Looking for something unusual to do on Monday nights? Try the Grand Rapids Poetry Slam. The event is held weekly at The Sazerac Lounge, and man, it’ll knock your socks off. In a society whose daily interactions too often lack authenticity, the Slam offers an opportunity to rattle your self out of that reality, if only for an hour.
Spend that hour in this under-decorated and surprisingly comfortable backroom with the diverse mix of people drawn to the Slam and you may come away somewhat altered. While the Slam occasionally invites special guests to read, the stage is open to anyone wishing to read their own work. What event organizer Greg Bliss provides is the forum for poets and writers to present new work along with the encouragement to “perform” it.
“It’s important to hear your own voice,” said Bliss, who clearly has a passion for the stage and for helping people connect with one another.
The weekly Slam is one of many signs that the art of poetry is alive and flourishing in Grand Rapids. The Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts will host the 38th Annual Kent County Poetry Competition Reading, in conjunction with the Festival of the Arts, on Saturday, June 3rd. The Urban Beanery holds a regular reading every Thursday night. Poets meet monthly at River Bank Books. And Studio 71 soon will launch yet another regular gathering.
What’s more, Nobel Prize winning Irish Poet Seamus Heaney recently performed at Aquinas College. Grand Rapids even has its own Poet Laureate. Patricia Clark reads periodically around West Michigan.
But tonight, and every Monday night, is about the Poetry Slam, an event organized by Greg Bliss for the past seven years. He started out this evening at 9 PM with one of his own songs. Playing on a red guitar his line “so it’s cool if you keep quiet boy, but I like singing” seemed apropos for the evening.
A Variety of Acts
Run like a variety show, the slam offers poets the stage to work out their public performance and ultimately to find their voice. Bliss encourages poets to polish their acts. He wants participants to consider how their presentation affects the audience and, in turn, how the energy of the audience affects their performance. What Bliss is seeking is “resonance,” that resonance that can occur between a poet and his or her audience.
The Slam welcomes poetry, music as it relates to poetry, and short prose. With the help of a clipboard where folks sign up to perform, Bliss keeps the evening moving along quite enthusiastically. His master-of-ceremony is as colorful as his guitar. He knows most of the performers and makes sure to get the names of the newcomers. There was not an ounce of pretension in the place and newcomers can feel welcome amid the laid back crowd.
Some participants write “some stage-worthy stuff,” Bliss said. “Some are scoundrels there to cause drama,” he laughs.
While all are welcome to participate, serious performance is encouraged. And although there were varying degrees of contemplation in the performances, a good share tended toward amusement and foolery, not much lamenting on this Monday night. From the informative to the heartfelt to the raucous, the contents included enlistment in the military, a Rainbow Family gathering, going to the bathroom, a turtle, advertising, and sex. An entertaining hour very well spent.
A Band of Word Workers
The poets this Monday night included event regular “Joe, the cab driver”, a 33-year old cabbie who lamented his “life has been horrible beyond belief.” The weekly slam is his catalyst for creativity, his outlet, his church. It appears that he’ll write about anything, nothing is off limits. He carries a sizable stack of his poetry with him in a worn black duffle bag.
One young woman asked to read one of Joe’s older pieces. She’s still shy about reading her own work. Although, after attending the slam for more than a year, she recently mustered up the courage to read an intensely personal piece about missing her mother who moved to Baltimore.
A local college professor also is among the regular performers. He comes to glean new ideas from other people’s poetry. He won the local Dyer-Ives Foundation poetry contest with a poem that was inspired at the Slam.
Some poets “bomb,” Bliss said. Performers often find themselves asking ‘do I want the audience to care’ or ‘how do I use this opportunity to connect with other people in a way that is meaningful.’ But, according to Bliss, the Slam provides sort of an informal support structure. The stronger poets provide energy for newcomers. Then novice poets come back and do better and continue to improve.
Creston's Beatnik Scene
The support among poets is evident. The bar adds some interesting touches as well. On this night, the pro basketball playoffs were on in a nearby room as the slam started. Although the performers didn’t seem to mind. The noises from the game and the crowd at the bar watching it only added to the heightened energy in the room. Behind and above the stage, a small television with the audio turned off played during the performance. Its presence only amplified the contradiction between our tuned-out television society and the awareness that things authentic were being expressed in the room.
At the Sazerac, the fresh new pub in the Creston neighborhood, poets regularly find themselves competing with the ladies bowling league, a rowdy softball team, and other locals that like to drink there. For the most part, however, the audience loves it, according to Bliss.
There was a bit of that longed-for beatnik experience in the darkness of the room, in the ornate silver chandelier that hung over the stage, the stackable red vinyl chairs we sat upon, and the exposed brick wall. But this night the longed-for experience came pretty much entirely from the performers themselves. Each brought their own voice, their own expressions, and their own thing onstage. It was intense. And it resonated. These guys, and girls, were good.
Photographs by AJ Paschka - All rights reserved
Images top to bottom:
The ambient mood at Sazerac Lounge.
Poetry slam organizer Greg Bliss on his red guitar.
Last minute edits on paper.
Joe the Cab Driver performs.
Matt Simpson-Siegel slams out a poem.