Grand [poetry] slam

Taking language – and Jerusalem – to new heights with spoken-word poetry.

By RIVKAH LAMBERT ADLER
Shev Shatzman (photo credit: RACHEL STOMEL)
Shev Shatzman
(photo credit: RACHEL STOMEL)
If you have an above-average command of English, a glib tongue and a message, there’s a good chance you could be a spoken word poet.
If you think you can’t relate to poetry, chances are you haven’t yet attended a spoken-word poetry event. According to Rachel Stomel, a 30-year-old mother of one who revived and has been organizing Jerusalem’s monthly poetry slams since February 2015, “Spoken-word poetry is actually the oldest form of poetry. Most people think of traditional poetry as the written stuff they were forced to analyze in high school. Poetry gets a bad rap as being pretentious and inaccessible.”
Stomel, who works as an activist, translator, writer and graphic designer, describes spoken-word poetry as “a kind of performance art. It’s more than just poetry out loud. It’s dynamic poetry meant to engage a live audience and it uses language in the broadest sense – body language, facial expression, voice, tone, rhythm, movement and lots of other elements, on top of the actual words of the poem.”
English speakers in Jerusalem now have a monthly opportunity to experience this art form. Meeting at the Off the Wall Comedy Basement in central Jerusalem one evening a month, spoken-word poets perform in a vaguely competitive event called a poetry slam.
Event dates and themes are announced in the Jerusalem Poetry Slam Facebook group.
At each poetry slam, five randomly chosen audience members are picked to serve as judges, even if they don’t know a thing about the art form. According to Stomel, “Each poet gets up on stage and performs a piece, after which the judges rate it on a scale from 0 to 10. The highest scoring poets move on to a second round of poetry which is also judged. The winner with the highest cumulative score performs an encore piece.” And what’s the prize for being the best? “Everlasting fame and glory,” joked Stomel.
Rachel Stomel (photo credit: RACHEL STOMEL)
Rachel Stomel (photo credit: RACHEL STOMEL)
The audience serves a critical function, and there is specific etiquette for audience members at poetry slams. In fact, the audience contributes almost as much to the climate of any particular poetry slam as the performers do. Stomel elaborated, “Aside from the judges’ scores that provide direct feedback, the audience is encouraged to be very responsive as well – to snap, cheer, hiss, boo, etc. As an artist, it’s so valuable to have feedback like that to gauge if your piece works or not.
“Different audiences will have different dynamics. A piece that takes off at one slam could completely flop at the next. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The slam attracts a very diverse group of people and part of the challenge is to engage them all, to find something universal and present it in a personal way.”
Computer science student, Intel employee and Haifa resident, 23-year-old spoken-word poet Or Bairey-Sehayek was familiar with spoken-word poetry from watching YouTube videos. From early 2014 until mid-2015, he was a regular performer with Poetry Slam Israel in which spoken-word poets perform in both Hebrew and English at events all over Israel. Beginning in September 2016, Bairey-Sehayek returned to performing in the Jerusalem poetry slams.
He performs “social commentaries on issues I feel strongly about and deeply personal, emotionally charged stories regarding my past heroin addiction, experience with child abuse, etc.” He enjoys the therapeutic experience of seeing “my feelings on these subjects through the shock of the audience and [experiencing] them again with the same intensity as when those things actually took place.”
Bairey-Sehayek pointed out that “spoken-word poetry is a very, very wide genre and there are many different ways to both write and perform with it.” Spoken-word poets use “linguistic and dramatic elements that are taboo in other genres. Things like cursing, yelling, lack of rigid rhythm [and] rhyming or even a tasteful interruption thereof.”
Bairey-Sehayek pointed out that there are differences between the English and Hebrew spoken-word scenes: “The type of Hebrew spoken-word poetry that has become most successful in slams can be described more or less as stand-up comedy with rhymes... for someone who performs in English and with thought-provoking, serious and sometimes intentionally disturbing content, it’s very difficult to participate in a setting where people who make fart jokes are seen as the rock stars and people like myself are sometimes asked by the organizers to ‘write about something a little more cheerful next time.’” Stomel agreed about how Israel’s Hebrew and English poetry slams diverge, that the Hebrew slams are more humorous while the English slams are more serious.
