Poets get ready to rumble

Portland’s poetry scene heats up with Slamageddon

By Noah Bruce

STEPPING UP TO THE MIC: Jay Davis runs the slam at the Free Street Taverna.

While Portland theater may not be at its most vibrant these days, theatrics in Portland arts is having its own little renaissance. Look at bands like the Horror, Tarpigh, or the Munjoy Hill Society. They’re not just standing up their playing music; they’re putting on masks, becoming characters, acting out the mood that their music creates. Even, in the case of the Munjoy Hill Society, writing and performing an opera.

Or look at the visual arts, and Colleen Kinsella’s use of performance in her experimental art opening, “Work Knot,” last September. The staid gallery show was given a kinetic kick in the ass.

Or look at the rekindled interest in spoken word nights and poetry slams. Even better, look at plans for taking the next step in theatrical poetry reading with an event being called Slamageddon.

The event, which will pit Portland’s three regular poetry reading venues against one another is scheduled for February 18 at the Skinny and is testament to the renewed popularity of the spoken word scene in Portland.

Portland’s poetry scene is cyclical in nature, and with three open mic nights every month and Slamageddon looming on the horizon, it is definitely hot right now. Just two and a half year’s ago, The Café Review reading (held at the time at the Oak Street Theatre) was the only regular poetry gig in town. The reading and the attendant journal, The Café Review, have been around for 12 years and have provided a consistent haven for local poetry throughout the scene’s on-again-off-again history.

While The Café Review has been pumping blood through Portland’s poetry veins at a steady 72 beats per minute for over a decade, it is not the most amenable forum for the higher blood pressure style of poetry known as spoken word. According to the Review’s founder, Steve Luttrell, their reading “embraces it all” but tends to be a more traditional venue than a spoken word or slam event.

The difference between the two styles lies in the delivery of the poetry. A traditional reading of a poem is less theatrical and relies more on the quality of its words. Spoken word concentrates more on dramatic delivery; in a slam — a spoken word competition —you could read a poem as good as any that Robert Frost might have written, but if you don’t perform it you’re not going anywhere. According to local poet Ian Ramsey, spoken word performers use singing, body movement, volume, different voices and accents, and sound effects such as howling “to create a theatrical and musical element that is oftentimes not characteristic of more traditional poetry readings.”

Spoken word was brought to Portland in the mid-90s by Taylor Mali, who hosted a monthly slam at the now-defunct Granny Killams and in 1994 and 1995 led Portland slam teams to the National Slam Championships. Russ Sargent, who was on those teams calls this time “the golden age of slam poetry in Portland” and says the slams at Granny Killams drew crowds of 100 and sometimes 200 people. In 1996 the scene fell flat when Mali left for New York City and the monthly slam fizzled. After his departure, a popular reading sprang up at the Free Street Taverna but without strong leadership petered out in less than a year.

The slam scene lay dormant in Portland until Jay Davis rekindled the flame by initiating a monthly slam at the Free Street Taverna in January of 1999. Another night of poetry was added in March of 2000 when Peter Manuel started an open mic night at Geno’s. In May of last year Manuel and another poet, Dennis Camier, produced a compilation CD of Portland poets, Big Bang of Bards, that sold around 200 copies. And starting this month the Free Street Taverna has given Davis leave to host a second night of poetry every month.

Organizers of Slamageddon, including Davis, Manuel, and Camier, hope the event will add fuel to the Portland poetry scene. Each venue — the Center for Cultural Exchange (sponsored by The Café Review), Free Street Taverna, and Geno’s — will field a team for the competition. Creating teams could be a challenge because many local poets read at all three venues and hold allegiance to none. Still, each night has its own flavor and organizers hope to match something of the style of the poet to the style of the reading.

The Café Review reading is held on the last Monday of the month and is the most traditional of the three. The Free Street Taverna reading on the second Tuesday (and starting this month, the last Tuesday) of the month is a spoken word event. The venue is unique in Portland because in addition to an open mic and a featured reader, it includes a slam. The Geno’s reading is held on the last Thursday of the month, and like the Free Street reading, concentrates on spoken word but is known to be a little looser and rowdier.

According to Manuel, Slamageddon will borrow WWF-style antics to hype the event and give it “broad-based appeal.”

“There may be costumes involved,” he says. “I don’t know how much I want to say, but there could be schemes to abduct poets from one team to another team. There may be ringers from Boston. There will be lots of fake animosity and idle threats like, ‘We’re going to slam you’; ‘You cheated’; ‘That was my line.’ ”

Manuel says competitors and teams will adopt dramatic roles to add to the hype.

“Someone will be the dark horse, someone will be the ringer,” he says. “We’re going to try to pit people from different walks of life against each other like a professor against someone who washes dishes for a living.”

According to Davis, getting a national slam team together again is one of the reasons for creating Slamageddon.

“I’ll tell you one of the things that inspired Slamageddon,” he says. “The thing that is going to make [a national team] happen is people feeling more competitive.”

The whole competition aspect doesn’t thrill Luttrell, the creator of The Café Review. He is a traditional poet with favorites like T.S. Eliot and Robert Creeley, artists he believes would scoff at a poetry slam. When he compares traditional poetry to a slam he sounds a little like someone raised on The Beatles talking about Radiohead.

“A poetry slam is about competition and entertainment . . . It’s been around for only 20 years; Western poetry has 2000 years of history. I think that says it all.”

And he’s not particularly enthusiastic about Slamageddon.

“It was originally called War of the Words,” he says. “That was alright, that I could live with, but now it’s evolved — or should I say devolved — into Slamageddon. Let’s just say it’s not my cup of tea.”

Still, Luttrell supports the event. “My agenda is to promote poetry any way that I can,” he says. “It sounded like something that would promote poetry.”

“A lot of younger people are turned off by the poetry that I read,” Luttrell continues. “They may discover great poetry because of [events like Slamageddon].”

While Slamageddon may not be Lutrell’s idea of poetry, organizers of the event think it will bring an even wider audience to poetry in Portland. And Manuel is no less than ecstatic.

“Its going to be high theater, high drama, not just poetry,” he says. “It will have all the appeal of pulp fiction. It’s going to be great! It’s going to be great!”

Noah Bruce can be reached at nbruce@phx.com.