Returning from Calgary I feel a little like I have prematurely defended slam poetry. There's a lot of critique of slam out there and, without enough experience to really back it up, I stuck up for the scene. We all say "The points are not the point; the point is poetry!" But is it? That's not to say that the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word has turned me off slam poetry entirely but I'm fairly sure that I won't be competing this year. To articulate my issues with it would require a more alert state of awareness than my half-a-cup-of-coffee-in, sleepy-eyed, just-getting-over-a-week-of-sniffles brain will allow at the moment but I'll do my best.
First of all, we say the point is poetry but most of us are faking the thick skin when we get a low score. This week I would hear people say they were cool with it but then wonder aloud later what they did wrong. "Did I choose the wrong piece?" "Maybe people just didn't like the content?" Deep down there's the real question "Why don't they like me?". Later it extends to "The judges were racist." "The judges didn't like women." "The judges didn't like men." "The judges don't like people who wear jeans." Anything to externalize the quantification of our art. Realistically, most of the judges have never been to a slam in their life and are far from experts. Slam is democratic in that anyone can vote especially if they have no qualifications whatsoever. Everyone knows that and I saw at least one piece this week that didn't score well because it went over the judge's heads. It wasn't yelled at them and it wasn't about a hot button issue so they didn't know what to do with it. I guess what I'm saying here is that my issue isn't about the quantification of the art form but more to do with the fact that most judges couldn't tell you why they gave it a low score and have it be something constructiv that will actually make you a better poet, just more likely to appeal to them in particular next time you perform a piece. A poetry workshop or class will at least leave you with "I didn't like it because your imagery was weak" or hopefully something constructive. Not, "You didn't yell and I have a short attention span so I got distracted and started thinking about my Christmas shopping list."
My other major issue with the festival was the fact that people got points for bringing up trigger point issues but they're essentially preaching to the proverbial choir. I was yelled at about racism, rape, misogyny, etc. that by the end of the weekend I started to feel like I was one of the bad guys, like the audience was filled with racist people who hate women. These are ongoing issues but I just feel like it's important to not wrap your entire identity up in what colour your skin is or that you were born a woman. I think with a national festival this also stems from the fact that Canada is a huge country and the culture in say, Halifax is vastly different than the culture in Victoria. Halifax still has a lot of ongoing racial tension and so this is the experience of the Halifax poets growing up within an East coast culture. It also reminded me of how unfortunately homogenous Victoria really is. I miss the multi-culturalism of Regina even if it often resulted in intolerance I feel like there is room to move forward. One of the issues that I feel unites Canadians no matter where we're from and has not had a lot done to address or resolve it is the fact that we're on stolen land and the ongoing discrimination against first nation's people that is still socially accepted in many places in Canada. I feel like I really need to write a piece about this because I think it was an underrepresented issue at a Canadian Festival.
As I already stated in my defence I'm not totally awake while writing this so it's a little rambly and doesn't really say what I want it to but I guess to sum up my rambling I can say that I will probably compete in slams in Victoria this year for fun but I think as far as the festival goes this year I would rather be involved in organizing and welcoming people to the city rather than competing against them. I want to keep writing but I walked away from the festival feeling like my work doesn't stand out on a National level and wondering if anyone will remember a single piece I did. This is largely self-doubt that's already there and looking to external sources for validation which never works. That's not to say I didn't score well. On an individual level I actually did great. The first night I scored second in each of the rounds I competed in and I'm not sure how I did compared to others the second night but I had almost no voice and still got up and did my thang so I'm proud of what I accomplished there and don't feel bad about it but I'm just left wondering where I want to take my spoken word.
Missie and I have talked about doing a tour and I think we have enough contacts accross Canada to make it happen if we wanted to. That was one of our biggest goals for the festival was just to meet more people and get our names out there. I think it certainly helped how hot Missie is as most of the spoken word scene is almost certainly now crushing on her. I think what I love about Missie's work is that she doesn't write about these trigger point issues and still captivates the room and people remember her poems. People are still quoting "grandma's poetry" and she wrote it a year ago and only Missie can actually have people having conversations about bees at a pub (or saloon as the case maybe be if you're in Alberta). Jane Bee this week was bang on (clique clique bang bang). Her time penalty in the first bout really was "well worth it" in my humble opinion because her piece moved people. It has made me cry everytime I've heard it and piece the second night was so refreshing because it didn't ramble on and on but still said something. Steve rolled out in bout one with the best performance I've ever seen out of him and an air of confidence that made me think he owned the place. Bout two his words were strong, the poem was just too new to fully rock but I look forward to the day when he can perform it like he performed on Thursday night. I felt so blessed to be a part of this team and around so many other talented poets. Honestly though, my favourite performances were the ones that happened in the middle of the night in hotel rooms with everyone supporting the poet who was speaking rather than hoping to do better than them. I guess that is the point of this overly long post. For a competitive person I'm surprised to hear myself say that I liked it better when everyone wins because I sure hated that when I was a kid. There are definitely better and worse pieces but I don't really trust drunk people to judge which is which. That being said I'm looking for CFSW '09 to rock people's faces off and loving that it won't involve snow.
