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POETS ON THE MIC
The slam poets’ season has started. History and guide to backyard-stages filled with stunning sidewalk poetry:
Imagine that the minute you
started reading this
there would be someone
standing behind you
with a stopwatch to keep time
Imagine your audience as the
words that you are reading
and by the time you have finished
what you’ve learned about what
is called slam poetry has been
jammed into the size of this article
but remains
so broad
that your common sense tells you
it’s got to be more than that.
A slam poetrygraph by Flow
| Ron Amber Deloney (BERLIN). With roots that stem from oral traditions dating centuries back, slam poetry and spoken word are rapidly becoming their own evolutionary hip hop. Internet history says slam poetry as a competitive performance event started in 1989 when Marc Smith of Chicago’s The Green Mill decided the regular open mic was just too dull. He inserted the contest, where poets perform their original poetry within a system of rules before an audience that determines the winner. Now if you pick up a copy of “Piñero”, a film on the life of Nuyorican (New York/Puerto Rico) poet head Miguel Piñero, you can date the idea of performing poetry as entertainment and cultural expression back further than the late 1980s. In my opinion, the real roots lie centuries back in the oral traditions of African griots and storytellers and can be accredited in more modern times to groups like The Last Poets who began performing in the late 60s in the parks and spaces of Harlem, New York.
Miguel Piñero (1946-1988) | Image: Urban Theatre Company
In Germany, slam poetry began in 1993 when local slam pioneer Wolfgang Hogekamp began organising events with fellow penmates Rick Maverick and Priscilla B. The first slam was at a place called the X and Pop in Schöneberg which at the time was known for musicians, so bringing in the idea of poetry fit into the venue’s format. The X and Pop slam ran for two years before Wolfgang learned that it was happening in the States. The slam ran every week in the beginning and seemed to be a thing for people from English speaking countries like England, Australia etc., contrary to the scene now where it is all mainly German speaking. The first national poetry slam took place in 1997 in Berlin with five other cities participating, and now there are over 70 cities across German-speaking Europe with their own regular slams. Wolfgang is the founder of Spoken Word Berlin and organises the largest poetry slam in Germany every first Thursday of the month in Bastard Prater in Prenzlauer Berg.
Outside of major events, women performers are few. The scene is very male-dominated on the organizing and performance end but things are changing. I have in recent months begun an open mic installment held bi-monthly at the Begine, a women’s café in Schöneberg. The Issue Lounge, sponsored by Adefra e.V., is also an endeavor to provide a performance space for black people in Berlin. Mutlu Ergun, a scholar and performer of Turkish decent was an organizer of “Tausend Wörter Tief” in Café vor Wien in Kreuzberg. Abok (Afro Berliner Theater Ensemble) have recently staged readings and are making the experiences of black people and people of color heard in Berlin; though it is still a challenge to find one’s own room within a white space.
From Great Britain across Western Europe to Croatia people are taking the stage and using the art of poetry as a form of expression. It is important to keep in mind that when you are in a country and attending a poetry slam or an open mic, you are not just witnessing a person perform or read one of his or her texts, you are watching and hearing culture in live action; a small piece of a person’s experience jammed into three to five minutes behind a microphone or not, depending on what the rules are. Think about that. If you close your eyes and imagine the story behind the poet, behind the people, behind the country and history that has in. uenced that poem, it’s really intense if you see it.
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