Poetry slam

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Sebastian Rabsahl , German-speaking champion 2008, at a poetry slam in Kiel 2016.
Jean-Philippe Kindler , German-speaking poetry slam master 2018.
Poetry slam participant Lasse Samström at the box slam , St. Gallen , 2005

A poetry slam (alternative spellings: poetry slam , poetry slam ) is a literary competition in which self-written texts are presented within a certain time. The audience will then choose the winner. The presentation is often supplemented by performative elements and the conscious self-staging of the presenter. The term poetry slam is pronounced in English; accordingly it can be translated as "poet's battle" or "poet's contest". The form of the event originated in Chicago in 1986 and spread worldwide in the 1990s. The German-speaking poetry slam scene is one of the largest in the world. In 2016, the German-language poetry slams were included in the national list of the intangible cultural heritage of UNESCO .

Designations

The term poetry slam

Poetry-Slam is made up of the English nouns poetry ("poetry") and slam . The verb to slam means “ to slam , to slam ; to hit someone". In sport, slam also describes a direct hit ( slam dunk ) or an important tournament ( grand slam ) . In the US colloquial language, to slam also stands for "knock someone down, clean them down, beat them to death". In the Black American English dictionary , under the keyword “slam”, the explanation “competitive performance” was first found in 1994. Marc Kelly Smith , founder of the first poetry slam and self-proclaimed "Slampapi", claims to have invented the term poetry slam spontaneously: A journalist is said to have asked him on the phone what his new event was called while Smith was watching a baseball game on television . Inspired by the game, he replied: "Poetry Slam".

Poetry slam , slam and slam poetry

Some activists in the poetry slam scene distinguished between the terms poetry slam as a literary event format, slam as a literary movement and slam poetry as literature presented live. In the meantime, the term slam is almost only used as an abbreviation for poetry slam , so one speaks of slam scene, slam spectators, slam finals, etc. Occasionally the term slam is also used incorrectly in the sense of a text that refers to a poetry -Slam is performed. Thomas Spitzer writes: "The very phrase, write a slam about it, is wrong. A slam is the event. It's called text , goddamn it, or slam text for me ."

The event

competition

In contrast to an open microphone , an open stage or a traditional reading , the individual participants in a poetry slam compete with each other. This aspect mainly serves to invite the audience to join in the excitement and to listen carefully, as the audience will choose the winner at the end of the event. The competition should also give the poet (also: slammer , slampoet or poetry slammer ) feedback and serve as an incentive for work on texts and performance . Marc Kelly Smith describes the format with the words:

“Poetry slam is the competitive art of performance poetry. Established in the mid-80s as a means to heighten public interest in poetry readings, slam has evolved into an international art form emphasizing audience involvement and poetic excellence. "

“Poetry Slam is a stage poets' contest that was invented in the mid-1980s to revive interest in readings. In the meantime, poetry slam has established itself internationally as an art form that is known for its interaction with the audience and artistic excellence. "

- Marc Smith

There are two procedures for selecting participants: An open list is open to anyone who has entered a list before the start of the event or who has previously registered with the organizer. The order of appearance will be drawn by lot. In the Challenging System , some of the slammers are invited by the organizer (Featured Poets) , the other places are allocated via the open list . A featured poet can also appear before the actual competition out of competition and without a time limit. Poets that occur prior to the actual competition, the jury it were calibrated , are used as sacrificial lamb ( English sacrifice called). The competition character should not dominate the event, so the unofficial slam motto of Allan Wolf. In contrast, for example, the motto of the New York slam-poet Taylor Mali.

"The point is not the points, the point is the poetry."

"The points are not the point; the point is to get more points than anyone else. "

"The point is not the points, but the poetry."

- Allan Wolf

"It's not about the points, but about getting more points than everyone else."

- Taylor Mali

regulate

Slam stage in Weingarten / Ravensburg, 2006

Participants in poetry slams must adhere to the following rules, which also go back to Marc Smith:

"The poems must be of each poet's own construction, the poet may not use props, costumes, or musical instruments, and if the poet goes over the time limit [...], points are deducted from his or her score."

"The texts must be self-written, the poet is not allowed to use props , costumes or musical instruments, and if the poet exceeds the time limit [...] points are deducted from his stand."

- Marc Smith

All literary forms and genres - for example poetry , short prose , rap or comedy contributions - are allowed. In Germany, the time limit varies from event to event, usually five to six minutes, if the time limit is exceeded, the poet's microphone can be withdrawn.

rating

Slam audience in Hamburg, 2006

In a poetry slam, the lectures will be assessed directly by the audience or a jury from among the audience. In the USA, a five-member jury usually awards grades from 1 to 10 from the audience. The American literary organizer Bob Holman explains vividly:

"[A] zero - a poem that should have never been written - and a ten - a poem that causes a mutual, simultaneous orgasm throughout the audience."

"A zero for a poem that should never have been written, a ten for a poem that triggers a collective orgasm in the audience."

- Bob Holman

In the US, the highest and lowest grades are removed after scoring to reduce the effects of biased valuation. The jurors are encouraged to pay attention to both the content and the type of presentation. The moderators ( slam masters ) can ask the jury members to justify their evaluations.

