Slam Master TRACEY SMITH born in Kalamazoo in 1970 is the youngest child of blue collar parents. He wrote his first poem in the 4th grade, as a punishment for not paying attention in class. Besides writing, performing and teaching poetry, Tracey has been a clerk, a janitor, a painter, a welder, a bartender and a fork lift operator. He has a BA in literature from Kalamazoo College and has been working to bring the Kalamazoo community together by hosting and promoting spoken word events since 1996. He founded the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam in 1998, was a member of the 2003 Kalamazoo Slam Team and has coached six teams of local poets in National competition----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------History of the Kalamazoo Poetry Slam(This article was first published in the Kalamazoo Guide Magazine, October 2004) A brief hush fills the room as the competitor finishes and bows gratefully to the audience. Then the thunder of applause rolls in like a sudden summer storm; the judges hold up their score cards, . . . 6.7… 8.2… 9.1. Some members of the audience boo the low scores while everyone cheers the high ones. Then a hush falls over the room once again as the next competitor takes her place. These competitors are not figure skaters or high divers or gymnasts, they’re poets. The judges are not highly qualified experts, they’re average men and women whose only qualifications are being there. Sound a little bit strange? Welcome to the world of slam poetry, where letters and performance art merge, where literature meets game show, where poets compete against one another while sharing their joys, sadness, fears, and laughter, with an appreciative crowd of rowdy strangers. In 1984 a former Chicago construction worker turned poet, Marc Smith, got tired of the stuffy academic poetry readings and lackluster open-mic nights, where poets sat around with their noses buried in notebooks reading to handfuls of other poets. He wanted poetry with some life to it, poetry that sang, poetry that danced, poetry that wasn’t afraid to jump up on a table top and howl at the moon. He decided to add an element of competition to the poetry and to let the audience choose what was good or bad instead of relying on the so-called experts to tell them. Little did Marc know at the time but what he invented in that smoky Chicago night club would become the vanguard of a spoken word revolution that would revive the art of poetry, making it even more popular than the Beat Poets of the previous generation. Twenty years later there are over one hundred certified poetry slams across the U.S. and Canada, (including Alaska and Hawaii) as well as slams in Germany, Great Britain, France, Denmark, Switzerland, and Singapore. Poetry Slam first came to Kalamazoo in the spring of 1998 after local poet and open-mic host Tracey Smith (no relation to Marc Smith) stumbled across a documentary film entitled Slam Nation, which chronicled the 1996 National Poetry Slam (NPS) in Portland Oregon. Tracey was inspired to bring this exciting form of performance oriented poetry back to Kalamazoo and share it with the small community of poets who once frequented Dirty’s Outhouse Poets’ Cafe before it closed its doors in early 1998. The new Kalamazoo Poetry Slam soon found a home at Kraftbrau Brewery in downtown Kalamazoo, where that once small community of poets continued to thrive and grow for eight years. The Kalamazoo Poetry Slam has gained a reputation of excellence in both writing and performance among poetry slam communities worldwide. Each year in April the best local slam poets compete for the opportunity to represent Kalamazoo at the National Poetry Slam (NPS), the world’s largest team poetry competition and festival. Kalamazoo has twice made it to the National semi-finals in 1999 and 2000. In 2001 three time Kalamazoo Slam Team member Dawn Saylor was featured on HBO’s Rustle Simmons Presents: Def Poetry. Now in its fourth season, Def Poetry has featured many slam poets from around the country and in 2003 the critically acclaimed series spawned the Tony Award winning Def Poets On Broadway. Dawn Saylor made her second appearance in Def Poetry’s fourth season and dedicated her performance to “All my friends back in Kalamazoo.” Dawn currently lives in Brooklyn New York and is a co-manager of the Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan. Every six months or so she returns to Kalamazoo to visit old friends and perform to packed houses at the poetry slam. In 2002 Kalamazoo became one of the founding members of the Midwest Poetry Slam League (MPSL). Another brainchild of slam founder Marc Smith, the Slam League is a loose affiliation of slams throughout the Midwest who travel to one another’s venues to compete for the sheer joy of performing poetry. The rules of the Slam League are less stringent than those of the NPS. At the league slams poets have different time limits and may incorporate music, props, or costumes in a kind of poetic free for all. Kalamazoo’s MPSL team, The Kerfuffles, won the MPSL championship in Iowa City in 2003 and hosted the championship in 2004. In 2003 two time Kalamazoo Slam Team member, Elizabeth Bullmer, placed 9th at the individual World Poetry Slam (iWPS) held in Greenville South Carolina. The iWPS is a new slam competition open to poets from all around the world. It was founded by Poetry Slam Inc, the non-profit organization that administrated the team oriented National Poetry Slam. The Kalamazoo Poetry Slam is now headed into its 10th season with no end in sight.
..
..
Who I'd like to meet: Dearest Poetry Fans,
The Kalamazoo Poetry Slam is currently on hiatus- that means, after ten years of hosting and producing poetry shows, I’m taking a vacation. In the meantime you can get your poetry fix at FIRE on the 1st Friday of each month.
Check out www.thisisfire.com for details.
Poetically Yours,
Tracey Smith
Slam Master- Kzoo Poetry Slam
Thanks for stopping by the official Committing Poetry in Times of War Myspace page. We hope you enjoyed our trailer and invite you to stop by our web page CommittingPoetry.com to learn more about the film and purchase a copy of the DVD and find more information about upcoming screenings.
Remember to “Commit Poetry” every day and live your life with passion and integrity, committed to creative expression and social justice!
seens like forever since i've been to a poetry slam and i'm cravin'. when's the next kzoo poetry slam tracey? i'm off for the next three wks and got tons of time.
really, that's gonna be the last show still the spring?!? why!!!! that totally suxs. i really wanna go now but i have a lecture i have to go to and take notes on. damn it. well, good luck everybody, tell them i say hi. thanks for the heads up though tracey. can i ask why you guys arent doing anything until the spring?
Life is growth. To stop growing is to stop living. The same principle applies to a literary ezine. It, too, is a living being, breathing new life with each and every submission that is chosen to appear in these pages. And surely this issue – our fourth – is breathing deeply! The voices here are many and diverse. Each one has given a breath of life to these pages, and we invite you to witness that life, allow it to move you, make you think and feel and perhaps do a bit of growing, too.
Yay Drak! He helped me translate "Daughter of Fantomas". Hey, the ILLUMINATUS! comic art and some Kopyleft images including scans of the hardback Gordon "Principia Discordia", are up on my profile! Check it out! And I also put some other art by the late John Kovach up that includes a 5 page sequence of Simon Moon's early years from the ILLUMINATUS! comic John lettered and inked. KALLISTI!
Hey, the ILLUMINATUS! comic art is up on my profile! Check it out! KALLISTI! BTW, Drach Birch, who does the slam, helped with the 'Daughter of Fantomas' translation.
