From 1900-2000 there have four boxing matches that were considered Fights of the Century. How can there be four? A combination of marketing and folklore that surrounds a fight that important. The first was Jack Johnson v. Jim Jeffries then Jack Dempsey v. Gene Tunney II followed by Joe Louis v. Max Schmeling II and finally Ali v. Frazier I. Every fight wears the mantle FOTC for a different reason, the personalities and abilities that created the atmosphere around the fight keeps it sheltered within the warmth of legend.

On Tuesday 04/13 we had a slam to qualify people for the final slam to decide our national slam team. It was a stacked room of poets. Throughout the night four different poets got a perfect score(30) and much like the FOTC each one was perfect for a different reason, each poet created a different feeling within the room that facilitated the appropriate understanding of their message. I find the comparison interesting even if I am alone in that.

Heidi is one of the most interesting. I’ve seen her perform many times, she can switch into singing or stay straight ahead slamming. I’ve never seen her as good as she was last night. She set the tone in the first round with a performance that she poured herself into. Yelling isn’t performing but the red in her face and the tension in her body as she motioned made everyone give her command of those three minutes. She talked about herself and liberating her mind from the expectations society dumps on you. It’s a good way to start a slam. Get pumped and let everyone know what your about.

The shame is that at a slam there are a lot of people with great words who underperform them or vice versa. These perfect scores were from people who ensured both words and performance were at the same high level. Its not easy but Krista did an amazing job of it. Heidi set the tone by commanding the audience to understand her viewpoint, Krista took a similar commanding tone but built a character in order to lead the audience in understanding a crazy persons viewpoint. Krista wrote a slam piece from the perspective of a beaten woman who was angry when her man beat other women instead of him and it ended with her wanting him to kill her. It sounds nuts. It was kinda nuts, but that’s awesome. She created empathy for a perspective no one in that room had and she sold it. When you’ve done that you’ve done something that 90% of people in general cant do. Having empathy for a foreign perspective is difficult but giving it life and dimension through poetry is even harder. She pulled off a very difficult thing.

I can’t tell you how frustrating Sean is. He will write and perform a brilliant, tear your hair out, beg him for a copy after he’s done, piece and then disappear for six months. His notebook is filled with scraps of images, four lines here six lines there, all astounding but needing cohesion. He has to sew all these scraps together to make a full piece. He’s not an MC. He’s more then that, maybe if you combined Rakim with Jim Morrison you could get close but you’d still be missing something. His life has drilled home in him this angry sensitivity that comes through in his words and delivery. His voice and his body and his imagery flow together and at his best your wound up in the imagery trying to unravel it and then not trying anymore. Just enjoying a fertile mind, its not a strategy he employs its him managing who he is through his poetry. It was a 30.
While a lot of people were raising their voice to command the audience Wil jumped in at the perfect time and lowered his voice, launching into one of his strongest love poems. Its not just the whispering that did it, he held himself close to the mic and carried through the idea in his body language that he was whispering us all a secret. An important secret that not everyone could know but we could, only tonight. He captured the crowd and instead of leaving them yelling and hooting and declaring “right on!” he left them silent and contemplative. It was a great performance even before the scores were in.

The results of the slam don’t matter as much as the power of the performances which is why I wanted to highlight a few that really made me happy to be losing sleep on a Tuesday night.