Poetry Slam
I’ve had Rives’ blog linked in the sidebar for some time now. I decided that I should point to it in an “official” entry, because it’s quite good and some of you may have missed it. Also, he had recently added a video section which contains some footage of a few poetry slams. He’s a good poet and an excellent performer. It’s worth a look. My favorite performance is “Mockingbirds,” which was performed at the TED conference. The best part is that the breakdown in the middle, which is completely ad-libbed. He “mockingly” strings together quotes from all the conference’s previous speakers. I also like Sign Language, which was the first poem I saw him perform some years ago.
Seeing these performances reminded me that I was a slam poet of sorts for a short period of time in high school. Apparently, I had largely blocked out that phase of my life almost entirely. Basically, kids would perform some poem they thought was interesting, though not their own. Each round would consist of about 7 kids and someone’s mom or dad would be judging in the back. The judge would rank the students in terms of their performance. So, the best kid would get a “1” and the worst kid would get a “7.” Easy enough. The judges were also to jot down some constructive criticism. One might get “vary pace, but overall strong performance: 3” or “work on diction and use more hand motions: 5,” whatever. Pretty much everyone, even the “1,” would get something negative written on their score sheet, just to keep them humble: “stirring read, but work on eye contact: 1”
I was pretty terrible at reading poetry, lots of 5’s and 6’s. There was this one time, however, that I didn’t stink. I distinctly remember having received the score sheet that read, “AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON!!!” All of the trophies that I received in my youth are in cardboard boxes in the basement of my parents’ new house. I don’t distinctly recall any of them. I wouldn’t be able to recount the circumstances that led up to them having been awarded. I don’t remember how great they made me feel at the time. Still, some 9 years later, I can quote the exact phrasing of that one score sheet. Why is that? It probably has a lot to do with the last figure on the page. Immediately after the third exclamation point following ‘KEEP ON KEEPIN ON’ was written the number two. That’s right. I received perhaps the greatest critique sheet ever in the history of slam poetry, only to finish in second place for the round. Ouch.
I take away two points from that story. First, the fact that I remember this minor shortcoming reinforces my belief that humans tend to harp on the negatives. Our idioms need to reiterate that the grass only appears greener on the other side and that the glass is actually half-full. We have to be reminded that we shouldn’t make the good the enemy of the best. We are people that need to be told to smile in photos, because we might not otherwise believe that we had a good time. Remember that some of the stuff, even a good bit of it, is pretty amazing, and every time you flash those pearly whites for a photograph is open defiance of the human tendency to forget that fact. Be defiant; your mental health depends on it.
Second, no matter what I do in my life, no matter how many awards I receive, how many scholarships I win, no matter how many promotions I earn, no matter how many teammates give me a congratulatory slap on the butt, no matter how many nice things people say about me, be these many or be these few and far between, may I never rest on my past accomplishments. A person is defined less by what they have done than by what they are about to do. When I sat down, the judge was confident that I would be awarded the “1.” Only, someone better came along. That happens in life. The trick is to see it as motivation to keep improving oneself. Like the man said, if you’re going to be someone, you have to keep on keepin’ on.
Seeing these performances reminded me that I was a slam poet of sorts for a short period of time in high school. Apparently, I had largely blocked out that phase of my life almost entirely. Basically, kids would perform some poem they thought was interesting, though not their own. Each round would consist of about 7 kids and someone’s mom or dad would be judging in the back. The judge would rank the students in terms of their performance. So, the best kid would get a “1” and the worst kid would get a “7.” Easy enough. The judges were also to jot down some constructive criticism. One might get “vary pace, but overall strong performance: 3” or “work on diction and use more hand motions: 5,” whatever. Pretty much everyone, even the “1,” would get something negative written on their score sheet, just to keep them humble: “stirring read, but work on eye contact: 1”
I was pretty terrible at reading poetry, lots of 5’s and 6’s. There was this one time, however, that I didn’t stink. I distinctly remember having received the score sheet that read, “AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! AMAZING! KEEP ON KEEPIN’ ON!!!” All of the trophies that I received in my youth are in cardboard boxes in the basement of my parents’ new house. I don’t distinctly recall any of them. I wouldn’t be able to recount the circumstances that led up to them having been awarded. I don’t remember how great they made me feel at the time. Still, some 9 years later, I can quote the exact phrasing of that one score sheet. Why is that? It probably has a lot to do with the last figure on the page. Immediately after the third exclamation point following ‘KEEP ON KEEPIN ON’ was written the number two. That’s right. I received perhaps the greatest critique sheet ever in the history of slam poetry, only to finish in second place for the round. Ouch.
I take away two points from that story. First, the fact that I remember this minor shortcoming reinforces my belief that humans tend to harp on the negatives. Our idioms need to reiterate that the grass only appears greener on the other side and that the glass is actually half-full. We have to be reminded that we shouldn’t make the good the enemy of the best. We are people that need to be told to smile in photos, because we might not otherwise believe that we had a good time. Remember that some of the stuff, even a good bit of it, is pretty amazing, and every time you flash those pearly whites for a photograph is open defiance of the human tendency to forget that fact. Be defiant; your mental health depends on it.
Second, no matter what I do in my life, no matter how many awards I receive, how many scholarships I win, no matter how many promotions I earn, no matter how many teammates give me a congratulatory slap on the butt, no matter how many nice things people say about me, be these many or be these few and far between, may I never rest on my past accomplishments. A person is defined less by what they have done than by what they are about to do. When I sat down, the judge was confident that I would be awarded the “1.” Only, someone better came along. That happens in life. The trick is to see it as motivation to keep improving oneself. Like the man said, if you’re going to be someone, you have to keep on keepin’ on.
posted by Donkey Boy at Tuesday, August 08, 2006
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