Okay, so what’s all the buzz about this slam poetry going around? No, it’s not a new business venture between Oxford University and the WWE. Slam poetry is a type of performance art that combines rhythm and writing to create a unique blend of soul-inspired verse that throws back to rap’s original purpose as a means to actually express a point.
Surprisingly enough, people are actually starting to listen and the movement is gaining serious speed, even in Ottawa. But what’s really interesting is that slam poetry is doing what no one else could, bringing hip-hop back to its roots and making poetry culturally relevant again. And the best part is? The kids are loving every minute of it.
It’s hard to say exactly where hip hop lost its way, but it’s been a long time since artists such as Tupac and Biggie Smalls used it as a platform to express the angst and frustration of what they saw as a lost and subjugated generation of young black Americans. But somewhere along the way, hip-hop artists started making money, a lot of money, the game changed and the focus went from words to want – maybe something to do with the mo’ money, mo’ problems principle. Regardless, we’ve come to a point where rap and hip-hop don’t speak to people in the same way they used to, or at least, not the same people.
Then again, who can really say when poetry stopped being cool; no fingers pointed, but MTV or the electric guitar are usually at fault for a lot of these things. The days of poet playboys like Byron and Keats are long since over, and though the prose-defying pen still retains a certain sexy quality, it’s usually reserved for the more artistically pretentious who wouldn’t share it with the likes of us everyday folk, “you just really wouldn’t get it.”
Kids don’t want to write poetry, they won’t want to study poetry either, because unless they find themselves in a yellow wood with two divulging roads ahead of them, traditional poetry is now the road not travelled at all.
What slam poetry gives us is a little mix of both worlds where new age soul can blend with the structured nature of poetry to create something new and vibrant, something that has an appeal that goes farther than the coffeehouse spotlight. In a lot of ways, it’s serving as in intergenerational and intercultural lubricant, a kind of weird purgatory where suddenly it’s cool to like poetry without needing bongos, a beret and tinted Jon Lennon shades with a burning cigarette at your tips.
Now, for the first time, we’re seeing poetry drop the pretentious façade and move toward something tangible that actually appeals and speaks to young people, because hey, all the cool kids are doing it. It may not have the mass appeal of 50 Cent or the timeworn street cred of a T.S. Elliot scribble, but slam poetry is making people remember why we do this in the first place: because there's something inside that needs to come out by whatever means necessary.
Welcome to the future of the spoken word ladies and gentlemen. If you’re not already paying attention, you should start tuning in.