HOW TO ORGANIZE A KICK ASS POETRY SLAM by R. Eirik Ott

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2 HOW TO ORGANIZE A KICK ASS POETRY SLAM by R. Eirik Ott WHAT THE HELL IS A POETRY SLAM? Behold Poetry Slams! Verbal warriors battling it out on the microphone, donning lyric proof vests and slamming clips of performance poetry into their 9 mm notebooks and peppering the audience with molten metaphors and similes. Yeah baby, thatʼs what Iʼm talking about: a Wussy Boy wet dream of rock star glory! Poetry slams are like poetic boxing matches. Hereʼs how it works: five judges are randomly chosen from the audience and tasked with rating each performance on an Olympic scale of 1-10 (the top score and the bottom scores are dropped, and the three in the middle are added together, so a perfect score is a 30). Readers sign up open mike style and are called to the stage one at a time to perform one original poem within three minutes. Each poet gets scored, and the one at the end of the slam who has the highest score is declared the winner. You can imagine the kind of criticism this sort of thing gets. Oh, the English lit. majors shout, how can you rate a work of art on a scale of 1-10? Itʼs blasphemy, the creative writing professors scream, to rank one poet as better than another fellow poet! But, in the end, a poetry slam has one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to convince a skeptical audience that spoken word and performance poetry can be jam-packed with all the excitement and fun of a rock and roll show. Really, the roars of approval during a heated poetry slam match can rival that of any rock show, and the most common response by a newcomer to slams is this: I had no idea that this sort of thing could be so much fun. Itʼs all a matter of creating this call and response between the poets and the audience, plus poetry slams show that regular average people have just as much right to say what they like and dislike about poetry as any tenured professor at some ivy league school. The competition aspect of the poetry slam is just a game, really, itʼs just a means of engaging the audience. The point should never be the points; it should always be the poetry. So, if the poets go into this situation understanding that their reason for being there on a stage in front of an audience is to be a part of an exuberant show and not to rank themselves from best to worst poet, then the evening can be one hell of a roller coaster ride of fun with the spoken word.

3 WHY SLAM? BECAUSE OPEN MIKES SUCK! A poetry slam is nothing more or less than an open mike poetry reading thatʼs been streamlined for maximum audience enjoyment. Anyone who has ever been to a local open mike poetry reading in some cafe or bookstore can tell you why they can drag ass: inarticulate poets who are too self-important to realize they suck eggs ramble on and on about things no one really cares about, then they shove their poetry notebooks into their little black backpacks and leave. In the standard format of open mike readings, the poet expects the audience to sit there and shut up and pay attention no matter how much they suck. I am here, they say, and I am a poet, they assert, and you must sit there and listen to me read and show me respect until I am finished listening to the sound of my own voice, then I will leave because I am not here to listen to anyone elseʼs poetry! God, I hate most open mikes! They are so boring and so filled with the most pretentious, self-deluded assholes! What poetry slams do is put the focus on the audience. The audience is not there to serve the ego of the poet; hell, no, they are there to be entertained and engaged and enlightened by the poet. They are paying the most precious thing they can give a poet their time and attention and they deserve to be compensated by readers who have something other than their own selfish, onanistic interests in mind. No one wants to watch some black bereted dickhead verbally masturbate for two hours, you know? Poetry slams limit the shitty aspects of an open mike and pump up the good ones. They are still open forums for expression, but the audience is empowered to choose what it likes and dislikes. If someone comes to the stage and they are giving that extra bit to engage the audience incorporating elements of stand-up comedy, performance poetry, and dramatic monologue then they are rewarded with phat applause and good scores. If the poet just wants to moan and groan about the same old boring shit that every high school poet has been moaning and groaning about for ages, then they are given their three minutes just like everyone else, then politely clapped to their seats. Usually, there are two rounds in a poetry slam, with the top few poets returning for more poetry, so this judging thing allows the judges to pick which poets theyʼd like to hear from again. Another reason I like poetry slams is that they take poetry appreciation out of the realm of classrooms and dusty textbooks and tenured professors and put it in the bars and coffeehouses and nightclubs in which the common person spends time. It shows that poetry is something that is open and available to everyone; it shows that poetry applies to the lives

