year but his voice got spread pretty quickly through the community. And there's a million others. I mean there's there's too many to name once. Like. Like any culture like once you get into it the gradients are are so distinct and powerful like. You know and the voices spread really quickly. And how do you coach Rhiannon do you tell them how to stand you tell them how to speak. Do you tell them to help them choose words. It's it's different for every person. You know people you know like it's seems that slam is like a combination of other art forms but I think actually the truth is

the opposite. Because poetry is an originally an oral tradition. It's actually the oldest art form out there like we're talking Homer. Right. But and so like you know acting and and and the written word all of the stuff came out of oral presentation. So you can you can coach it in the same ways that you like would coach maybe a monologue. You know if that's the type of poet that you have on your hands you know if that's the help that they need. It was kind of like an editor and a director in one. Sure I think I would have been a therapist and motivator to that as well if you watch if you watch Bryant work or if you watch any coach work it's it's like watching a director work and you're trying to get into the head of the poet. I think what's most interesting about watching poetry be coached is that you're watching people who wrote their own words performing their own words in your act asking them to get to the place where they were when they wrote the poem.

Whereas when you perhaps direct someone to perform in a play or a film for instance you're asking that person to get to a place where they understand the words that another artist has written so it's extremely direct. The act of coaching and performing your own words. And is every poem a quality poem every person who steps up to the mike. Does it matter what the quality is even if there's bad art. Well no I think I'm asking if there's bad art. Well. I think that depends on your definition of art or what your purpose in the art is. Everyone that comes to the open mike at the canter has a purpose for coming to the open mike and maybe it's because they have something that they they therapeutically just want to get up and they want the experience of having people listen to them. Maybe they just want to enjoy the showmanship of it and they just like to be on stage. Maybe they enjoy the writing of it and they truly want feedback. There are a lot of reasons to come to the mike and not all of them have to do with the audience.

If the purpose of art is to engage with an audience then yes there's bad art that doesn't do that. If the purpose of art is to create something that you're proud of that you're motivated to create to bring into the world about your identity about your message and the audience doesn't matter to you then no there isn't bad art. Art is what you need. So we're talking about the purpose of art. Tell me the purpose of the poetry slam. Well historically the purpose of the plan is to bring poetry to people that wouldn't engage with it otherwise and I think that's that's still our goal even though we like to imagine that now everyone is engaged in poetry. Yeah. Now hang on because I'm just I just need to call you out on this one for a second. Because the level of literacy at that Cantab lounge last night was a level of literacy that has read poetry that has read novels that has been educated by and large yes by and large it's a very high level of language skill happenin and maybe that's true for any spoken word events I don't know. But you tell me.

We like to imagine it. We have built a community that brings people to the open mike to really when people come to the open mike they come prepared they understand that the audience is educated about slim educated about the world and they want to impress those people they want to come to them with something that's good. But I mean I think that there are plenty of people that come to the Cantab for the first time and have never engaged with poetry I spoke to two or three of them last night who are confused about when they were going to go up in the open mike and things like that. What do you think they thought they were going to do. I never go into reading I never know what people do and I. Never know what they think they've left. But then we get a whole range of people. The slam itself which we actually didn't even have a slam last night when I opened my can a special feature this limit self I think does a better job of reaching people that have never heard poetry because the host has to go out into the audience and find people to judge the poetry slam. And our criteria for choosing a judge is really singular that they don't know anybody in the poetry slam. So there's a good chance that

lots of people in a community are going to know each other so the people who judge a poetry slam the people who ultimately influence the direction of poetry slam has to take are people who have never heard it. Right so while your organizational ability is awesome I have to say Simone awesome watching us and I get people often on stage and stop when they've gone over there three minutes does happen unbelievably diplomatic of you the way you handle that surely the scene gets on ruly from time to time the Cantab different from Louder Than a Bomb is also accompanied by alcohol because it's a bar and people are having a good time. What happens when it goes a little crazy. Well. You know I can't think of a time when it's done to a crazy place where we didn't feel like we could handle it. It's certainly been bad poetry I think that's crazy and we can't do anything about that it's an open mike if you want to get on the open mike and read bad poetry erotic poetry night is probably the craziest night that we have in a sense of the volume of drinking and the. Well a lot can go wrong when you start combining

