The New Mexico Daily Lobo and the 2002 Albuquerque Slam Team coach Danny Solis sat down and rapped about how slam effects people in the community, especially the younger crowd.
The slam team will be competing at the National Slam Competition in Minneapolis, Minn., Aug. 13-16, where it will go up other teams from all over the country. The team consists of coaches Solis and Kenn Rodriguez, Don McIver, Colleen Gorman, Carlos Contreras and Manuel Gonzales.
DL: What kind of response do you get when working with children in the community?
DS: We get a great response. High school kids love us, little kids love us and the only problem really ever is middle school kids. I think it’s because they feel like they have something to prove so they’re kind of insecure and that’s just where they’re at in life. I think that’s what it is.
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I’ve worked with all age groups with success and I do a different kind of show than a slam show for little kids. I do kids’ poems. I do Mother Goose and Ogden Nash and Christina Rosetti and Lewis Carroll.
DL: How do you want younger people to think about slam poetry?
DS: I hope that we help people feel comfortable expressing themselves. I guess the main thing for me is that I just want to tell kids that poetry can be anything that they want it to be. It’s not something that somebody has to agree with you on. It can be anything you want it to be. The whole world can disagree and you can still be right.
Also, reading other people’s poetry and writing your own poetry can get you through some really rough times. It’s gotten me through times like that. All kinds of poetry are good because it seems like a lot of the younger people really lean toward a hip-hop sensibility like Saul Williams. A lot of kids are crazy about Saul Williams and that’s fine, but at the same time he’s not the only person out there working today. And if a kid looks at their poetry and thinks wow this is nothing like what Sal writes chances are there’s somebody else [out] there writing something similar to what they’re doing. They just haven’t heard of it because they’re not in the movies and on HBO like Saul. But there are a lot of working performance poets of all ages and styles in the country today.
Another message I really try to give is that slam is really a very, very welcoming environment for women. A lot of times most of the slam team will be men. In fact, we did a community center last week where it was all guys because Colleen couldn’t make it. I try to explain if there were a lot of girls in the audience that out of the 11 national slam champions in slam, eight have been women. Women are very much a part of slam, of the history of slam, of the fabric of slam. [It is] also probably the most beautiful art that’s in the slam. It’s important to stress that, too. Because a lot of times I know that, especially in academic settings or competitive settings, young women and girls tend to get pushed to the side, like men and boys take the spotlight. It’s very important to stress that women do have a home in the slam and that slam is welcoming of women and women have been incredibly successful in the slam.
DL: What is the role of the slam team coach?
DS: Ideally the coach is someone who helps the poets hone their performance of their poems. Rarely as the coach do I see it as my responsibility to help with the writing because I feel like these should be songs, like someone who writes the song, they craft it, they’re done with it. And then a vocal coach might help them hit off a note in the song or a musical director might say you’re rushing the first part, slow it down. That’s part of what a coach does. They hone the performance.
DL: Because the nature of slam is competition, how does that affect the performance of the poets?
DS: If your writing with the idea that your going to write a poem that gets good scores in the slam, you might as well set your pen down, or shut off your computer or give up on the typewriter, because your probably just going to write some trite, trivial, transparent shit. I think it’s one of the worst things about the slam — when people start writing for the slam.
It worries me, I’ll be honest it really worries me, especially when so many young people are doing it now. They’re getting into the slam before they’ve really had a chance to find their voice. Just like an instrumentalist will find their voice in an instrument so when you hear McCoy Tyner play the keyboard you know it’s him. All pianos are alike, except he’s learned how to touch it to get a unique sound. Billy Holiday — one note out of her mouth you know it’s her because no other singer in the world sounds like her.
So to me that’s part of becoming a true artist — finding your own unique voice. It worries me because you see kids watch SlamNation, or they look at Saul, or they look at Patricia or they look at me and think ‘okay well, they win slams so I have to write like that.’ Unless they know — no, you have to write like yourself. If your type of writing isn’t any good for slams, fine, keep writing, slam is only a tiny part of the world of poetry.
I’ve always said to myself the day I start writing for the slam is the day I quit slamming. I don’t want to have my sensibilities informed by the desire to win this silly contest. Which brings us to the next point, but on another level it’s very serious.