4 of each and every person, not just the ones who can stomach an MFA degree. POETRY SLAM, THE EARLY YEARS Poetry slams first started more than ten years ago in a Chicago bar called the Green Mill. A former construction worker named Marc Smith wanted to inject some life into the same old dull poetry readings, and so he developed this mock competition to spice up the performances and energize the audiences. It caught on, and pretty soon venues all across the country started organizing their own slams. It wasnʼt long before some friendly shit-talking started, and in 1991 the San Francisco scene challenged the Chicago scene to a team match for poetry slam glory. The National Poetry Slam was born! Each year after that, more and more venues across the country staged their own poetry slams, and every May or so each scene would hold a big poetry slam to determine which four poets would get the chance to represent their city at the National Poetry Slam. The focus was on friendly competition and the advancement of spoken word and performance poetry. Along the way rivalries popped up and scenes started to distinguish themselves from each other the NY style was hard-edged and honed with social and political criticism; the Chicago style relied more on pure poetry and less on theatrics; the West Coast and Texas crews specialized in stand-up comedy and high energy rants. Each year the National Poetry Slam has gotten bigger and bigger until finally, in 2004, the host city of St. Louis welcomed 60 teams from across the country and garnered even more national attention than ever before. So, how do you do it? How do you bring this national phenomenon right to the coffeehouse across the street from your campus in your hometown? HOW TO ORGANIZE A POETRY SLAM The best advice I have ever gotten about what it means to be a performance poet came through a simple and quick exchange I had several years ago with New York poet Bob Holman. I had been performing for a couple of years in Southern California and the Bay Area and seemed to be making a name for myself slowly but surely, getting offered featured readings and meeting a lot of great people, and I really wanted to know how an unknown poet could take this hobby and make it into something closer to a career, one that could actually pay the rent rather than make me feel like a big fat loser with too

5 many unattainable dreams. I ed him some naive question like, So, Mr. Holman, how do I get to the next level? I had never met the guy, and he had never heard of me, but I sure had heard of him. He was the guy behind the PBS series United States of Poetry. He was one of the guys who put together one of my favorite anthologies of poetry, Aloud: Live From the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. He was running a performance poetry label called Mouth Almighty for Mercury Records that released CDs by performance poets like Wammo and Beau Sia. Everyone who was anyone in the poetry slam community knew him, and if anyone could tell me how to be a poetry rock star, surely it would be Bob Holman. I wanted him to give me insider scoop on the process of becoming a professional poet. I wanted him to give me the names of agents and managers who could help my career and lift me up from obscurity and set me on the path to rock star glory. I wanted him to share the fruits of his experiences in becoming one of the best known personalities in the poetry slam scene. He sent me back one sentence with no explanation. He said this: Stop performing poetry for one year and start a poetry venue. I was so disappointed. I immediately erased the from my hard drive with a huff and a Thanks for nothing, you prick bastard whispered under my breath. Little did I know, he was so right on so many different levels. Being the organizer and host of a venue is like going to performance poetry boot camp, and every little thing you learn while doing it will not only help you become a better performer but will also provide you with an arsenal of skills and talents that are absolutely necessary for the next level. Plus, the very best way to become an active part of the extended poetry slam community is by providing a new venue for touring slammers to visit, helping the network of venues and hosts to continue its growth by adding to the list of 100+ venues in the U.S. The person who runs the show in a poetry slam scene is known as the Slam Master, a term which seems grandiose and even a little silly, but with all the work they do, they deserve a title that sounds impressive. Some people opt for terms like Host or Organizer, but the accepted term in the extended community is Slam Master. A Slam Master is the eye of the storm in a poetry slam scene and must be many things at once, juggling countless job titles as they build and maintain a local community. They must be public relations specialists, churning out press releases and putting them into the hands of the people

6 who can put out the word on their poetry events. They must be coaches and counselors, dishing out just the right mix of encouragement and creative criticism. They must be scapegoats, ready to step up and take the blame for anything and everything that goes wrong. They must be booking agents, contacting touring poets and bringing them to the local community. A Slam Master is equal parts den mother, publicist, captain, navigator, instigator and lubricator, and itʼs a job with ever-increasing importance as the scene continues to swell and grow. In the end, the Slam Master often ends up simply being the one who does all the work. With luck, they can gather a small group of dedicated helpers who will share the workload, but, in the end, a great Slam Master is one who can have all their helpers flake on them and still keep the show going. The best way to learn how to be a slam master is by visiting poetry slams that are already up and running. Just show up and deliver your poetry. Talk to the host and tell them you are thinking about starting your own venue, and offer to help out at their slam to gain experience. Most Slam Masters are eager to embrace newcomers who want to start their own venue because it gives poets one more place to perform, so simply walking up to one and talking with them about their experiences is the best way to start. So, letʼs get right into it: Starting your own poetry slam. There are as many ways to organize a poetry slam as there are slam masters, but there are four common elements on which a new Slam Master must focus: 1] nabbing a suitable venue; 2] gathering a group of poets; 3] drawing an enthusiastic audience; and 4] being an engaging host. There are a bzillion more things youʼll learn along the way as your venue grows, but these four things seem to be the most important things to focus on, especially in the beginning. FINDING A VENUE First things first, youʼve got to have a place for performers to perform and audiences to holler themselves hoarse, and picking a good venue from the start can make the difference between standing-room-only crowds and pathetically thin gatherings of the dorkiest people you could ever want to meet. Every town, no matter how big or small, has a heart, and you want to plant your slam in center of that beating heart of your community. (In the case of huge cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, there could be ten different beating hearts channeling creative blood to the masses.)