You know don't mix ladies and gentlemen just because the erotic poetry night is traditionally a bit of a wild night anywhere said a once a year. That's one scene we can't. Martin. And why do you think there's so much buzz around this right now. I mean it's clearly spread throughout our culture in rural and urban. It doesn't seem to have lines like that Brian. I mean I think. I think that poetry isn't valued very highly in American culture and hasn't been for a long time. And I I don't know what caused it but I know the people themselves individually vele value it very highly. And actually you know people individually hold poetry in pretty high regard even even people that don't read. You'd

be surprised actually of just the general literacy of people people who have never set foot in a classroom. I think I think people hold poetry in high regard. The word has a lot of power to it. People when they hear the word poetry it means something very deep to them. Brian who are the people who are at the spoken word events and the poetry slams is it a youth movement are are there people there who are competing who are in their 40s and 50s What's what's the demographic the demographic is unbelievably broad. And if that's the best thing that it has going for it the good thing about it is that. People come to it from so many different ways. It's it's the most positive thing about it and you end up meeting people that you wouldn't know in any other way.

And the dialogue that occurs because of it is the is the actual value of it because you know like you know like winning. I mean you know winning or losing a slam you know like I mean competition. I don't personally you know like and it's funny for a slim coach to say this but you know like winning or losing the slam is not the most important thing in the world. But something does occur that's very important in the course of the slam. But isn't that true for art though that it was the Rasa that engages us more sometimes than the product itself as people conscious of art. Sure. But also I mean all art is extremely competitive and people who tell you otherwise are lying I mean like you know painters are mean. You know there's no there's no more like vicious group of people than stand up comedians. You know it's that's true across the board. You know there's competition

in all art in the world of functional. Getting it to people you know. That's not new right. Slim is unique because we put the competition in front of people's faces we don't have the competition because the competition is going to happen anyway. Simone tell us more about what's going to happen during the National Poetry Slam what what the what the what's the lineup What's it look like and how do we go there. Well we actually have over 100 shows running during the week. Some of them are competitions and that's really the showpiece of it. Those are going to be Tuesday Wednesday Thursday are the preliminary competitions and I think those are the most exciting August 9th through 11th because why are they the most excited because that's when all 76 teams have an opportunity to perform. And some of those teams are coming here from very far away and really knowing in their hearts that they're not going to be the team on final stage but they have come to just perform their hearts out on the stage and they may only get 12 minutes at the National Poetry Slam but they are it's going to be the best 12 minutes that

they've ever had. And we see fabulous surprises happen sometimes when a team is not expecting to win and they do win a Slam they find themselves in a unique position to perform different work the next night than they would have otherwise. And also sometimes when you see a team that is on the ropes that's not that's been left out as we say that isn't going to make it out of the poetry slam. Sometimes something very ridiculous will happen on stage or people will do poems that they might not have otherwise. I just I love watching the competition of Alban those three preliminary nights those are absolutely my favorite parts of the poetry slam. Other than that you're going to see some great day events. My favorite one that we're having this year for the first time is the American Sign Language Reading which is going to be at the Cambridge Family YMCA on Friday afternoon and that's going to be really unusual and different for us at the poetry slam it's another community that we're excited to hook into. Lots of other fun readings going on during the day there's the nerd slam there's a Buffy versus Harry Potter slam. Some of our nerdy are groups and then late at night we also have other late night events which tend to get a

little bit wilder there's a whole 21 plus So there's an erotica slam. There's a hip hop slam there's a lot of things going on. Anyone who's interested can just visit our website and 2011 dot com and we're still selling festival passes that love to see anybody even for just a couple poems to come out and see what it's like. Some of us hosting artistic director are you participating. No not this year I wish I had time. But it is this year I'm getting to take some time off from being an artist and listen to everybody else. Well break a leg everybody I've been speaking with Simone Bienne and Brian S. Ellis about this year's National Poetry Slam which is right here right here in Boston and Cambridge next week Tuesday August 9th through Saturday August 13th at venues around the area. To learn more about it visit and as in National Poetry Slam 2011 dot com 2011. I'm Alicia ANSTEAD in for Cali Crossley Cali will be back on Monday. The Kelly Crossley Show is a production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and

culture.