A hip-hop Shakespeare stands on stage, gesturing once like Hamlet holding the skull of poor Yorick and again like Dre, sprouting poetry in fits of rapping and rapping in fits of poetry.
In the red brick, dimly lit Rathskellar in the Kent Student Center Plaza, Saul Williams rapid-fires his words to the crowd—a mix of young, old, black and white—bobbing their heads in unison. His rhymes sound less like a T.S. Eliot poem than an Outkast song. He forms break-beats with his words, beating rhythm with his voice.
This is a performance, not a poetry reading. This is slam poetry.
Slam poetry is the result of a 1987 scheme to build more interest in an open-microphone night in Chicago. Poets, then, were judged based on the amount of noise the crowd made.
The enthusiasm and underground popularity now has hit Kent State. Attendance is up at the bi-weekly competitions, now in their first full year at the Rathskellar in the basement of the Student Center Plaza. Slam poetry interests students because it allows them to express themselves freely, use language and gripe about their problems. Plus, it’s fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Angela Beallor
Sarah McKenstry-Brown performs poetry as the featured poet of the Classic Cleveland Poetry Slam at the Beachland Ballroom. McKenstry-Brown is an up-and-coming poet in the slam poetry community.

Students enjoy poetry but don’t like the sort of stuffiness of the academic setting, says Robert Grotjohn, an associate professor of English at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia and an expert on many forms of poetry and multicultural literature. Slam poetry is different.
“It’s fun,” he says. “It’s also an excuse for drinking and making fun of people in public.”
In a slam, poets perform in the span of three minutes and risk a point penalty for going over. From the audience, judges are picked at random to give a point value from zero to 10 to each poet’s words. Poets can’t use props or musical accompaniment.
Slam poetry is not someone just reading from a page. Poets use their voice and gestures to bring more expression to the poems.
“Slam breeds a different kind of poetry,” says slam poet Michael Salinger of Cleveland. “The poems are in the vein of a pop song. It has to be easily digested and understood in a short time.”
It also must be conducive to performances, Salinger says, because judges will only hear it once.
“They do not have the luxury of mulling over the work, of catching nuances and line breaks the way one could with a work on the page,” he says.
Alice Cone, assistant to the coordinator of Kent State’s Wick Poetry Program, began slamming in 1998 during a slam school at the Red Star Café in Cleveland. Naturally, she had her reservations.
“At first I was appalled, with the whole judging and holding numbers,” she says. “Then I realized it was about fun and expression.”

Photo by Angela Beallor
Judges wave scores in the air after a poet performs as part of a 'slam poetry' night in the Rathskellar. A handful of Kent State University poets performed and were judged as part of the KSU Student Center Programming event.

 
Junior Greg Spiegel has been doing slam at Kent State for two years. He says he really got into it after watching Slam and seeing slam poet Saul Williams, who visited campus last April.
“When he came to Kent, that was a really big deal,” he says. “It was inspiring, just how he combined his words and expressions.”
For Spiegel, who has one two Kent State slam competitions, the key to slam is not just what he says, but how he says it. In performances, Spiegel combines gritty, intense facial expressions with colorful hand gestures, stomping his feet, shouting words and putting emphasis on key phrases.
“It’s more pressure than an open poetry reading in a coffee house,” he says. “It’s very gratifying when you feel the energy of the crowd.”
Spiegel says his performances have changed since the first time he performed. Every time he goes on stage, he says he learns something.
“When I first went up there I was reciting a poem,” Spiegel says. “Now it’s like I’m expressing my ideas. I’m not just reading poetry, I am poetry.”
September 11 was particularly empowering to his poetry.
“It forced so many people to wake up, to question what going’s on, in terms of social commentary,” he says.
Social commentary is one facet to slam, but poets are free to address any issues personally meaningful to them.

Photo by Angela Beallor
Saul Stacey Williams, co-author and star of the film 'Slam,' performs at Kent State University in February of this year. Williams performed slam-type poetry and answered questions as a part of Black United Students' Black History programming.

Photo by Jessie Huck
Junior Greg Spiegel, who has won two Kent State slam competitions, says delivery — whether that be stomping his feet or yelling — is key to his performances.

 Sophomore Trinity Overmyer has written poetry since she was 9 but has performed slam only three times. She got inspired by seeing slam poets perform at Brady’s a former coffee shop in Kent.
“I would go there for five hours and sit until 3 a.m. watching them spew out poetry,” she says. “There were 50 poets with 50 different viewpoints. It was an awesome place to be.”
Sophomore Meg Cavanaugh, a self-described poet and performer, says slam provides an outlet for her to get her words across.
“Although a lot of my poems address my angst with societal structures, I don’t see slam poetry as a way to get on soap box and preach,” she says. “These are simply issues that baffle and confuse me in my life and need to be addressed. Although I may make a stand politically or emotionally, I’m not trying to get the audience to take my side or change their own views necessarily. The point is not the message, but the eloquence of the words.”
She began slamming last year at Wright State University after she found a campus-wide slam poster looking for a team for the College Poetry Slam National at Case Western Reserve University.
She made the team and has since competed in a number of slams, including the National Slam in Minneapolis this summer.
“I’m hoping Kent will send a team this year,” she says. “Although the slam scene could be a little bigger, I’m astounded by the way it has been growing since the beginning of the year.”
And that’s the goal, says Tiffany Ball, who first programmed slam I spring 2002, through the Kent Student Center Programming. Ball, a senior English major who works for KSU Programming, says the growing turnout at slam contests is inspiring.
“Most people think of poetry readings as snobby,” Ball says, “and that you have to be dressed in black and suicidal.
“This is a creative writing culture in Kent,” she adds. “There is a slight demand. There has been a response, and we’re trying to provide it.”