September 11th, 2011
Our research was luckily extended by a trip to Chicago where it all started..
"Who inspired this madness? And why?"
Extracts from the book "Stage A Poetry Slam" by Marc Kelly Smith with Joe Kraynak:
"Performance poetry as we know it today was the brainchild of yours truly - Marc Kelly Smith (So What!), ringmaster of the blue-collar intellectuals and eccentrics who crammed into Chicago's Get Me High Jazz Club on Monday nights from November 1984 to September 1986 for a wide-open poetry experiment that spawned the Chicago Poetry Ensemble and evolved into the international poetry slam movement.
The success of Monday nights at the Get me High led to the creation of a poetry vaudevillian cabaret show called the Uptown Poetry Slam. The show debuted on July 20, 1986 at the Green Mill Jazz Club on Chicago's North Side and featured performances by the Chicago Poetry Ensemble and other local poets with flair for the dramatic. it's where the term "poetry slam" was first coined and stamped on the face of performance poetry and later competitive poetry."
We were fortunate to meet the founder himself - Marc Kelly Smith or as he is also called the SlamPapi, and managed to have a nice long interview with him about the starting years, the developments and the present days of poetry slam, and we must say that despite his distinct popularity and achievements he was the most humble, generous and kind-hearted man we met in Chicago. Big respect and greatest honor to the man who invented slam poetry!
Photos by BlyWorx
Our research was luckily extended by a trip to Chicago where it all started..
"Who inspired this madness? And why?"
Extracts from the book "Stage A Poetry Slam" by Marc Kelly Smith with Joe Kraynak:
"Performance poetry as we know it today was the brainchild of yours truly - Marc Kelly Smith (So What!), ringmaster of the blue-collar intellectuals and eccentrics who crammed into Chicago's Get Me High Jazz Club on Monday nights from November 1984 to September 1986 for a wide-open poetry experiment that spawned the Chicago Poetry Ensemble and evolved into the international poetry slam movement.
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| Chicago Poetry Ensemble |
We were fortunate to meet the founder himself - Marc Kelly Smith or as he is also called the SlamPapi, and managed to have a nice long interview with him about the starting years, the developments and the present days of poetry slam, and we must say that despite his distinct popularity and achievements he was the most humble, generous and kind-hearted man we met in Chicago. Big respect and greatest honor to the man who invented slam poetry!
Photos by BlyWorx
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