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Poetry Slam

            Poetry has a long history, dating back to the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh. Early poems began as part of an oral tradition, from folk songs to focusing on uses of speech in rhetoric, drama, song, and comedy. History goes back to later attempts on features such as repetition, verse form and rhyme. The mid-20th century, poetry has sometimes been more regarded as a fundamental, creative way of expressing language. While studying literature, you will notice that poems comes in many, many different forms. One that seems to be trending lately is a type of genre called "poetry slam. " Poetry slam is "a competition at which poets read or recite original work. These performances are then judges on a numeric scale by previously selected members of the audience. ".
             In 1985, a construction worker and poet named Marc Smith started a poetry reading series at a Chicago jazz club, the "Get Me High Lounge, " trying to discover a way to breathe life into the open mic, in a poetry format. In 1986, Smith approached the owner of "Green Mill, " with a plan to host a weekly poetry cabaret on the club's slow Sunday nights. Jemilo (owner of the Jazz club) welcomed him, and on July 25, the Uptown Poetry Slam was born. Smith drew on baseball and bridge terminology for the name, and instituted the show's basic structure of an open mic, guest performers, and a competition. The Green Mill evolved into the Mecca for performance poets, and the Uptown Poetry Slam still continues 18 years after its inception. .
             A typical "poetry slam, " people out of the crowd are randomly chosen to act as judges for the event. Depending on what type of slam you are attending the max judges are five and the minimum is three. Before every competition starts, the host brings up a "sacrificial " poet, which the judges will score in order to calibrate their judging. After every poet finishes, each of the judges declares a score for that particular poem.


Essays Related to Poetry Slam

1. Feeling Poetry Of

Feeling Poetry Linda McCarriston shapes feelings of anger, rage, contempt and healing in her poetry through narration, metaphors with detailed sensory language as she unfolds the painful story of sexual abuse and family abuse at the hands of her alcoholic father. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Linda McCarriston states that "poetry allows the individual experience to strike like lightning through the collective institutional consciousness and to plumb the depths of actual communal experience so that what people don't want said in fact get said". ... Her simplest definition of poetry...

  • Word Count: 3020
  • Approx Pages: 12
  • Has Bibliography
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2. Life of a Teenager

These literary works "Reflections of a Seventeen-Year-Old" by Sylvia Platt and Slam, Dunk, & Hook by Yusef Komunyakaa, were able to portray the experience of life through the eyes of a young person by using the rhetorical devices of symbolism, imagery, and point of view. ... "It is a room suited to me-tailored, uncluttered, and peaceful I love the quiet lines of the furniture, the two bookcases filled with poetry books and fairy tales saved from childhood." On the other hand, in the poem, Slam, Dunk,& Hook by Yusef Komunyakaa uses imagery to convey motion. ...

  • Word Count: 853
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3. The Poetry Of Linda McCarriston

Feeling Poetry Linda McCarriston shapes feelings of anger, rage, contempt and healing in her poetry through narration, metaphors with detailed sensory language as she unfolds the painful story of sexual abuse and family abuse at the hands of her alcoholic father. In an interview with Bill Moyers, Linda McCarriston states that "poetry allows the individual experience to strike like lightning through the collective institutional consciousness and to plumb the depths of actual communal experience so that what people don't want said in fact get said". ... Her simplest definition of poetry...

  • Word Count: 3020
  • Approx Pages: 12
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Watsky - Music Icon

In the music industry, it seems as if as the years pass by more and more artists "sell-out" or lose their "je ne sais quoi." Watsky is different, coming back to Dallas after two years (he was here for the Sloppy Seconds tour in 2012) and rocking the Cambridge Room in House of Blues for the second ti...

  • Word Count: 636
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5. A Doll House

Soon his poetry developed into masterful plays and success finally ensued. ... All that can be heard as Helmer sits in bewilderment is the sound of the door slamming shut in front of him -- a symbol of victory over the oppressors after a long and unfolding path of psychological analysis. ...

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6. Objective of the Transition Year

 The objective of Transition Year is to promote personal, social, educational and vocational skills of an individual and to make them autonomous, participative, responsible and aware members of society. In this document I will reflect how my year in this school has complied with the depar...

  • Word Count: 788
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7. What makes up Literature

Other examples include these: slam, buzz, screech, whirr, crush, sizzle, crunch, wring, wrench, gouge, grind, mangle, bang, bam, pow, zap, fizz, roar, growl, blip, click, whimper, and, of course, snap, crackle, and pop. ... Poetry is organized by the division of each line of verse into "feet," metric units which each consist of a particular arrangement of strong and weak stresses. ... A line with five feet is called pentameter; thus, a line of five iambs is known as "iambic pentameter" (the most common metrical form in English poetry). ...

  • Word Count: 1599
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8. Society in Brave New World

I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin.... He slammed down the lid of his cash-box "I shall stop this distribution unless I have good behavior....

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9. All Eyes On Me

His loneliness began to tear him apart, and that lead him to begin writing love songs, and poetry. ... Also following Tupac's death Mobb Deep made a song with the following lyrics about Tupac's death "you tried to test my patience, but I got somethin for ya, I creeped on ya weakness, then came to California, my crew loadin nines, screamin now it's past ya time, on the border where we stood, anxiously awaiting your righteous crooks, H slammed the door on the caddy, blaze the blunt & load the daddy, drove past ya sign, what was yours suddenly became mine, shattered the window with...

  • Word Count: 1461
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

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