7 Whether itʼs a bustling downtown area, a quirky neighborhood full of artists and bohemians, or the multi-coloured bustle around a college campus, you want to find a center of activity thatʼs already a gathering point for the people you want to draw. You canʼt expect to start a slam in some remote coffeehouse in some deserted strip mall on the far side of town and have lines of people waiting to come in. Itʼs hard enough to get people to come to poetry events without expecting them to drive out of their way to find your gig, so pick a hip, cool, funky area of town with lots of coffeehouses and record shops and book stores and movie theatres, some place where people already gather. This gives you a builtin audience from the start, and puts your gig in a place that is already a destination in peopleʼs minds. Now that you have an area of town in mind, youʼve got two goals: 1] to find a place that will allow you to take over for three hours on a regular basis; and 2] to find a place that wonʼt charge you for use of their space and still let you keep the money you collect as a cover charge at the door. This might take some convincing on your part. While some business owners might open their doors to you because they support the free expression of poetry, they certainly will not continue to do so if your poetry slam is losing them money. In general, you want to pick a business that will benefit from having you pack the joint on a regular basis. Your sales pitch is a simple one. You will take their slowest night of the week, most likely a Monday or Tuesday, and you will make it one of their best nights of the week by packing the place with patrons willing to consume their products. In exchange for doing all the promotion and organization work, you will charge a small cover at the door to clear your expenses and pay featured poets. Bookstores, for example, seem like a natural place to hold a poetry reading, but consider this: You will be filling the place with a ton of people who will probably will not be buying books at $10-$25 a pop since poets are the most no-money-havingest folks in the world, so for the entire length of the reading that bookstore will not be making a dime, and since it will be so crowded, legitimate customers will take one look through the door and keep walking. Another place you might consider at first is a performance space like an art gallery or a local theatre, but again, unless you plan on paying for using the space or offering the owners a cut of the door money, the owners will stand to make zip from having your slam there. Yes, the space gets the benefit of the promotion, but, in the end, the owners might end up disliking the fact that you collect $3 per person while they get nothing.

8 You are basically forming a partnership with the owner of the venue, one that will be mutually beneficial. Most successful poetry slams that I have seen are in one of two places: bars or coffeehouses. Each has their benefits and drawbacks, and choosing one over the other depends on the crowd you hope to draw. Bars are natural places for poetry slams, especially quirky, funky bars that draw quirky, funky people. Mixing alcohol and poetry is such a time-honored tradition, and the imbibing of spirits tends to lift the spirits of everyone in elbow-rubbing distance, making for a boisterous and enthusiastic audience. Poetry slamming began in a bar, and some of the best readings in the country mix their verse with hi-balls and shots and pints of dark brew. Bars are great places for slams since they are already gathering places, and since many bars offer music as a means of attracting people to drink their alcohol, thereʼs a good chance they have a stage and lighting and a p.a. system already in place. The only drawback to a bar is the fact that your slam will only be serving poetry to those over 21, which, in a lot of communites, especially small ones, could cut your audience by more than half and deprive some amazing young poets the chance of sharing their work. This could be a good thing in some ways, depending on your point of view. Older people tend to have more money to spend on things like alcohol and drinks, so drawing an over-21 crowd benefits the business youʼre working with. Young people tend to pay just enough to get in the door, then donʼt spend much beyond that. For me, though, all-ages venues are the best way to serve a community, mixing the older, more experienced poets with the fierce energy and wide-eyed enthusiasm of younger poets. Coffeehouses, then, are the next best things to bars, especially coffeehouses that serve wine and beer as well as mochas and lattes. Live poetry and coffeehouses come on! they go together like peas and carrots, baby, like sharks and remoras, those little flat-headed fish that attach themselves to the bottom of sharks. As the growth of caffeine delivery systems have skyrocketed, so have the poetry readings that just naturally seem to come along with hot espresso drinks and pastries. Finding a good-sized coffeehouse that will let you run a slam serves both the young and old in your community and will often draw a larger and more dynamic audience than a bar will. There is a trade-off, though, because, like I said, young people tend to not buy as much stuff as older people, so youʼve got to maintain a balance. A venue with no young people is going to lack dynamic energy, and a venue with too many young people tends to lack in experience and diversity of expression and, sad to say, money for the venue.

