 On the last Tuesday of each month, I find myself at Velvet Underground at Zouk Club.
To be honest I am not a nightclub person and yet here I am beneath the golden chandelier like an upside-down Christmas tree and the flashing disco globes.
When the music dies down, I and my co-hosts, Lee Yew Moon and Jeremy Tarrier will be welcoming the audience to this month’s Singapore Poetry Slam™.
Soon the performers will jump to action as the music walks them briskly onto the dance floor-cum stage: singer-songwriters, stand up comedian wannabes, new dance groups, rapsters, musicians, theatre artistes, film-makers and visual artistes.
And then there will be some of the new crop of home-grown poets - some shy who whisper, some brash who express with attitude. This show is for them.
When I moved here in 1999 from Australia with Savinder, my Singaporean wife, I felt the lack of a more upbeat arts literary cabaret event in Singapore.
Since Poetry Slam's 3rd anniversary on May 30th, Word Forward, our non-profit arts company which owns the trade-mark of Poetry Slam™ in Singapore has organised over 70 slam events and has built a full-time literary arts company which has not relied on arts funding.
The Singapore Slam attracts above average literary audience numbers to a ticketed event on a regular basis.A first for Singapore.
Despite, monthly fluctuations in attendance figures, during the past three years, Word Forward ticket sales and audience head-counts estimate show that more than 15-20,000 Singaporeans of all ages have viewed and participated in Poetry Slams in clubs, theatres, festivals, art centres and now schools and colleges where the audience potential is growing exponentially and that is significant exposure.
The Slam Formula
Sometimes, poets and members of the audience are encouraged to improvise poems on the spot and then perform them.
There have been Dead Poet Slams, Daily Grind Slams, Mooncake Slams, Puppet Slams, Gothic Slams, Indulgence Slams, Rock n Roll Slams, Eros Slams, Spy Slams, Slams that Slam the Moon, Body Art and Glam Slams. The list goes on.
In each event the three-round poetry slam competition commences with the slam host announcing five judges randomly plucked from the crowd followed by the contestants, our poetic gladiators for the night.
Slam of the West, Slam of the East
The Singapore Slam is still a far more polite event than say the fabled Green Mill event in Chicago, Mecca of all Slams hosted weekly by Marc Smith, the Founder of Poetry Slam himself who crawls onto tables, praises and then abuses members in the front row.
The title of his book, 'Crowdpleaser' indicates the Smith approach to romancing the audience.
What I learned from Marc and others is that the Slam is not just for the poets, it is poetry theatre that can connect with the people who are listening out there, the new ones who might even buy your book or CD.
Despite being the first 'Asian Slam', the Poetry Slam has made a significant impact through its three-round ‘Poetry Idol’ format with ordinary Joes as judges, with a winner being crowned slam champ for the night. Not all like it, but no one can ignore it.
Some feel poetry performance contests are the height of bad taste, yet, they have been happening throughout history from ancient Greece and Rome via the drama festivals to bardic jousting during the medieval Troubadour period.
On the best of nights the guns and roses of poetic delivery truly justifies the name of '‘Grand Slam' and one might feel that suddenly a portal has opened to a shamanic past where the bear-clans and mammoth men are banging on giant jawbones while chanting the Word and celebrating the hunt.
At least that’s what I like to imagine. Of course, the slam also has its dud moments and fair share of banality at times, just as does the average poetry reading.
Shamans and Mumblers
So what is the difference between a Slam and a Reading?
The Slam is an audience-centred democratically-elected event. The judges and the crowd itself get to have their say about what they like and don’t like.
This also makes for a some weird decisions and inevitable ego- bruising, especially when a well-written piece gets less votes than a simple, yet well-delivered work.
The good thing is that most don’t take the competitive part too seriously. The competition form is just engineered entertainment.
Those poets who walk away vowing never to slam again have totally missed the point.
They are either unwilling to be judged by popular taste, or are they are just covering their asses, fearing to own their power to become the complete poets who both write and deliver?
