The Voice of Slam

Last Thursday I performed my two most recent poems at the Meadowlark for the monthly poetry slam. There were only five of us competing, and I went head-to-head haiku style for second place (and lost). But my third-place position apparently has me in the running for a slam next month in which will be a qualifying competition between 12 poets for spots on a slam team.

I don't feel like my work is really all that great at this point. Both poems I've been really excited about, but when I performed them, I didn't feel they were all that great. Maybe I was too excited about them? Maybe it stems from my searching for my slam voice, something I'll hit on in a second. Either way, I'm looking forward to next month. My goal isn't to make the team. It's to produce three poems that I can perform and feel good about no matter what the judges rate them. I'm more motivated to write than to win.

So in the next month, I want to produce three poems: one that tells a story, one that's random/humorous, one that paints a visual or emotional picture. The length of my pieces so far have been rather short in comparison to most, so I'm going to work on expounding more than I do usually. I've aimed for conciseness for so long that it's hard to break out of that. I don't think it was a bad goal, it just can't limit me from detailing and creating a situation.

What I'm having the most difficulty with is finding my performance voice. After I read my first poem, I asked my friend, Tonya, how it went. "You sounded a little angry," she said. I tried to adjust for the second, but it still came out too forceful. Last night we were talking more about this, and she said that I'm probably trying too hard to mimic other poets and how they perform.

Slam, from how I see it so far, revolves a lot around emphasizing rhythm. You aren't just reading, you're performing. It's like acting, except there are no props or backdrop. All you have to paint that picture are your voice and words. It boils down to finding the voice that represents me as a person, that reflects the tone in which I wrote the poem, and that sounds convincing and dynamic as you typically find in the slam style.

So here's to more writing and practicing in hopes of three strong end results by April 8!