9 Hereʼs how I picked a venue in Chico, the little northern California college town where I spent six years chasing a journalism degree. The Chico State University campus is right at the center of town, which is the heart of Chico and the place where everything happens, and its filled with 14,000 young people eager to find something to do. There are bars and coffeehouses and records shops and funky clothing shops, and all the big fun community events happen right there within walking distance of the campus. There was never any doubt that downtown was the place for the slam, so I just picked the coolest, funkiest, quirkiest bar in the downtown area, a dive called Duffyʼs Tavern. Think velvet Elvises and a big tapestry of Jesus playing baseball, walls of black and a jukebox spouting Tom Waits, The Replacements, and the Pogues, complete with a tiny little stage in the corner with one red light and a mike held together with duct tape. I made the deal with the owner: You tell me the slowest night of the week, and I will make it one of your best nights. You let me charge $3 at the door, and I will make sure we have two breaks during the night where people will be directed to the bar. I even promised to pimp drink specials. The owner was a little unsure that poetry could pack the joint, so I offered to do two shows before he had to commit to letting us do it every Tuesday. If it didnʼt dazzle him, weʼd look for another place to hold our event. He thought a moment, smiled, then poured me a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and welcomed me aboard. The gigs were off the hook and instantly filled the room with college students eager for something new to do, and the bar ended up making just as much from liquor sales during our slams as on a night with a band, so everyone was happy that whole semester......except for the kids at the door clamouring to get in but unable to do so because they were under 21. When the amount of kids outside the door equaled the amount of people inside, I knew it was time to change venues and go all ages. So, I went to the biggest downtown coffeehouse, Moxieʼs, which was easily twice the size of Duffyʼs Tavern, and I made the same deal. Tell me your slowest night of the week, and I will make it your best night of the week. Boom, the owner said Tuesday, we switched venues, and the size of our crowd doubled to nearly 100 every Tuesday night. I announced coffee drink specials during breaks, informed the over-21 folks there were beers and wines available as well, and everyone was happy. As long as you respect a business ownerʼs need to maintain their business, you will be taking care of the venue and have a healthy, happy home for your slam. So, youʼve got the venue, youʼre all stoked, youʼve decided on a night

10 that doesnʼt conflict with other big poetry events in the area, youʼre ready to go, now what? PROMOTING YOUR SLAM Your next step is to get the word out about your venue, both to the poetry community and the potential members of the audience. This, of course, takes a bit of time, so give yourself at least three weeks to promote your first night, if not a full month. I organized rock shows before I switched over to poetry readings, and the way I promote slams is very much informed by the way I did music gigs. There are all kinds of ways to promote what you are doing, but the simplest and cheapest method is the same one used by punk bands through the ages: photocopied fliers and quarter-page handbills. This is as grass-roots as you can get, and an eye-catching flier posted on the right bulletin board or storefront window can do wonders for bringing people into your reading. Designing a decent flier is important, because a dry, boring flier will be a waste of your time and money, so sit down in front of a computer with a design program like Adobe PageMaker and some cool clip art and get busy. If you donʼt have a computer or canʼt afford access, itʼs all good, just get some old magazines and some scissors and glue, and boom, youʼre on your way to Flier Heaven punk rock stylie. Hereʼs what you donʼt want: A white piece of paper with the words Poetry reading 6 p.m. Tuesday at Cafe Gorilla Hips, like, centered on the page, all the words the same size, in a font like Times or Helvetica. Really, be honest, would you respond to a flier that looked like that? You just know the poetry at an event with that kind of flier is going to be nauseatingly dull, so donʼt you dare bust out with something like that. Remember this always: most people think poetry is boring and lame, so if your flier is boring and lame, you are only cementing that perception. You want to show that your poetry reading is different from what they expect. This is, after all, a poetry SLAM, and itʼs many things but BORING is not one of them. Give your reading series a cool name, something catchy and dynamic. I used to call my gigs in Chico Word Core, sorta like Hard Core, as in punk rock, only with words instead of music. Iʼd have the phrase WORD CORE in big capitol letters across the top, like really big letters, letters you could see from a block away, and Iʼd often pair them with a huge image, like a person holding a notebook and screaming into a microphone. Beneath that, Iʼd have something to explain what I was doing, some tagline, like, full contact performance poetry delivered live

11 and in your face! Add the date, the time, the place, and the cost, and boom, youʼve got yourself a flier. When designing a flier, remember that you have to catch the eye of someone walking past who has much better things to do with their time than look at your dumb old flier, so make sure thereʼs a large dominant image that works as a visual hook. For the reading series in Seattle that I ran with a friend of mine named Karen Finneyfrock, I chose a short, simple name that was as fun to say as it was to look at: YAWP! For the flier, the name was HUGE across the top, so big you could see it from 50 feet away, and the main image is a guy screaming into a microphone that goes from the top of the flier all the way to the bottom, with the YAWP! right next to his screaming head as if he were screaming the word. This gives the viewer an idea of what the reading is all about without having to read anything else on the flier. It catches their eyes, makes them go, Hmmm, whatʼs that all about? As they draw closer to inspect it, more information is revealed: the date, the time, the name of the venue. These are the first solid pieces of info a person needs, so make them the next biggest things on the flier. As they draw closer, they can pick up more information, like the venue address and phone number for more information, maybe an for even more information, and the fact that all poets are welcome to sign up and read. Catch their attention then draw them in, just like a good slam poem. The best way to see the difference between a good and bad flier is easy: Just go to the bulletin boards at any college campus, and pay attention to what catches your eye. Simply pattern your flier after some other flier that catches your eye, and you are halfway there. When you get your flier, print it on a bright color and post it in the window of every coffeehouse, bookstore, record store, and bar in the neighborhood surrounding your venue, then put larger versions of the flier in the venue itself, like legal size or even 11x17. College campuses are great places for fliers since most buildings have numerous bulletin board for posting such things, so spend an hour on every campus in your town tacking a copy on every cork board you see. (Sometimes you need a stamp on your flier to post it on a campus, so check with the main office for info, otherwise your flier will get torn down and tossed in the trash.) Iʼve even looked up the names of every bookstore in town and sent them a copy of my flier and asked them to post them in their window for me. Telephone poles, bathroom mirrors, anything that has fliers on it should have a copy of yours. The next step is printing up handbills, which are simply a quarterpaged version of the flier. These are small and easy to tote and are meant to be passed from hand to hand, so bring a stack with you everywhere

