T Minus Eight Days: National Poetry Slam Hits Austin
Let's play a word association game. You know how this works. We say apple and you say pie. We say table and you say chair. And so on. We'll start easy. Up. Did you say down? Okay, drag. Did you say worm? How about this one: poet. Did you say invading Austin next week with days and days of action-packed, slammarific insanity? No?? Well where have you been? The National Poetry Slam officially opens Wednesday 8/9 here in our fair city, with pre-events kicking off tomorrow. What started 16 years ago with two slam teams going head to head in San Francisco has grown to 75 teams from all around the nation -- plus Canada and France (France?? okay...) -- participating in a single-elimination style tournament.
But here's the dealio with slam poetry. The bouts are fierce, with wordsmiths bringing their most engaging pieces to the stage. Forced to navigate the line between jumping in to win a balls-to-the-walls throwdown, and stepping up to deliver a penetrating rendering of their sharpest work, slam poets are a fascinating combination of fighter and lover. Jock and nerd. Many of them have stand-up comedy in their toolboxes and can render you helpless with laughter with just a few clever lines. Ranging from hysterical snarky rants to deeply personal revelations, slam poetry is hard, soft, and everything in between. And when the stakes are at the national level, it's all torqued up one notch tighter.
This will play out -- very fast and very furious -- in night after night of riveting competition. There's a never-ending list of cheap & free events going on starting tomorrow and continuing all through next week. Running the gamut from traditional performances and open mics to an impressive array of educational talks and forums, NPS has something for everyone. To keep you abreast of the best being offered, Austinist will post daily tips about here & there happenings we think you'll like most.
Tomorrow afternoon is your chance to check out "poets interacting with downtown workers and visitors." Doesn't it kinda conjure a choreographed street fight between the Jets and the Sharks? The poets and their mobile PA system will ambush the unsuspecting denizens of downtown with a "Street Surprise" from noon - 1pm outside Jo's Coffee, 2nd Street between Colorado and Lavaca. This is a preview of a funded First Night performance to be repeated, well, 12/31 of course.
And since NPS is being hosted by none other than our local poets of yore, the Austin Poetry Slam, we gotta plug their weekly slam at Ego's. Tomorrow night will feature the one-and-only Roger Bonair-Agard, coach of 1998 NPS Champion team from New York, winner of the 1999 NPS Individual Championship, member of this year's NYC/louderARTS team, and widely considered to be one of the best slam poets in the nation. There'll also be a full-force performance by all five members of TeamAustin/Ego's, and a CD release party for same said team. So it's a special night to be sure.
To sum up, National Poetry Slam's a comin' so you better get ready. Prime the pump by checking out these events:
Poetic Street Surprise, FREE
Wednesday 8/2, noon-1pm
Jo's Coffee, 242 W. 2nd Street
Weekly Slam, $3 cover
Every Wednesday, 7:30-10pm
Ego's, 510 S. Congress
Image (c) National Poetry Slam.