“Both humor and provocation are easy ways to elicit a strong reaction from your audience, so it is tempting for a poet to resort to these devices, sometimes at the expense of the content. You need to find the happy balance, to successfully convey your message without turning the form into a gimmick.
“I also noticed that many of the stars of the Hebrew slam scene had backgrounds in professional acting while the more successful poets in the English scene were writers,” she said. Long-time poetry slam fan, 47-year-old Jerusalemite Yehuda Berlinger works as a writer and began attending poetry slams in the 1990s in the basement of Yakar, an Orthodox Jerusalem synagogue.
Berlinger told In Jerusalem that, while the Yakar events were “hit or miss”, he finds the current Jerusalem poetry slams that Stomel revived feature “some good and great poets, and usually no really bad ones. Rachel tries to weed out people who are obviously bad poets [and] readers.”
Despite the fact that the Jerusalem poetry slams are competitions, Berlinger says the competition is “friendly, with scores that don’t mean much and a supportive audience.”
He reflected on what he gets out of attending poetry slams. “The joy of hearing poetry, and sometimes the inspiration to write my own and an opportunity to perform it for others. It’s a gorgeous and fulfilling entertainment [and] art form for intellectuals, something you don’t get too often, although there are now half a dozen poetry forums floating around Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It also connects me with like-minded people, which is lovely,” he said.
Berlinger has clearly given the performance art form some thought. “One oddity with the slam format is that it is inherited from ‘urban’ America; I sometimes have cognitive dissonance seeing a pretty, small, white, wealthy Anglo shouting, stamping her feet, and shaking her fist reading with the intonation of a young black man from the inner city, when the contents of her poem are not all that tragic.
“Other times they are, and the poet really has something to be angry about – race or gender harassment... Some kinds of poems are not suitable to reading aloud, so you don’t hear all kinds of poems. And some poets have great poems, but don’t read well; it’s not just about poetry, it’s also performance art,” he said.
In addition to attending poetry slams, Jerusalemite Eitan Press, 39, works as the head of digital media for United Hatzalah of Israel.
Like Berlinger, at spoken-word poetry events, he finds, “a community of people who I can share my inner world with and who can also be very different from me, but can connect through the medium.”
While Press says that “The art form itself can become formulaic in terms of delivery style, themes, and structure,” he also thinks it has untapped spiritual potential. “I would love to see a greater confluence between poetry and Jewish spirituality. I believe poetry can be connected to a low level of ruah hakodesh [divine inspiration] depending on where the poet is writing from,” he mused.
Expanding on the connection between Judaism and spoken- word poetry, Stomel observed, “I think it’s interesting to think about Judaism’s rich history of non-textual ritual and learning and how that compares to the spoken-word revival. As a religious person, I see a lot of parallels between the participatory aspect of spoken word and religious practice. Making text experiential and alive is what we do as Jews.”
She also sees untapped potential for social good in poetry slams and other spoken-word poetry events. “I hope that the English slam scene will continue to grow, because it’s such a valuable forum for connecting. You can tackle so many topics and the format can be tailored to different needs.
“Spinning off the format of poetry slams, I’ve seen English sermon slams and even prayer slams popping up. I’ve also given seminars and led spoken-word workshops in schools. It’s a great format for teens or college students because it promotes expression and listening among your peers. It’s a great tool for education and empowerment.
“Spoken-word events are also becoming popular to explore social or political issues. They create spaces for real community dialogue, because anyone can get up and perform publicly and loudly. When you open up the space for performers, you also open up the audience, and that is incredibly valuable.
“This year, I’ll be running my third annual Verses Against Violence event, a bilingual spoken-word event to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women [November 25]. Spoken word is more than an artistic movement – it stands at the intersection of art, community and social justice,” Stomel told In Jerusalem.
If you’ve never attended a poetry slam or other spoken-word poetry event, Stomel has this advice for you. “I’d say, drop all your preconceived ideas about what poetry is and isn’t and don’t assume that poetry just ‘isn’t your thing.’ There’s a reason why you’ll see slam pieces on YouTube going viral. Spoken word is accessible and contagious! It’s a lot of fun.”
For more information: www.israelcomedy.com/