SURVEY: What are the (x) different types of slam poems?

[TSPrunier]

To clarify: What are the poem-types you hear at a slam every almost without fail, the kind that make you roll your eyes inside and hope for something original?

Not to diminish some staple poems, but just to see if there is a "slam slate" common across the country/world. I also think some of these may be combined.

Off the top of my head:

1. The Anti-Establishment/War Poem
2. The Hate/Love My Parent(s) Poem
3. The Incest/Rape/Abuse Poem
5. The Poetry-Saved-My-Life Poem
6. The Im'a Great Poet Poem
7. The Race/Heritage Celebration Poem
8. The Erotic Poem
9. The Funny Poem
10. The Love Poem

[Steve]

oooo, Prunier, you burn my buns!

9. The Funny Poem

That's not a type or a genre any more than the "serious" poem. Now, if you said, "the funny political poem," or "the funny love poem" I could get on board. But funny is not its own subcategory.

What about "The Hip Hop Poem" is that a category? "The rhyming poem?" Or the "funny, rhyming, hip hop poem about jump rope competitions?"

[bobdapoet]

Don't forget the Meta-Poem, the poem about poetry.

To clarify: What are the poem-types you hear at a slam every almost without fail, the kind that make you roll your eyes inside and hope for something original?

Not to diminish some staple poems, but just to see if there is a "slam slate" common across the country/world. I also think some of these may be combined.

Off the top of my head:

1. The Anti-Establishment/War Poem
2. The Hate/Love My Parent(s) Poem
3. The Incest/Rape/Abuse Poem
5. The Poetry-Saved-My-Life Poem
6. The Im'a Great Poet Poem
7. The Race/Heritage Celebration Poem
8. The Erotic Poem
9. The Funny Poem
10. The Love Poem

[jbradley]

Heh - now I have a summer project.

[Scott Woods]

Man, mine aren't any of these.
Guess I suck at slam!

[Faylita Hicks]

1. The "I AM" poem
2. The "Bitch" poem
3. The " I hate my man" poem
4. The "She broke my heart" poem
5. The "Sexy Mind" poem

[TSPrunier]

That's not a type or a genre any more than the "serious" poem. Now, if you said, "the funny political poem," or "the funny love poem" I could get on board. But funny is not its own subcategory.

What about "The Hip Hop Poem" is that a category? "The rhyming poem?" Or the "funny, rhyming, hip hop poem about jump rope competitions?"

Good points all. When I came up in slam, I did include humor at or near the center of my poems. No matter what the subject, there was a way to make people laugh. To clarify further: The poems that you ALWAYS hear at a slam. Let me consolidate my list further:

1. The Anti-Establishment/War Poem
2. The Hate/Love My Parent(s) Poem
3. The Incest/Rape/Abuse Poem
5. The Meta Poem (about poetry, or how great a poet they are)
6. The Identity Poem (race, culture, orientation, gender, socioeconomic standing)

What differentiates the National Poetry Slam from a local slam are usually these poems; you go to virtually any non-national slam competition (or [controversy]Brave New Voices[/controversy] for that matter), and you see poets fall into the same pattern. What stands out are the original poems. For example, I remember a side conversation at the SM meeting shortly after Don Imus made the "nappy headed hoes" reference toward the Rutgers women's basketball team. With eyes rolled, it was anticipated that this term would be the epicenter of the NPS Bingo board, as "black man in a White House" is this year.

Scott, if your poems are none of these, I'd say you're pretty damned good at slam and, most importantly, a poet. You should probably hold a position of influence in this community. I suggest you look into that.

You could be specific like, "This one's for...," or just what you hear every darned time.

[AmyD]

That's not a type or a genre any more than the "serious" poem. Now, if you said, "the funny political poem," or "the funny love poem" I could get on board. But funny is not its own subcategory.

What about "The Hip Hop Poem" is that a category? "The rhyming poem?" Or the "funny, rhyming, hip hop poem about jump rope competitions?"