Audience vote

While the jury vote parodies conventional competition juries, the winner is to a certain extent democratically legitimized in a public vote, as is sometimes carried out in German-speaking countries. For this reason, alternative rating systems have been developed in which the entire audience is involved: The audience gives their rating by means of volume and / or persistence of the applause or in the form of ballot papers . Depending on the ingenuity of the organizers, other means can be used to find a winner: For example, roses are held up, sealing rings are pushed over broomsticks, pennies are thrown into labeled glasses or clothespins are attached to the body of the favored poet. US slammer Joe Pettus laments that the audience does not vote without assumptions:

“The average audience member at a slam attempts to judge a poem's artistic worth not on literary or grammatical qualities, but rather in comparison to the general popular culture around them. Armed only with the experience of what they as individual people are entertained by in other parts of their lives, they apply the same standards to judging performance poetry. "

“The average slam listener evaluates the artistic value of a poem not on the basis of its literary quality, but in comparison to the general popular culture that surrounds it. Equipped only with the knowledge of what things they personally find entertaining in other areas of their life, the listeners apply the same standards to evaluate the stage poets. "

- Joe Pettus : How to win a poetry slam

Winner bonus

Cash prizes can only be won at a few slams in German-speaking countries. The prizes are mostly symbolic material prizes such as CDs, books, T-shirts or alcohol. Winning a local competition can also qualify you for participation in national slams.

Protagonists

Slam poet

The participants in a poetry slams are as Poetry Slammer (alternative realizations: Poetry lambs, Poetry Slammer ) Slam poet or synonymously as Bühnendichter or stage poet designated.

organizer

The organizers of a regular poetry slam are called slam masters (alternative spellings: slammaster, slam master ): They appear as moderators and fulfill important functions in the scene (slamily) as networkers, talent scouts and consultants, they are “authors , Publishers, journalists, PR strategists and organizers in one person ”. The slam masters organize the annual German-language poetry slam championships and meet during the event for a slam masters' meeting . Many organizers are themselves active as stage poets and / or writers.

Slam teams

While it is common in regular poetry slams for slammers to present their texts alone, so-called slam teams have established themselves in competitions, which present one or more texts in a rehearsed choreography .

Special features of poetry slam events

Performance of the poetry slam team Fabelstapler (Phriedrich Chiller, Markus Becherer).

Performance character of the presentations

A slam poet can not only read his texts from the sheet, but present them in the form of a performance in which voice, gestures and facial expressions are used. For example, a stage poet can scream, whisper or gasp his own contribution, accompany it with arm and body movements or acting . Rhythmic and / or reciting by heart are also common. The presented texts are often designed for the stage performance and are only incompletely accessible in printed form. Often, anthologies that collect slam texts in book form are therefore enclosed with CDs or DVDs, as is the case with some publications by the Voland & Quist publishing house .

Interaction between poet and audience

A fundamental component of the event is the interaction between the audience, the slam poet and the moderator, not only through the (plebiscitary) jury function of the audience. Marc Smith asked the first slam listeners in Chicago to announce their displeasure by snapping fingers or trampling on a contribution. The interjecting (heckling) is also associated with slam - not very pronounced in German-speaking countries - as are improvised passages in which comments from the audience are addressed or they are incorporated into the text:

"The work of the performance poet on the stage is by no means courting for the public's favor; rather, a mutually influenced learning process is set in motion in the production and reception of slam poetry."

- Reinhold Schulze-Tammena

However, it was also observed that as the size of the format for a mass event grew, this interaction turned into its opposite:

"Instead of open debates, the frontal lecture prevailed from the stage, the moderator who designed the game became a number announcer, and a carpet of sound of hoots spread over controversial jurors and spectators."

Reception and criticism

Characterization as an event

Since the Poetry Slam event has the characteristics of an event - according to Peter Schulze, episodic nature , community , a minimum of audience participation and the uniqueness of the event - the literary scholar Stephan Porombka describes Slam as a “literary event par excellence”. For Porombka, poetry slam means a turnaround in the crisis-ridden literary scene, the format attracts an audience "that one has long believed lost to the consumption of literature":

“The poetry slam format paradigmatically stands for a development in the literature business in the direction of popularization and eventization. This is accompanied by a change in the function of literature for society, as can be seen from the slam poetry. "

- Stephan Porombka

The poetry slam was cited in academic literature as an example of an event format introduced as a hybrid event : an event that newly combined various (previously existing) elements (poetry reading, sporting competition). Over time, the format has established itself as a separate event type to such an extent that its hybrid character is no longer recognizable.

Accusation of superficiality and commercialization

Slam stage in Hildesheim, 2006

The author Boris Preckwitz (who himself appeared at some poetry slams in the early phase) justified the spread of the slam in 1997 with the deficits and failures of the literary business and the publishing economy at the end of the 20th century. Later he criticized, among other things, the orientation of events and performances to the largest possible entertainment audience, whereby the literary and socially critical quality disappears and the original impulse of the slam scene is completely lost:

“In Germany in particular, the slam became the mouthpiece of an affirmative social milieu. […] The reading time of mostly five minutes that the performers are given for their performance leads to presentations that strive for an understanding of the audience every second: quickly accessible, instant speech texts suitable for the masses. […] Slam prose is a text form that requires consent, the main characteristic of which is that it intones its ability to vote. [...] The performer, who seeks the enjoyment of his own greatness, only exists through the affirmative gaze of the other. […] Many of the texts written for the live lecture have a sub-complexity that the untrained ear is not aware of. [...] The serial rap rhymes, as well as the refrains and repetition methods of the spoken word, approximate the principle of advertising, according to which a message only has to be repeated often enough to arrive. […] While the slam was initially able to present itself as an expression of literary and social dissidence, it has long since become a means of school didactics. "

- Boris Preckwitz

Even before that, the form of events in the media and literary studies had often been reduced to a supposedly superficial, cultural - industrial form of the spectacle:

"With regard to its structures and functions, poetry slam fits exceptionally well into everyday life in a world dominated by mass media and their broadcast formats, if only because the attention span required in slam events is tailored to the consumption habits of the audience."