Two Sides of the Poetry Coin
In fact, I have always felt the Slam is just a 'creche' - a place to workshop for free the basics of effective presentation - to learn how to ‘bring it’ to the audience.
Poetry is a coin with two equal sides - written and oral delivery. Those who stress one above the other are not presenting the whole tradition.
Linking these two paths, Poetry Slam has become a powerful marketing tool which reaches out to a wider public.
Thus, many major literary festivals in the world now incorporate a regular Poetry Slam feature event as part of their programmes, acknowledging the return of the Oral Tradition.
Getting off the Island
A lot more needs to be done. Poetry Slam has just barely scratched the surface.
The poets need to dog-paddle hard and escape Butterfly Island because during the past 100 years or so, the Academy which has diligently and lovingly preserved poetry through intellectual discourse, has also turned it into a rare, but dusty butterfly collection.
Don’t get me wrong, I buy and love to read books of poetry. As a journalist, I have read and have written a good deal of literary criticism and I believe in the written word with all its contemplative subtlety.
Yet, ‘the study of poetry’ alone is not a substitute for a living tradition. Somehow poetry scholars have transformed literature study into a category of anthropology and many anthropological projects have contributed to the demise of ethnic tribes?
Those last remaining practitioners dedicated to the craft of poetry have become like ghosts, or undercover agents forced to lead a double life in our society because poetry has lost touch with its roots.
As a result, poetry now occupies the lowest rung of the arts-funding food chain. In most of our schools kids who are force-fed on poetry in class feel reading it is like the obituaries - something freaky that carries with it the kiss of death.
If you don’t believe me, start discussing the works of any 20th century poet at your next business networking meeting and see how quickly you clear the space around you.
Poetry Slam School of Rock
To counter this trend, Word Forward has started going regularly to schools and train students to be the poetry stars through its Poetry Slam Show Assembly Programme.
Usually, there are 1,000 or more in the audience who clap and hoot enthusiastically as their peers compete in team events against each other.For most, it is the first time they are having such exposure to poetry.
The atmosphere, spiked with upbeat music and DJ energy is somewhere between a rock concert and talent pageant. Many newcomers with unbiased ears, now know through the Slam that Poetry Rocks!
This kind of poetry event is not the polite, cross-kneed, wine-tippling variety where poetry is spelled preciously with a capital P for an already specialised audience, for the wannabe literary aristocrat set?
Poetry Slam claims no such pretention. It has built its own modest enclave out of the aspirations of some experienced but unsung bards, shy aspirants and brash wannabes who have jointly contributed to building this arts platform.
Lee Yew Moon, Jeremy Tarrier, Felix Cheong, Stella Kon, Richard Lord, Robert Yeo, Julyan Perry, Marc Nair, Pooja Nansi, Chris Taylor, Hari Kumar, Muhammad Ridzal, Kiang Kiang, Andy Mowatt Chong Koh Yuh, Krystal Wang, Norain Khan and many other Friends of the
Slam are just some of the regulars who have found this as an outlet for their art. They are a mixture of established and new voices.
Like the many first-timer youths present at a recent Slam, 21-year-old Sarina Mhd Diah from Ngee Ann Polytechnic finds it an interesting and unique experience, rejoicing in the fact that “Singapore has at least a place where poetry is alive.”
Yet another night of music, laughter and literary appreciation successfully holds its pilgrims of enraptured and converted first-timers. Some return, some don’t, but the slam goes on.
About the author
Australian-born Chris Mooney Singh is the Founder of Poetry Slam in Singapore, the first registered poetry slam in Asia. He is also a poet-performer, musician, recording artiste, arts organiser.
Of Anglo-Irish descent, he adopted the Sikh faith in 1989 and has a strong affinity with Asian arts and culture. You can reach him at chris@wordforward.org.
To find out more about the Poetry Slam visit www.wordforward.org. |