12 you go, especially to other poetry readings in town. Ask the host if itʼs cool, of course, then sign up on the open mic list, do a kick ass poem, and tell the audience about your new venue. Go through the audience and make sure everyone has a copy of the handbill, and make sure the handbill has your contact info in case anyone has any questions. Do this at all the poetry events in your city, and hit any other gathering of people, whether itʼs a play or a concert or a ballet, whatever, find large masses of potential audience members and hit them with handbills. Hell, when Henry Rollins did a spoken word gig in Chico one year and drew a crowd of nearly a thousand, I was there at the door giving every person a flier to my poetry slam as they passed. Something Iʼve also had success with is hitting the mailboxes in the English departments of local college campuses. If you can get permission, put a copy of your flier in each professorʼs mailbox with a note asking them to tell their classes about your reading. Maybe most will ignore it, but the few who help you out will be exposing a whole classroom of people to your reading. Iʼve even gone so far as to show up in the offices of English professors and tell them directly about my readings and offer to come into their classes to perform poetry and announce the reading, and many have taken me up on my offer. In fact, I did several readings and workshops in classes on the Chico State campus every semester, and these always brought in new readers and audience members. Fliers are great and an absolute must in getting out the word, but one newspaper article can really get a crowd of people at your reading. Itʼs a bit tricky to get a newspaper to run more than a mention in their calendar section about your poetry reading, because, again, most people think poetry is boring, so your job is to show that your poetry reading is different, hence worth telling the world about. You can do this by drafting a press release promoting your reading. A good press release should read just like a well written feature news story with all the solid information about your gig near the top and a strong opening hook to catch the readerʼs attention. This beginning called a lead acts the same way as your large dynamic graphic on your flier does, which is to catch the eye and the imagination of the reader and lead them into the rest of the press release. A good plan is to read the entertainment section of a local newspaper and notice which stories get you to the fifth paragraph and which ones fail to keep your attention, and format your press release like the ones that work. For example, I would never draft a press release like that boring flier on the white paper with the centered type, you know, Poetry reading 6 p.m. Tuesday at Cafe Gorilla Hips. I swear to you that a press release that reads like that is destined for the tiny type in the calendar section and

13 will never get you a featured story in a newspaper. Remember, the editor of the entertainment section of a newspaper wants people to actually read about the events that are highlighted, so only the very best, most interesting events get articles. Hereʼs a sample press release for a fictitious reading at Cafe Gorilla Hips in the fictitious town of Solisville to show you what Iʼm talking about. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PUNK ROCK POETRY SLAM DEBUTS AT CAFE GORILLA HIPS MAY 11! This ainʼt your grandmotherʼs poetry reading this is a poetry slam! Dynamic spoken word and performance poetry will explode into Solisville on Tuesday, May 11, when the Word Core Poetry Slam series takes over Cafe Gorilla Hips (1313 Mockingbird Lane, ). Show time is 7 p.m. The cover charge is $3. This debut event will kick off a weekly poetry slam series of Tuesday evening events that will showcase a high energy format akin to a poetic boxing match. Yes, poetry, but this isnʼt the dull, dry, boring verse you were forced to study in high school. This is a poetry slam, and that means a blistering mix of performance poetry, stand-up comedy, and dramatic monologue delivered with a manic intensity that has become one of the hottest things to hit poetry since Ginsburgʼs ʻHowl.ʼ Hosted by local poet Melinda Hurricane Parker, this sweatdrenched evening of creative expression seeks to create a new venue for poets and fans of the spoken word that offers the enthusiastic energy of a punk rock show. Poetry slams have really energized the performance poetry scene, and we are really excited to finally bring this kind of poetry event to Solisville, said Parker. Poetry slams called a bona fide cultural force by The New York Times are competitive poetry readings held in bars and coffeehouses across the country featuring verbal warriors battling it out on the microphone, with randomly selected judges from the audience tasked with rating each performance on an Olympic scale of All poets are encouraged to sign up and are given three minutes in which to perform one original poem without the use of music, costumes, or props. The poet at the end of the slam with the highest score is declared the winner. Poetry slams have sprung up in venues across the country since the first one was held in a Chicago bar called the Green Mill more than 15