- Reinhold Schulze-Tammena

Literary classification

Due to the various influences, poetry slams are not associated with a uniform literary style or a specific presentation method. Each participant in a poetry slam follows their own poetics , there are no content or formal requirements. All forms of modern literature and linguistic art can therefore be found on slam stages , from classical or modern poetry and sound poetry through cabaret and comedy contributions to short stories (so-called storytelling ). Nevertheless, a particularly rhythmic, audience-related and performative variety of poetry that has developed in the context of the poetry slam stages is generally referred to as slam poetry. In the poetry slam, however, due to the openness of the event format, it is only one type of text among many others. So sometimes very different sociocultures collide on the slam stage , as Peter Gruner polemically puts it:

“They were all there: the sensitive lyric poet with the peek behind the John Lennon glasses, the rumbling heavy punk with a murderous rage in his stomach, the freestyle MC who rapped so quickly that he sometimes couldn't follow his own thoughts theatrical esoteric with his drug visions and the bohemian bohemian drunken, pure nonsense. "

- Peter Gruner

Petra Anders points out the intertextuality of slam texts: The poets, she argued, influenced each other through their travel activities, so that certain stylistic elements and themes also appeared in the texts of other poets.

Origin and development

Green Mill : The first poetry slam took place here.
The Nuyorican Poets Café in New York

The American performance poet Marc Kelly Smith from Chicago is considered to be the inventor of the poetry slam . He considered traditional readings with table and water glass to be outdated and developed the poetry slam as part of a weekly literature show that also included an open microphone and invited guests. The first poetry slam took place on Sunday July 20, 1986 at The Green Mill , where the Uptown Poetry Slam is still held today.

The event format spread from Chicago to North America. In 1989 there was a poetry slam in New York for the first time . After a visit to The Green Mill , poet Bob Holman founded the Nuyorican Poets Cafe with Miguel Algarin in Alphabet City , Manhattan. In 1990, the USA's first National Poetry Slam took place in San Francisco , in which different cities competed against each other. In 1992, the first poetry clips were shown on US television, including in the show MTV Poetry Unplugged . Live radio broadcasts of slams at the Nuyorican Poets Café reached thousands of listeners as far as Japan .

An original impulse of the slam was the democratization of the audience, which should become part of the artistic event through direct participation and addressing. In this way, the subliterary currents deliberately distinguished themselves from the traditional cultural elites:

"Slam is the lighthouse for the democratization of art."

"Slam is the prime example of the democratization of art."

- Bob Holman

Poetry slams in German-speaking countries

Before the first regular poetry competitions were able to establish themselves in Germany, similar event formats already existed in some cities: From 1986 events under the title Everyone is allowed to take place in Frankfurt am Main , in 1993 poets were invited to the ring in Cologne , also in that year Jan began Günthner, inspired by a semester abroad in the USA, to organize regular slams at the English language seminar at the University of Heidelberg in English (until 1995). The (sub-) literary trend of the social beat that existed in the 1990s also influenced the emergence of poetry slams in Germany.

Between 1993 and 1995, leading figures of the American spoken word movement were invited to Germany for the first time by established institutions in the literary world in order to make the German-speaking audience more familiar with the format. In 1994, the term poetry slam for an event format first appeared in Berlin , where Wolf Hogekamp established the format in the Ex'n'Pop bar . In the same year the journalist Karl Bruckmaier conducted a literary slam in Substance in Munich as a compromise between conventional reading and slam. Starting in 1996, slams were held regularly in Munich , Frankfurt am Main and Düsseldorf , and from 1997 in Hamburg . In the same year, these four cities held an all-German poetry slam championship (then: National Poetry Slam ) for the first time in Berlin . From 1998 cities like Augsburg , Freiburg im Breisgau , Kiel and Marburg were added. The number of local slams grew continuously and in 1999 crossed the German national borders into Austria and Switzerland . Over 2000 slammers were active on the slam portal myslam.de in mid-2014.

In 2017, more than 300 regular poetry slams took place in German-speaking countries. They reached up to around a thousand spectators per event. The events have imaginative names such as “SpeechReiz”, “Slamschlacht”, “Reimstein”, “Satznachvorn” or “Slammassel”. German-speaking slam poets have been invited to all continents by the Goethe-Institut , give workshops at universities and schools, are present at book fairs (for example in Bas Böttcher's text box ) and appear at literary festivals ( PROSANOVA , Lit.Cologne , international literature festival berlin , SWR literature night ) on.

Poetry Performance in the Textbox 2008

Regional championships

Regional or state championships have been established in many federal states, to which the regular slams of a federal state send participants. In 2010, for example, the first state slam championships (in Heidelberg and Mannheim) took place in Baden-Württemberg, to which around 24 slammers traveled. The state championships continued in 2011 in Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg and in 2012 in Freiburg. The North Rhine-Westphalia Slam , which has been held since 2008, with over 40 participants in some cases, is the largest state championship .

German speaking championships

In 1997, German-language poetry slam championships were held for the first time. Austria and Switzerland have been involved since 2000, Liechtenstein since 2009 , Luxembourg since 2014 , which led to the name change to German International Poetry Slam (GIPS) in 2001 . The event was later renamed the German-speaking Poetry Slam Championships . Unlike in the USA, there are two disciplines in the German-speaking championships: In addition to the individual competition, teams of two to seven poets compete in the group competition, who perform with several voices. In 2008 and 2009, the National Slams reached almost 10,000 spectators, according to the organizers. In 2011 there were almost 15,000.

