She can drink legally now!

This may come as a surprise to those who’ve called her flash in the pan, imposer, imposter, Johnny-come-lately, distraction, travesty, novelty, temporary nuisance, joke, jokester, blatant, blasphemous, irrelevant, irreverent, harmful, hostile, theatrical, arrogant, nefarious, evil, needy, dramatic, unpredictable, irascible, irritating, elitist, mind-numbing, passionless, dumb, boring, boorish, whiny, brash, impetuous and destructive. Like the harlot bedding the reverend, she’s been incessantly discussed. She has taken your derisive jabs, your dismissive insults, and turned them into strength.
Ladies and gentlemen, the poetry slam is now 21 years old.

I’ll bet that no one reading this has no opinion about the slam, that electricity-infused competition among wordsmiths. Started over two decades ago in Chicago by boisterous construction worker Marc Smith, it was the explosion that blasted the poetry landscape flat and made it start building mountains all over again. When those mountains were back in place, slammers reached the summit first. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, but you had to look up to see ‘em.
On the most basic level, here’s how the slam works. (I’m resurrecting the original model, slam’s Chicago incarnation, because the first is still the best.) Eight poets sign up. When the show begins, the first poet’s name is called, applause ensues, said poet does an original work of 3 minutes or less. The poem is timed, and at the end of three minutes, the poet is notified--sometimes discreetly (an arced brow from the host), sometimes blatantly (an air horn). When the poem is done, it is judged on a scale from 1 to 10 by three judges chosen at random from the audience.
[An aside here: Can’t you just hear the bellowing—“Travesty! Disgrace! You CANNOT judge poetry!” Well, speaking as a National Poetry Series winner, as someone who now enters poetry competitions on a regular basis, I saw nay. Nay. NAY. Our written words are judged constantly—by editors, trusted readers, contest judges, practically everyone who picks them up. Slam judges—that kinky cross-section of ordinary folk that make up the genus readers—are instructed to consider both content and delivery when scoring. They are arbiters of both word and sound. Period.]
The judges hold up scorecards (they’re advised before the show to use decimals in order to avoid ties). It’s very much like Olympic judging. The poet’s scores are added, more applause and revelry. Moving on.
The next poet comes up, and it happens all over again. The poet (of those two) with the highest total moves on to the next round. The original list goes from 8 to 4 to 2. Then it’s time for the head-to-head. The night’s winner gets—well, not much. A few bucks, gratis booze, a CD, maybe just congrats and back slaps all around.
It takes a trigger to shoot that big of a pistol, and the slam host is that pistol. Marc Smith was the ultimate ringmaster—aggressive, inventive, hilarious, insightful, and a mesmerizing poet on top of it all. Holding court at the Green Mill—a neon-splashed jazzy speakeasy in Chi’s unflinching Uptown neighborhood—Marc made a lot of it up as he went along. That hurtling-along-the-edge fervor is what stamped the early slam with its signature. Supermarket baggers, teachers, ex-cons, reporters, secretaries, high school sophomores, computer programmers, union organizers and streetwalkers took that stage and shook it—and Marc nurtured and shoved, crafting a community that everyone thought would implode.
Nothing like us ever was.
From that modest beginning, 8 to 4 to 2, all hell has broken loose. We’ll talk about it some more, all this week in fact—but for now, raise a glass to Slam, that delightfully deranged diva, and wish her a happy 21st. She knows you never expected her to last this long. But she loves you anyhoo.
Especially you, Kenneth.