Poetry slam.
There are plenty of people standing at that crossroads, according to Carol Swartz, director of Kachemak Bay Campus, Kenai Peninsula College-University of Alaska Anchorage. As a result, KBC is offering Slam Poetry, a three-weekend workshop that begins at 7 p.m. Sept. 30. Registration deadline is Monday.
“We have observed that there is a growing interest in that genre of poetry through some of the activities that have gone on at Amped Café and the campus student association hosted a poetry slam evening last year,” Swartz said. More than 60 people attended that event. There also was interest expressed two years ago when a mini-slam was held during the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, which is hosted by KBC. Peter Porco, one of the leading figures in the Alaska poetry slam community, will teach the workshop.
“Students will basically learn how to write and perform poetry,” Porco said, adding that in-class constructive critiques will help prepare students for a performance at the workshop’s end. “We won’t have a poetry slam, but we are going to have an evening of performance poetry which is actually the students’ final, and to which the public is invited.”
The difference between performance and slam is that slams are competitive, complete with judges, scores, winners, runners-up and prizes. Poetry slams began with Marc Kelly Smith and Chicago’s Green Mill Tavern in the 1980s. Wanting to spice up open-mic formats, Smith introduced a weekly poetry competition with a growing number of fans.
“From the perspective of the performers, the attraction is that they, as poets, get the attention that poets usually do not get,” Porco said. “Try to imagine poets reading in a large hall where there are 3,000 people listening and cheering. Poets just don’t get that kind of attention. It’s unheard of.”
Because the venue for slams is typically bars, restaurants and nightclubs, the content tends to be mostly adult material.
“It’s less refined, less meditative, more in-your-face,” Porco said. “There’s more politics to it. More sex to it. There’s more raw language to it.”
And there’s the performance.
“When someone has a poem memorized and puts everything into it, it becomes a little bit theater,” Porco said. “Slam poems are often like someone standing on a soap box with a lot of body motion put into it.”
Porco and the Alaska Poetry League brought the first slam to Homer in 1998. The League was instrumental in sending the first team from Alaska to the national poetry slam in Providence, R.I., in 2000; a second team to Seattle in 2001 and another team to Minneapolis in 2002. The team competing in Seattle included Kathleen Gustafson of Homer
“She was great,” Porco said. “She’s actually going to come and talk to the class and demonstrate some real live slam poetry.”
The workshop has a limited enrollment of 15. Course fee is $160. One credit is available or people can audit the course, Swartz said. For more information, call KBC at 235-7743.
McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.
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