Well-known German-speaking representatives

(from left to right :) Slam poets Bas Böttcher, Timo Brunke, Nora-Eugenie Gomringer and Dalibor Markovic after the event "Definition of a Bombastic Slam Poetry" (Zurich, CH, 2010)

In the 2000s, the German-speaking scene became so professional that around 20 to 30 artists can now live on the income from their performances, workshops , stage programs and commissioned works. Well-known German-speaking Slampoeten perform up to 200 appearances a year, publish with public publishers such as Ullstein or Carlsen and are sometimes asked to give autographs. In addition to the German "founding fathers" such as Bas Böttcher or Wehwalt Koslovsky , the established representatives also include the winners of the individual competition of the German-speaking championships such as Sebastian Krämer , Lasse Samström , Philipp Scharrenberg , Sebastian23 , Gabriel Vetter , Volker Strübing or Marc-Uwe Kling . In Austria, these include Markus Köhle , Mieze Medusa , Yasmin Hafedh , Lisa Eckhart , Elias Hirschl and Yannick Steinkellner . More Slammer contact humorous ( Julius Fischer , Lars Ruppel , Felix Lobrecht ), lyrical performative ( Nora Gomringer , Lydia Therefore , Pauline Füg , Xóchil A. contactor ), rap-oriented ( Fiva , crooks ) or narrative ( Sulaiman Masomi , Mishael -Sarim Verollet ) text forms. There are also a number of slam teams (such as Allen Earnstyzz ) that appear together on a regular basis.

Writers such as Tanja Dückers , Karen Duve , Judith Hermann , Nina Jäckle , Raphael Urweider and Finn-Ole Heinrich , who took part in the German-language championships in 2003 and 2004 , also appeared on German poetry slam stages, albeit only a few times .

Humor on slam stages

Slam participants Kay and Marcel at the poetry slam in Hildesheim , March 2007. Length: 26s

The dominance of satirical and humorous contributions has been described again and again on German-language slam stages , so the winners of the German-language championships from 2000 to 2009 were distinguished by the quality of their comic texts: "These are very popular with the audience and usually win a slam", writes Stefanie Hager. In her study, Steffi Gläser quotes an interview statement with the words: “An audience can primarily be [captivated] with humor”, which creates the “impression of an overweight in comical texts”. Stefanie Westermayr also quotes a person interviewed with the statement: "It is indeed true that the lecture is better received by the German audience if the content is funny and the lecture is held casually."

Poetry slams in Europe

Poetry slams in the USA and Canada

The author Toussaint Morrison recites a slam poem in Mifflin (USA), 2007

After poetry slams had spread worldwide from Chicago, the umbrella organization PSI (Poetry Slam Incorporated) was founded in the United States in 1997 to support and disseminate the event format.

Social Criticism and Democratization

Performance team Slam Nuba from Denver, 2008

The texts of US slam-poets are more socially critical than in Germany, and because of its origin, the movement is perceived more as an artistic platform for ethnic, sexual and social minorities: there, slam also serves as its “cultural self-insurance”. The Slam Nuba team from Denver, for example, is supported by the Pan African Arts Society. Unlike in Germany, so-called character poems are performed in the USA on slam stages in a form of role prose . Bob Holman describes the slam movement in the US as the "democratization of verse" and said in 2005:

“The spoken word revolution is led a lot by women and by poets of color. It gives a depth to the nation's dialogue that you don't hear on the floor of Congress. I want a floor of Congress to look more like a National Poetry Slam. That would make me happy. "

“The spoken word revolution is led by women and colored slampoos. Here the voice of the nation is articulated very differently than in Congress . I want the boardroom of Congress to resemble a National Poetry Slam - then I would be happy. "

- Bob Holman

In the USA, however, poetry slams are also criticized: For example, an anti-slam was founded in New York in which six minutes are available for each performance - as opposed to the competitive model - and all participants from the jury a full 10 points receive. John S. Hall criticized the competitive nature of the poetry slam when he described his first slam visit with the words:

“I hated it. And it made me really uncomfortable and […] it was very much like a sport, and I was interested in poetry in large part because it was like the antithesis of sports […] It seemed to me like a very macho, masculine form of poetry and not at all what I was interested in. "

"I hated it. It was like doing sports and I came here for the poetry, which is exactly the opposite. I found it a macho and extremely masculine form of poetry. "

- John S. Hall

The feedback from the academic milieu varied: the literary critic Harold Bloom described poetry slams in an interview in Paris Review as the "death of art". As in Germany, the boundaries between so-called subculture and e-culture are only permeable in very few exceptional cases: Ragan Fox (* 1976), for example, holds a professorship for “Performance Studies” at California State University and was a finalist of the National Poetry Slam , Kip Fulbeck (* 1965), art professor at the University of California, took part in slams in the early 1990s. Pulitzer Prize winner Henry S. Taylor, however, only reached 75th place (out of 150) in the 1997 National Poetry Slam . The musician Beck also tried his hand at being a poetry slammer.

World championships

In 2004 the first attempts were made to hold slam world championships: World Championship Poetry Slams were held in both Greenville, South Carolina, and Rotterdam , both of which were won by Buddy Wakefield from the USA. In 2009 Amy Everhart won the Individual World Poetry Slam in Berkeley , California . Both the high costs involved in getting the participants to travel and the language barriers - all texts have to be translated and subtitled - make such an undertaking a project that can hardly live up to its claim.

Poetry slams and the consequences

Variations

Scoring board at the National Slam in Munich, 2006

In addition to the basic rules outlined above (time limit, no props, competition mode), there are a number of variations: The most popular variant is the dead-or-alive slam , in which theater actors write the texts of "dead" poets (such as Brecht, Schiller or Hölderlin) ) compete against authors from the slam scene. A deaf slam takes place in sign language, a box slam combines a poetry slam with appearances by professional boxers, and there are also slams in the dark or in combination with a wall of shadows. At a jazz slam, slam-poets read texts to which a band improvises musically. In addition, anti-slams have already taken place in Cologne, Berlin and London, in which the worst contribution won. In 2012, Michl Jakob from Nuremberg organized the longest poetry slam in the world (25 hours). This world record was extended to 28 hours and 48 minutes by the Austrian slam organizer Lukas Wagner (slam laboratory) from December 10th to 11th. The record break took place in the SN room of the Salzburger Nachrichten .

The German-speaking championships have so far included dialect , erotic , rap , storyteller, rookie , haiku , cover (texts by other authors could be read), prop (props could be used) and political slams.