14 years ago. Now featured in more than 70 venues across America and beyond, poetry slams have revitalized the art of poetry performance. Every year 56 four-person poetry slam teams meet for lyrical combat at the National Poetry Slam, an event in its 12th year that has become the Woodstock of performance poetry. Parker said she thinks Solisville is ready to form and send a slam team of its own to the Nationals and said she hopes wordsmiths come crawling out of the woodwork to support this reading series. There are so many amazing poets here in this community, she said. I canʼt wait to see what happens when we get them all together in one spot and shake things up. It should be amazing. For more information on the WordCore Poetry Slam, contact Melinda Parker at , or wordcore@dooki .com. Okay, itʼs a little dorky and all, and I made up the quotes, but you see what I mean. This press release uses action-packed language to give the reader a visual idea of what you are talking about. It distances the slam from the boring open mikes readers may have experienced in the past, and it links it with growing movement that has spread across the country. Giving a local spin on a national trend puts what you are doing in context, making it clear that you are not only bringing this exciting new format to your hometown, but you also becoming a part of a national community. The goal of writing a good press release is to make it sound so good that the reporter who gets the release has to do very little work visualizing it as a story. Since newspapers are a visual medium, you really must describe your event in terms that suggest a dynamic photograph. You want the reporter to see the sweat pouring from the faces of the poets, see the veins bulging out of their temples as they sound their barbaric yawps. Essentially, you are writing the story for them, so all they have to do is add a few bits here and there and boom, they can fill some space with little effort. If you write a good enough press release, some smaller newspapers will even print it verbatum and let it run without a byline, which is the name of the writer. Iʼve got a fat pile of press releases that were just dumped into an empty space and run exactly as I had written them. Most larger newspaper wonʼt do this, but youʼd be surprised by how many clips I have in my files that are nothing more than souped-up versions of my press release. To better your chances at getting coverage, have someone take a nice, clear picture of you or one of your friends up on a stage reading poetry passionately with a sweaty microphone clenched in one hand and a dogeared notebook in the other. Get a bunch of your friends to pose as an audience, and have them going absolutely ballistic as the person reads.

15 This gives a concrete visual of the scene at the reading, plus a potential story has more chance of becoming a full fledged article if thereʼs art that goes with it. Many times, an editor has numerous cool events to choose from, and often the one with the best art gets the story. With luck, your press release will get a preview article that will draw a buttload of people to your first event. Or it might convince the newspaper to send a photographer to cover the event and a reporter to write a review. Either way, the more ink you get, the more people will be exposed to your poetry slam. Once you have crafted a killer press release and have a sweaty-toothed action photo to illustrate the fact that this isnʼt just a poetry reading, but a Showcase of Dynamic Performance Poetry, you need to place it directly into the hands of the people who can help you get the word out, which would be the entertainment editors of every daily newspaper and alternative weekly in town. This may seem like a daunting task, but itʼs pretty simple if you follow three steps: 1] contact the person most likely to cover your slam on the phone and tell them about your upcoming event and let them know that a press kit is coming via and regular mail; 2] a copy of the press release to the same person you talked to on the phone, making sure to reference the phone conversation in the first paragraph; 3] follow that up with a hard copy press kit sent through the mail to that same person that also references the phone call and the . You can find most of the information you need simply by visiting the website of the newspaper in question, which you can find by typing the word newspaper and the name of the city into any Internet search engine. I use because they have a great system set up already that specifically looks for newspapers, and I get instant results with it that I canʼt seem to get with other search engines. Once you find the website of the newspaper, you need to look for something that allows you to contact staff members of the newspaper. Sometimes itʼs a bit hard to find and might require some poking around, but most sites have some sort of link marked Contact Us or maybe even Staff or something that will give you a list of all the editors and writers on the staff of a newspaper and their contacts. You very definitely do not want to submit a letter to the editor, which is a waste of your time, so donʼt even bother with that route. You want to get the contact name, and phone number of the entertainment editor (or the features editor if there is no entertainment editor). The entertainment editor is the staff member most likely to be interested in doing a story on a visiting performance poet, so focus all your promotions energy on them. If you canʼt find the correct info on the Internet, then simply call the