There are a lot of art competitions. There’s the Van Cliburn for professional piano players, there’s are battle of the bands for blues bands and rock bands, there’s art competitions where people evaluate work, there are a million different writing contests and there are hundreds of poetry contests with cash prizes. The difference is that those contests are decided by a group of editors in isolation. Slams are decided by judges in the middle of a cheering, screaming or booing crowd. It belongs more to the people.
Trying to separate art from competition or to try and say that slam is some kind of false framework to impose on art — in a sense competition and art are inextricably bound.
DL: How much does the audience response inform the poet?
DS: I think it depends on the poet. I don’t feel like I need to hear cheers and whooping during my poem. I would like to hear applause after its done. I feel like I have to tell the truth and if the audience likes it, fine, and if they don’t, fine. I’ve been fortunate in that they like my truth a lot of the time.
DL: What’s it like to perform something intensely personal?
DS: It’s tough. It can be very tough. That is the nature of slam. I mean I look at the people that I admire the most, and who have done the most with it — they are very strong individuals. They’re very vulnerable in a way too. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, because if you don’t you know first of all, why do it? I mean unless you have other motivation. Secondly, people aren’t going to feel you. Well no, they might. But for the most part, it’s the most real stuff that going to do the best.
I feel that in some ways poets are exhibitionists and masochists, and I think the different qualities that transform them into art that is meaningful to someone is a big challenge. But it’s our challenge. We say to each other ‘there’s someone in the audience that can feel you.’
My friend Genevieve from Austin Texas, wrote this one poem called “I was the worst feminist in the world” which is funny, and then it gets really serious deadly serious about real issues that are killing women all over the world, and then she takes it back to like a funny place. But it’s heart-rending for her to do that. I know that over the years as she’s performed that poem, there have been hundreds of young women that have come up to her and said ‘thank you for that poem.’
So it’s a tough job and there’s some of us that just have to do it. We don’t have a choice.
slamming’s not for everybody. A lot of people seem to think that I won’t have respect for a poet if they don’t slam — me, personally, Danny Solis — but that’s not true at all. I don’t think slamming means anything other than that you want to slam. If you’re a poet, and you never slam in your life and you’re a nice person, I’ll respect you. I love a lot of people who slam but I don’t necessarily love them because they slam.
You did say one thing earlier that I wanted to address, which was how does the framework of competition affect the performance? Right at the moment of performing for scores after rehearsing and everything, and they get up, and it’s a big national competition — some feed off of that pressure and they give the most wonderful performances of their lives. Other people sort of clam up and give sub-par performances. In sports it’s called choking. But hopefully, if I have somebody on my team like that, I, as a coach, have to help them relax at that moment and honor the text
DL: How can people help the slam team?
DS: Money. They can write me checks. They can come to the events and benefits. They can leave donations here at RB Winnings.
DL: How do people get involved with the slam team in Albuquerque?
There’s an open mic section. There’s M†s poetry, and the good thing about that is that’s its all ages. Club Rhythm and Blues is 21 and over, and they do poetry and beer, which started long before I came here and I’m just trying to continue. But basically they come to an open mic, and watch everybody, and watch the slam and hopefully you learn something. Not about what to write —but how to get the truest performance out of what you are already writing naturally. We don’t pick the team, they win their spots on the team through competition. It’s an open competition made up of people who have qualified during the year by winning or placing second in at least two slams.
DL: Anything else you want to tell me?
DS: That everyone should come out and see the slam at least once. If you don’t like it fine. But come check it out cause there likely will be someone who reaches you and who touches you.
The slam team will be performing in Albuquerque Aug. 3 at 10 p.m. for the Reptilian Lounge at Tricklock Theater on 112 Washington St.; Aug. 4 at 7 p.m. for a Going Away Party sponsored by Poetry & Beer at Club Rhythm & Blues at Carlisle Boulevard and Central Avenue; and Aug. 7 for a Poet's Diner at the Harwood Art Center on 1114 Seventh St.
Donations can be sent to ABQ Poetry Slam team c/o Kenn Rodriguez, 2132-A Central Ave. SE, #248, Albuquerque, N.M.