In the US island-style slam, the texts are written live within 20 to 25 minutes: each participant has to use three previously determined words in a poem. The 1-2-3 slam takes place in three rounds, with one, two or three minutes each. In the US Hecklers 'Slam , it is not the speakers' texts that are evaluated, but the interjections from the audience.

Derived formats

In Germany, non-literary formats based on the evaluation principle of the slam have also become established: a competition with self-produced short films is known as a short film slam, video or cine slam . An event with self-written and self-composed songs is called a singer-songwriter slam or song slam . There is also a philosophy slam and several science slams in which scientific results are presented in a concise form. The book slam organized by libraries exists as a form of literature funding . In 2011 the authors Ella Carina Werner and Nadine Wedel established a diary slam in Hamburg in which diaries are read aloud. The format of the comedy slam , which has existed in Germany since 2004, is now a strong independent derivative .

Related formats

Live.Poetry in Freiburg, 2005

In parallel to the slam, other public events for literature have developed in Germany that stand out from the classic author reading : At an open mic , the stage is opened to everyone who wants to enter it, but there is no competition. In storytelling cafés or storytelling salons , people are invited to tell a story (on a previously agreed topic). In the so-called reading stages , which became popular in Berlin in the 1990s , a fixed group of authors gives readings together at regular intervals. In Live.Poetry , a combination of poetry slam and theater sport , authors (at the Prosanova 2008 literature festival, for example, Sebastian 23 and Finn-Ole Heinrich ) create texts written live in interaction with the audience; then the winner is voted on. The publicist Sascha Lobo invited to a reading in 2006, at which the audience was allowed to torture the poets. At the Festival of Retold Film , participants in the competition have to retell the plot of a feature film in free speech; Similar forms of competition in front of an audience are freestyle battles , Powerpoint karaoke or theater sports.

Slam revue

In Europe, the so-called Slam-Revue was established in the 2000s , a performance reading without an open list, at which only invited slam- poets appear. The time limits have been extended, and the competition mode is often left out, so that slam revues can take on the character of classic author readings. One of the most famous revues is the language-open Internationale SLAM! Revue of the international literature festival berlin , which was initiated in 2002 by Martin Jankowski and Boris Preckwitz.

Poetry slams on the radio

Participant Matze B. at the Box Slam , St. Gallen , 2005

In the USA ran from 2002 to 2007 the show Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry , a show with performance poets, some of whom came from the slam scene. In Germany, WDR television produced three seasons of a poetry slam recorded in Cologne from 2007 to 2009 ( WDR Poetry Slam , moderation: Jörg Thadeusz ), the show was nominated for the Adolf Grimme Prize in 2007. , ARTE shone in 2007 from the annual International SLAM! Revue from Berlin organized a themed evening about the international development of the poetry slam and at the same time started a so-called “European WebSlam” on the Internet in which Internet users chose a winner every two months. The pay TV broadcaster Sat.1 Comedy produced the program Slam Tour with Kuttner in 2008 . As part of the focus on Sturm und Drang from 3sat and the ZDFtheaterkanal , the program Poetry Slam - dead or alive , was broadcast in 2009, in which poetry slammers competed against actors who presented texts from Sturm und Drang . The Süddeutsche Zeitung called in 2009 to a political slam on the Internet on the same year that produced SWR2 a radio Slam . In 2017, the Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk broadcast five slam programs called Slamdr , the winner of which was Sebastian 23.

Poetry slams in video and film

Poetry videos and clips

Saul Williams, 2005

Poetry clips are a variety of poetry videos or poetry films and video poetry. Between 1987 and 1993 Bob Holman produced a series of poetry spots for the New York television station WNYC-TV , which won the 1989 and 1992 New York Emmy Awards. In the 1990s, MTV and the US public broadcaster PBS brought spoken word contributions to television in the form of video clips. In 1996 Mark Pellington, Joshua Blum and Bob Holman shot the five-part series United States of Poetry for PBS with around 60 individual videos by poets, cowboy poets, rappers and slammers. The poetry film genre became known in Germany as part of the Biennial Zebra Poetry Film Festival organized by the Berlin Literature Workshop since 2002 . Ralf Schmerberg film Poem - I set foot in the air and she wore in 2003, a compilation filmed poems, presented a film anthology in the style of the video Poetry the term. Poetry clip goes on the Berlin slam poet Bas Böttcher and Wolf Hogekamp back who have been working on the implementation of the format in German-speaking countries since 2000 and published a collection of poetry clips on DVD in 2005. For the so-called poetry clips , the text is often staged specifically for the camera, so the format is similar to a music video .

Poetry slams in feature films

Poetry slams in feature films are primarily associated with the American poet and musician Saul Williams (* 1972), who won the 1996 Grand Slam Champion title of the Nuyorican Poets Café . In 1998 Williams played the lead role in the independent film Slam , in which he was also involved as a screenwriter. The film won the jury award at the Sundance Festival and a Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival .

Poetry slams in documentary films

The first documentary film about actors in the poetry slam SlamNation was made in 1996 by director Paul Devlin. The film accompanies the preparations for performances and competition entries of members of the Nuyorican Poets Slam team, who took part in the 1996 National Poetry Slam in Portland, and lets other slam activists such as Marc Smith, Bob Holman and Taylor Mali have their say. In 2012, Marion Hütter's documentary poets and fighters was shown in German cinemas: It accompanies four slammers across Germany for a year.

Research and Didactics

U20

Efforts are being made to bring slams to schools as a lively form of communication for literature in a didactic way. With the help of advanced training for teachers and workshops at schools, poetry slams for under 20-year-olds (“U20 slams”) exist in numerous German cities. In Stuttgart , the U20 poetry slam was first integrated into the program of the German-speaking championships in 2004. There is now a large number of research papers and theses on the topic, In part with special consideration of pedagogically meaningful literature and with suggestions for the didactic use of slam poetry in the classroom.