Good points all. When I came up in slam, I did include humor at or near the center of my poems. No matter what the subject, there was a way to make people laugh. To clarify further: The poems that you ALWAYS hear at a slam. Let me consolidate my list further:

1. The Anti-Establishment/War Poem
2. The Hate/Love My Parent(s) Poem
3. The Incest/Rape/Abuse Poem
5. The Meta Poem (about poetry, or how great a poet they are)
6. The Identity Poem (race, culture, orientation, gender, socioeconomic standing)

What differentiates the National Poetry Slam from a local slam are usually these poems; you go to virtually any non-national slam competition (or [controversy]Brave New Voices[/controversy] for that matter), and you see poets fall into the same pattern. What stands out are the original poems. For example, I remember a side conversation at the SM meeting shortly after Don Imus made the "nappy headed hoes" reference toward the Rutgers women's basketball team. With eyes rolled, it was anticipated that this term would be the epicenter of the NPS Bingo board, as "black man in a White House" is this year.

Scott, if your poems are none of these, I'd say you're pretty damned good at slam and, most importantly, a poet. You should probably hold a position of influence in this community. I suggest you look into that.

You could be specific like, "This one's for...," or just what you hear every darned time.

How about "poet trying to save broken lover/sibling/friend"?

[MattMason]

Don't forget the "My Poetry Changes People's Lives!" poem... which is really only believable if someone other than the poet-who-changes-lives writes it so that it doesn't sound like Ford telling me how "Ford trucks change people's lives, just listen to Toby Keith sing it!".  Except mine, that is.  Because MY poetry, well, it changes peoples lives.

Sometimes even for the better... maybe... well, okay, maybe not...

[BigPoppaE]

i think my favourite type of slam poem -- and by this i mean my favourite to hate on -- is the poem that tells you all about all the things the write WANTS his/her poem to do, thus underlining everything the poet CAN'T do with his/her poetry.

it's much easier to say "i want to write a poem that blows your house down like a hurricane of words and phrases" than to actually WRITE a poem that can actually DO that.

"i don't want to be a slam poet... i want to write poems that slam."

sigh.

[MattMason]

Are you saying that's Sham Poetry, Big Poppa E?  Because, as I recall, I wrote a slam poem in 2003 that DID blow your house down.  I'd read it again but FEMA has it locked up in a soundproof vault somewhere near the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

[linzm]

How about "poet trying to save broken lover/sibling/friend"?

Aww, man.  I was 0-for-however-many until you went there.  I have about eighty-three of those.

[Steve]

None of us is 0-for-anything, not even Woods. Trying to Love a Lesbian When You Have A Ding-a-ling.

I just put my "Poetry Is..." poem out there this weekend again, for about the 500th time.

And I inaugurated my "I Loved Brenda Moosey" poem too.

We all have 'em. The trick is to have 'em be more original than someone else's.

[karen_g]

The "I hate slam poets/poems, slam sucks" poem.Okay, then, why are you here doing that poem?
The "Life is like a video game" poem
The "life was so much more awesome when we were innocent/kids" poem
Whitey beat boxing to connect with people of color (my favorite to pick on)
NOT poems "this poem is not blahblahblah" okay, then what is it?

I've been thinking a lot recently about a conversation with Tony Brown at IWPS in Charlotte which focused on  the repetition of certain themes.No doubt, it can be unnerving to be in  what my team has come to refer to as "the rape room," where it feels like you're being bludgeoned all over again through shock and trauma, poem after poem about rape, incest, abuse, and as a listener, how it has an opposite effect of numbing at worst, or impatience with waiting to hear for the lines to illuminate the subject in a new way.
Tony's discussion centered around slam as a microcosm, and how if you take it that way, right as your ears get tired, take a deep breath and think about how we hear the same themes over and over again in part because what the people are talking about is so prevailing and if we're to be the voices for the voiceless, there's a lot on the same theme because so many can relate to it.
Just remember to take that in, I guess, is all I'm saying.

Then pass me my bingo card.
 

[Gabrielle]

This is all..

Why I consider maintaining the bingo sheet (not like I'm the only one that can or *should*) an act of service to the community. I used to hand it to my newbie team and say, it's not the end of the world if you have poems like this in your set. But this will tell you we HAVE heard them before, so you better be DAMNED original.

PS. Other people can/should come up with other bingo lists. Just sayin'.