16 newspaper directly and ask for the name and of the entertainment editor. If the person answering the phone asks you why you need this info, simply say that you have a press release for them promoting a show and youʼd like make sure it gets in the right hands. Once you have the name of the Entertainment Editor and their contact info, the first thing you do is give them a call on the telephone directly. You have to remember that the desk of any entertainment editor in the country is probably cluttered with mountains of press kits and a fluttering sea of faxes from people yammering for their attention, and even the very best press kit in the world can fail to catch their eye, so something as simple as a phone call can make all the difference in the world. This is also your best chance to sell the editor on the idea of writing a story about your event, so let them hear the excitement and enthusiasm in your voice, let them know that this is something new and fresh and amazing and nothing at all like the boring poetry readings they may have heard about in the past. Describe the emotions of the poets and the dynamic performances, tell them about the exuberant audience reactions and the call and response of a poetry slam, let them know that this event is part of a national phenomenon sweeping the country; in short, use all your performance poetry powers to sell them on this idea, to infect them with your enthusiasm, to get them as excited about this event as you are. When I make this phone call, I donʼt even play, you know, I just bust out directly with, Listen, I am really excited about this event, and I want to get as many people there as possible. The poets in this town are amazing, and people are going to be so surprised and impressed by what they are going to witness. This town is so ready for this event, and we are going to kick out the poetic jams. Most entertainment editors are hungry for something new, something besides the same old bands and movies and plays they have to highlight week after week after week, so pitch this show as an energetic alternative to the same old stuff, as an antidote to the same boring shows. Ask them if you can them a copy of your press kit to them, then say you will be following that up with a hard copy press kit as well. This way when the promotion stuff comes through, theyʼll be expecting it and know exactly what to do with it. The last thing in the world you want is for your to be ignored and your press kit to be placed somewhere in that huge pile of press kits, so a phone call is absolutely essential. Sometimes I get lazy and just sent out s and press kits through the mail and figure that I donʼt really need to make that phone call, but I almost always end up kicking myself for it. Do not forget to target the student newspapers at your local colleges and universities. These are just as important as the local paper since they

17 target the very people who are most likely interested in coming to your event to read or watch, so make them a priority. To find the contact info, you usually need to surf to the universityʼs website and poke around for a while until you find the student newspaper, then you can follow the same techniques as for the local papers. In the end, you can also simply call the university and ask for the information directly. Use the same steps phone call, , snail mail and make sure you sell them both on the visual appeal of this event that will make them think of photos and on the raw emotions of the event. There have been many times that I couldnʼt snag an article or even a mention in the local paper but have been saved by a nice bit in the university newspaper that packed the venue I was promoting. The student reporters are just as hungry for new and different events to write about as professional journalists, so getting them excited about the event can do wonders. Now that youʼve done everything you can to get the word out about your show from fliers and posters and handbills to press releases to simple word of mouth prepare to enter into a period where you cringe at the thought of how horrible it would be if no one showed up. And just admit it, welcome it, embrace it, and move on. Keep yourself busy because thereʼs a lot you need to do. SHOW TIME If your venue is compact enough, you can get away without using a mic and a p.a. system, but chances are your show will be enhanced by the addition of amplified sound for the performers. It really depends on the space. You can rent sound systems from local music shops for less than $50 because all you really need is a powered speaker with a mic and a cord. Boom, you are electrified. One of the reasons you will charge $3 at the door is to be able to afford such things, so check around and get a decent system as cheaply as you can. If you know any local bands or musicians or even students at the local college who have access to sound equipment, you can arrange to get a simple p.a. for free. In fact, an easy way to solve this is to invite some local musician who has their own equipment to come and perform before the show and during the break. Chances are, they can hook you up with a simple mic set-up, and if you pay them $25 for the show, itʼll be cheaper than renting equipment, plus youʼll have added an extra dimension to your show and be helping a local musician at the same time. With any luck, the venue will already have lights and sound taken care of, but make sure you check first. A word about charging a cover at the show There are many reasons why collecting a small cover charge is a good thing for the show. It not

18 only gives you the money to print up fliers and distribute promotional material, it also allows you to pay for featured performers, both of which serve the scene. The two ways you can coax out-of-town poets into coming to your spot to kick out the jams is: 1] by providing them with a sizable audience that will be charged by their performance and who will possibly buy chapbooks and 2] by making sure they get some food money. Charging $3 at the door is an easy way to raise $25-$50 to make your visiting poetʼs trip worthwhile. Also, having the audience members pay $3 sets up an expectation for a good show, meaning they will demand a good show of you for the money they paid and will be willing to support you only if you follow through on your promise of providing an evening of engaging and inspiring poetic entertainment. If they just come in for free, they can feel free to leave at any time since they have no investment in the show. If they pay, chances are they will stay for the whole thing to get their moneyʼs worth, which makes for a better show. And besides, weʼre only talking $3 here. Everyone can afford $3 to be entertained and engaged for three hours, and no one is going to get rich off it, you know? Three dollars is a good, honest figure. Iʼve even seen larger venues in larger cities charge $5, but thatʼs about as high as I would go unless, wow, youʼve got, like, explosions and live tigers and shit. Okay, that was quick tangent. Back to the show. Itʼs important to map out the showʼs structure before the show starts, and while you are doing this, you should remember one important rule: keep them wanting more. I have seen poetry slams that turn into four-and-a-half hour marathons that tax the endurance and goodwill of both poets and audience members, so you want to keep your show fast moving and tight. Thereʼs really no need to do a show that saps the audience of their enthusiasm and will to live, so schedule your show to last between 2-3 hours with time to go a little bit longer if you need to. But, really, a tight two-hour show that leaves people hungry for more is so much better than a bloated monster of a show that exhausts everyone. You definitely want everyone out of there before midnight, especially on a school night, so a good time to schedule your show is this: sign-ups at 7:30 p.m.; show starts at 8 p.m. sharp. Boom, youʼre out of there by 11 and you still have a bit of time left over to go en masse to Dennyʼs for a big basket of fries and 11 glasses of water. A good structure for the slam is this: open mike, featured reader, break, slam. This has worked for me time and time again and seems to be a standard at slams all over the country. It really works for the benefit of the poets, the audience, and the featured reader. Kicking off the show with an open mike serves two very useful purposes: 1] it gives people