Poetry slam in the humanities

While US-American research in the tradition of cultural studies examines slam poetry primarily from the expression of pop and youth culture, cultural sociological studies attempt on an empirical basis - for example through audience surveys or interviews with slam poets - to find out about communication between the audience and To win the stage. Structural studies in literary studies, on the other hand, often ignore the performative and communicative elements of the slam.

literature

An extensive updated research bibliography (330 titles, including many full text, as of July 2019) can at this point in Citavi be downloaded -6 format.

Anthologies

Books (sorted by date)

DVDs

  • Temporary poetry . Konstanz: Speaking Station Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3-939055-05-1
  • Poetry clips . Berlin, 2005, ISBN 3-938424-02-8
  • Slam 2005 . Dresden: Voland and Quist, 2005, ISBN 978-3-938424-08-7
  • Slam Revolution - The History of Poetry Slam , RSW / ZDF, 2007
  • Poets and Fighters: Life as a Poetryslammer in Germany , Ascot Elite, 2012

Secondary literature

German speaking

  • Anders, Petra: Poetry Slam. Lessons, workshops, texts and media . German didactics up-to-date. Schneider Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8340-0896-1 . Table of contents, pdf
  • Anders, Petra: Poetry Slam in German class. Dissertation. Schneider Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8340-0757-5 . Table of contents, pdf
  • Anders, Petra: Poetry Slam. Live poets in poetic battles . Verlag an der Ruhr, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8346-0293-0 .
  • Anders, Petra; Abraham, Ulf: Poetry Slam & Poetry Clip. Forms of staged poetry of the present . In the magazine: "Praxis Deutsch", ISSN  0341-5279 , issue No. 208/2008 .
  • Bekes, Peter; Frederking, Volker (Ed.): The Poetry Slam Expedition: Bas Böttcher . Schroedel Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-507-47061-3 .
  • Ditschke, Stephan: "They say I am denser". Self-presentation at the poetry slam . In: Grimm, Gunter E./Schärf, Christian (ed.): Writer productions . Aisthesis, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-89528-639-1 , pp. 169-184.
  • Goehre, Micha-El : The little poetry slam ABC. Counselor . BookRix , 2009.
  • Jankowski, Martin: Film-lyric hybrid culture: Why poetry clips are nothing special . In: "New German Literature" No. 2/2003, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISSN  0323-4207
  • Homberger, Robert: Surfing, Poetry Slam and Graffiti: Origin, Development and Commercialization of Subcultures in the United States of America . Publishing house Dr. Müller 2008
  • Ohmer, Anja: It's showtime. Poetry slam and performing game . In: Playful Representation . Thepakos . Interdisciplinary journal for theater and theater education. Issue 15, 2011. ISSN  1862-6556 .
  • Masomi, Sulaiman : Poetry Slam. An oral culture between tradition and modernity . Lektora Verlag, Paderborn 2012. ISBN 978-3-938470-84-8 .
  • Perrig, Severin. Voices, Slams, and Box-Books: A History of Reading. Aisthesis 2009, ISBN 978-3-89528-733-6
  • Preckwitz, Boris : Pulls a slam to somewhere . In: Kampfansage , Lyrik Edition 2000 / Allitera Verlag 2013, ISBN 3-86906-588-5 .
  • Preckwitz, Boris: Spoken Word and Poetry Slam: Small writings on interaction aesthetics . Passagen Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85165-712-8 .
  • Preckwitz, Boris: Slam Poetry: Rearguard of Modernity . Books on Demand, 2002, ISBN 3-8311-3898-2
  • Serrer, Michael; Strack, Karsten: Poetry Slam. The manual. Lektora Verlag, Paderborn 2017, ISBN 978-3-95461-094-5
  • Stahl, Enno : Trash, Social Beat and Slam Poetry. A confusion of terms . In: Arnold, Heinz-Ludwig / Schäfer, Jörgen (Hrsg.): Pop-Literatur . Special volume, edition text + kritik, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-88377-735-8 , pp. 258–278.
  • Treml, Sandra. Vocabulary: pearls of the poetry slam . 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-022676-2 .
  • Westermayr, Stefanie: Poetry Slam . Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2005 (2nd, extended edition 2010), ISBN 3-8288-8764-3
  • Willrich, Alexander: Poetry Slam for Germany. The language, the slam culture, the media presentation, the opportunities for teaching . Lektora Verlag, Paderborn 2010. ISBN 978-3-938470-47-3
  • Wirag, Lino : Contemporary forms of informal literature mediation . In: Vanessa-Isabelle Reinwand u. a. (Ed.): Handbook of Cultural Education . kopaed, Munich 2012. ISBN 978-3-86736-330-3 . Pp. 485-488. Also available online.
  • Wirag, Lino: The birth of the poetry slam from the spirit of the theater . In: KulturPoetik: Volume 14, Issue 2, pp. 269–281.

English speaking

  • Glazner, Gary (Ed.): Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry . Manic D Press, San Francisco 2000, ISBN 0-916397-66-1
  • Smith, Marc Kelly; Kraynak, Joe: Complete Idiot's Guide to Slam Poetry . Alpha Books, Indianapolis 2004, ISBN 1-59257-246-4
  • Smith, Marc Kelly; Eleveld, Mark: The spoken word revolution: slam, hip-hop, & the poetry of a new generation . Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2003, ISBN 978-1-4022-0037-3
  • Smith, Marc Kelly; Kraynak, Joe: Take the Mic: The Art of Performance Poetry, Slam, and the Spoken Word. Sourcebooks Inc. 2009, ISBN 978-1-4022-1899-6
  • Smith, Marc Kelly; Kraynak, Joe: Stage a Poetry Slam: Creating Performance Poetry Events . Sourcebooks Inc. 2009, ISBN 978-1-4022-1898-9
  • Somers-Willett, Susan: The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race, Identity, and the Performance of Popular Verse in America . Univ. of Michigan Press 2009, ISBN 978-0-472-05059-8

Web links

Commons : Poetry slam  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Poetry Slam  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Video recordings

Scientific texts

Lecture

Individual evidence

  1. Poetry Slam, Poetryslam, der. In: duden.de. Retrieved on October 15, 2017 (This word was first found in the spelling dictionary in 2004).
  2. True Foreign Words Dictionary: Poetryslam. In: Wissen.de. Retrieved on November 21, 2017 (quotation from the Wahrig Foreign Word Dictionary without bibliographical information.).
  3. ^ Online vocabulary information system German : Poetry-Slam , Ed .: Institute for German Language
  4. Biggest poetry slam in the world on the Hamburg trotting track. In: welt.de. August 26, 2015, accessed July 24, 2019 .
  5. Nationwide directory of intangible cultural heritage - poetry slam in German-speaking countries. In: unesco.de. Retrieved October 23, 2019 .
  6. cf. Compact Oxford English Dictionary of Current English . Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2008
  7. ^ Hubert Graf (Ed.): Black American English. Straelen: Straelener Ms.-Verl., 1994, p. 142
  8. ^ Maria Ackermann: "The guy who invented poetry slam ..." - Marc Kelly Smith and his philosophy of the poetry competition. (No longer available online.) In: tu-chemnitz.de. November 22, 2005, archived from the original on February 9, 2014 ; accessed on June 28, 2018 .
  9. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 31
  10. Spitzer, Thomas: Goethe, Schiller, Chinakohl: As a humor ambassador in the land of smiles . Bastei Lübbe, 2016, p. Chapter "My bike" .
  11. Marc Smith. In: Eleveld (Ed.): The Spoken Word Revolution. Slam, Hip Hop & the Poetry of a new Generation. Naperville: Sourcebooks, 2003, p. 11
  12. a b Stefanie Westermayr: Poetry Slam in Germany, p. 39
  13. a b Yin Tsan: The Rise of the Poetry Slam - The teacher belongs to the Slamily. In: taz.de. January 11, 2010, accessed November 18, 2018 .
  14. Allan Wolf. Quoted in: Gary Mex Glazner: Poetry Slam. An Introduction. In the S. (Ed.): Poetry Slam. P. 11.
  15. SLAM 2016: Regulations of the German-language Poetry Slam Championships 2016. (PDF) Retrieved on June 3, 2017 .
  16. cf. the chapter “The evaluation of the audience” in: Stefanie Westermayr: Poetry Slam in Germany
  17. Bas Böttcher: The Poetry Slam Expedition . Schroedel publishing house. Braunschweig. 2009, p. 103
  18. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 28
  19. Bas Böttcher: The Poetry Slam Expedition . Schroedel publishing house. Braunschweig. 2009, p. 100
  20. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 49
  21. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 56 f.
  22. a b c Reinhold Schulze-Tammena: Slam Poetry. Speech poems to perform . In: Teaching & Learning: Journal for Schools and Innovation in Baden-Württemberg . No. 33/2007 . Neckar-Verlag, 2007, ISSN  0341-8294 , p. 10–12 ( full text ( memento of July 24, 2010 on WebCite ) [PDF; 45 kB ; accessed on May 28, 2018]).
  23. ^ Preckwitz: Pulls a Slam to Somewhere , p. 55
  24. Gerhard Schulze: The future of the adventure society. In: Oliver Nickel (Ed.): Event Marketing. Basics and examples of success. Munich: Vahlen, 1998, pp. 303-316
  25. a b c Stephan Porombka: Slam, Pop and Posse. Literature in the event culture. In: Matthias Harder (Hrsg.): Inventories. German-language literature of the nineties from an intercultural perspective. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001, pp. 27–42
  26. cf. Gregor J. Betz: Hybrid phenomena as playing fields for the new. Sociological considerations using the example of hybrid events. In: Nicole Burzan / Ronald Hitzler (ed.): Theoretical Insights. In the context of empirical work. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. 2017. pp. 89-102.
  27. ^ Boris Preckwitz: Slam. An anti-avant-garde literary movement. Master's thesis University of Hamburg 1997.
  28. Boris Preckwitz: More and more a farce. In: sueddeutsche.de , November 9, 2012; also as: BP: Histrions at the Resterampe. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , November 9, 2012
  29. "Slam poetry is performance poetry and a poetry slam is the stage for this form of literature."
  30. Bas Böttcher: You no longer hear this genre exclusively at open slam events. In a letter to the editor: "More and more a farce"
  31. Petra Anders: Slam Poetry: Staged stage poetry Poetry Slam (PDF; 188 kB)
  32. ^ Boris Preckwitz: Slam Poetry. Rearguard of modernity. P. 45
  33. Createspace.com: Keldrick Peoples Poetry Collection. Retrieved July 16, 2016 .
  34. ^ Matthias Penzel : Poems again after Chernobyl? . In foglio - pages of the senses , June / July 1995
  35. Ko Bylanzky: The unfinished history of the poetry slam in facts and figures - from the beginning until today. Presentation of the story up to 2004. In: planetslam.de. Archived from the original on August 30, 2010 ; accessed on August 21, 2019 .
  36. ^ Bob Holman: The Room. In: Gary Mex Glazner (Ed.): Poetry slam. The competitive art of performance poetry. San Francisco: Manic D Press, 2000, pp. 15-21, pp. 18.
  37. Worksheets from the English Department in Heidelberg 1994, p. 78
  38. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 32
  39. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 39
  40. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 41
  41. Myslam
  42. By Anke Groenewold: Bielefeld: Summit of Poetry Slammers. In: nw.de. Retrieved March 25, 2017 .