19 a chance to share poetry who might be hesitant to sign up for the slam because of the competition aspect of the show, plus it gives seasoned slammers a chance to share works that might not really be appropriate for slamming; and 2] it warms up the audience for the featured reading, plus makes sure that as many people as possible get into the room before the featured reader starts. I usually limit my open mike list to about 10 or so, usually about 30 minutes, but not more than 45 minutes, and I limit each reader to one poem within four minutes. This gives everyone on the sign-up list a chance to read regardless of their experience which is a good, nurturing thing for the scene but it also keeps the show running briskly. Nothing can destroy a new show faster than having several poets in a row whose sole purpose is to share every wretched word of every wretched poem theyʼve ever written, so limiting the number of poems and giving a time limit is a gentle reminder that this is a show that includes a lot of different people with a lot to say. Time limits encourage respect of the audience and of the other poets who are waiting for their turn to read, so I highly recommend them. Having warmed up the crowd with the open mike, I like to go right into the featured reader, boom, just hit the audience with the hand-picked person youʼve chosen for their ability to kick much poetic ass. You canʼt offer a featured reading to just anyone, you have to make sure they can carry the weight of a minute set and be good from beginning to end. You are basically promising the audience that this person is worth every penny you are asking them to pay, so make sure the poet you choose to feature can deliver the goods. If you consistently offer up featured readers who are amazing and grand, the audience will trust your judgement and support your choices without question. After the feature, I usually go right into a 15 minute break to allow the poet to chat with the audience and sell chapbooks. I also push the audience toward whatever products the establishment is selling, whether it be soda, coffee, beer, tea cakes, whatever. If you can get most of the audience to make their purchases during the break, you can cut down on distraction during the actual performances (especially crucial in a coffeehouse with jet blast espresso machines.) Iʼll give a five minute warning when Iʼm about to come off break to allow people to take their seats, then boom, after 15 minutes, the slam starts. So, letʼs see 7:30 p.m....start sign-up list. (This is a good time to have a musician playing as the people are filing in and getting their drinks and taking their seats.) 8 p.m....start the open mike. 8:30 p.m....start the feature.

20 9 p.m....break. 9:15 p.m....start the slam. This schedule gives you about 1:45 for the slam, which really, is plenty of time for a good slam with enough just in case time to play with. You really donʼt want the whole event to go any longer than three hours, so it is important to keep things tight. If you have more than, say, 10 readers who want to read in the open mic, simply invite them to come earlier next time to make sure they get on the list. If more than, say, 10 people want to slam, then, increase the length of the slam, but then take away a few open mikers and offer them a spot at the top of the sign-up list the following week. Believe me, if you just let everyone sign up who wants to, youʼll end up with a never-ending reading that drains everyone and pisses off the owner of the establishment since their workers have to sit around and wait for this bloody thing to finish before they clean the place up and go home, so schedule your slam and keep it tight. There are all kinds of show structures, so feel free to experiment based on what the people in your scene react to. In San Francisco, they sprinkle the open mikers throughout the slam, so everyone signs up on the same list and writes Slam or Open next to their name. That way the host can tell the judges whether or not they need to score each poet, like, Hereʼs Jackie, sheʼs slamming tonight, so judges get ready. Or Okay, Joey is up next and he is not slamming, so judges take a rest for this poem. Now, for the structure of the slam itself. The only reason that I can defend using judges from the audience to score poetry assigning numbers to personal creative expression seems so ridiculous when you really think about it is that it empowers the audience to choose the poets from whom theyʼd like hear more poetry. If you take that away from the audience, then there really is no point in the scoring, so itʼs important to remember that. I usually run a slam with two rounds, say, with 10 poets in the first round, then the top 5 moving into the second round. Thatʼs 15 poems at three minutes each, which takes a bit over an 1:15 with the scoring and introductions and talking in between poems. Sometimes I would have up to 15 people in the first round, then maybe I would take the top 7 into the second round, so thatʼs like 22 poems at three minutes each plus talking in between, which would take about two hours or so. How ever many you take, itʼs important to make sure you keep the slam on schedule and on time, otherwise itʼll bloat and get ugly. Just be aware of the time it will take to make it through the show, and make your decision to take on more people based on how much time you have to play with.