  43. ^ Beat poet battles ( Memento from August 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) In: Dichterschlacht.de
  44. Goethe.de: Topic: Poetry Slam ( Memento from July 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  45. An overview of the German-speaking championships. (No longer available online.) In: poesieschlacht.xtm.de. Archived from the original on December 30, 2015 ; accessed on May 14, 2019 .
  46. nomination. Retrieved February 16, 2018 . In: slam2014.de
  47. ↑ About speech bubbles and word battles: Poetry slam championships with record attendance. (PDF; 38 kB) Final communiqué of the championships in Zurich 2008. In: slam2008.ch. November 23, 2008, accessed November 25, 2019 .
  48. www.slam2009.de. 2009 Championships website. Accessed February 19, 2020.
  49. SLAM 2011 names its champions in the o2 World. (No longer available online.) In: slam2011.de. October 23, 2011, archived from the original on November 24, 2011 ; accessed on June 1, 2019 .
  50. Official website of the 16th championship 2012. Accessed on February 9, 2014 .
  51. Official website of the 17th championship 2013. Accessed on February 9, 2014 .
  52. ^ Jörg Meyer: U20 championships of the poetry slam. The long breath of words. In: Kieler Nachrichten online. Kieler Zeitung Verlags- und Druckerei KG-GmbH & Co., September 22, 2013, accessed on June 21, 2017 .
  53. ^ Official website of the 18th championship 2014. Accessed on February 9, 2014 .
  54. Team final jump-off. (No longer available online.) In: slam2014.de. Archived from the original on November 2, 2014 ; accessed on March 14, 2020 .
  55. U20-SLAM 2014 website
  56. Horst Thieme: InterroBang is the winner in the team competition. (No longer available online.) In: slam2015.de. November 7, 2015, archived from the original on March 14, 2016 ; accessed on October 15, 2017 .
  57. U20 Slam 2015
  58. U20Slam2016. In: U20Slam2016. Retrieved October 30, 2016 .
  59. Constantin Alexander: mass success poetry slam. In: Spiegel
  60. cf. this comment on an article in the taz
  61. for example Poet Hanz
  62. Frank Thadeusz: The Spokesman . In: Unispiegel . No. 2/2009 . Spiegel-Verlag, April 2009, ISSN  0171-4880 ( spiegel.de [accessed October 27, 2019]).
  63. Stefanie Westermayr: Poetry Slam in Germany: Theory and Practice of a Multimedia Art Form . 2nd, expanded edition. Tectum Wissenschaftsverlag, 2013, ISBN 978-3-8288-5610-3 ( limited preview in Google book search [accessed March 8, 2019]).
  64. Verena Carl: 10 Years Poetry Slam - This is where the poet speaks! In: spiegel.de . February 25, 2005, accessed November 7, 2019.
  65. Urweider Raphael. In: svbbpt.ch. Retrieved October 29, 2019 .
  66. Short biography and information on the work of Finn-Ole Heinrich at Literaturport
  67. Stefanie Hager: Receiving, producing and presenting literary texts
  68. a b Steffi Gläser: Slam Poeten, Slam Poetry, Poetry Slam: a literary and literary sociological investigation
  69. ^ Stefanie Westermayr: Poetry Slam in Germany . P. 65
  70. see also the History of Slam by Kurt Heintz (English), which traces the development of the Chicago scene up to 2000.
  71. ^ Website of Poetry Slam Incorporated
  72. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 33
  73. ^ Preckwitz: Spoken Word & Poetry Slam , p. 54
  74. Algarin, Miguel & Holman, Bob. (1994) Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Holt. ISBN 0-8050-3257-6
  75. Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe: Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam . Chapter 26: What the Heck Is Going On Here; The Bowery Poetry Club Opens (Kinda) for Business. Soft Skull Press, 2008. ISBN 1-933368-82-9
  76. Aptowicz, p. 291.
  77. Aptowicz, p. 290.
  78. Dirk Siepe: Interview with Beck - "Music is a kind of exorcism". In: spiegel.de. March 26, 2005, accessed November 28, 2019 .
  79. ^ Deaf Slam // Home. Retrieved July 27, 2019 .
  80. website
  81. Source: Slam Surpreme , Schall & Rauch Slam , Slam in the Dark Berlin
  82. ^ Michael Heide: Anti-Slam Cologne. In: koeln.de. City of Cologne, 2011, accessed on July 6, 2017 .
  83. Nicole Schnell: Young poets brought the world record to Salzburg. In: sn.at. Salzburger Nachrichten, December 12, 2016, accessed on October 28, 2017 .
  84. ^ Poetry slam world record in Salzburg. In: salzburg.orf.at. December 11, 2016. Retrieved October 29, 2017 .
  85. cf. the websites of the German language championships in 2003 in Darmstadt and Frankfurt , 2004 in Stuttgart , 2006 in Munich , 2007 in Berlin , 2008 in Zurich , 2009 in Düsseldorf and 2010 in the Ruhr area .
  86. ^ Report by Henryk M. Broder
  87. Website ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.grimme-institut.de
  88. Slam on ARTE ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.arte.tv
  89. Website ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / theaterkanal.zdf.de
  90. Small but creative: The Süddeutsche is looking for slam poets. (No longer available online.) In: medien-monitor.com. January 25, 2011, archived from the original on August 28, 2009 ; accessed on February 15, 2019 .
  91. Slamdr - The Poetry Slam Show. In: mdr.de
  92. Aptowicz, Cristin O'Keefe: Words in Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam. Soft Skull Press, 2008. ISBN 1-933368-82-9
  93. Awards for Slam on IMDB
  94. Anders, Petra: Slam Poetry . Reclam, 2008
  95. Micha-El Goehre: Das kleine Poetry Slam-ABC. Counselor. BookRix , January 1, 2009, pp. 1–13 , accessed September 17, 2013 .