A Start at a Manifesto

by Marc Smith

A few years back when I was frustrated by the conflicting views about what the slam was, is, and should be, I started to formulate a manifesto (for lack of a better word) to put forth the philosophies about the slam that I felt were important to its growth. Many of these are well known to us now.They're in our blood. "Poetry is not to glorify the poet; it's to celebrate the community." "The show is more important than the individual poet." "The points are not the point. The point is poetry."

Here's what I started with back then. I'm not saying we have too issue a manifesto, or that there should be a manifesto. My purpose here is to propose that we document the principles and philosophies that have become the unspoken force behind the amazing success of our collective and slam poetry itself.

The Slam Manifesto
by Marc Smith

Slam poetry is performance poetry. It recognizes that the Art of performance is as important an art as the art of forming words into poems on the printed page.

No audience should be thought of as obligated to listen to the poet. It is the poet's obligation to communicate effectively, artfully, and honestly so as to compel the audience to listen.

The slam does not exist to glorify the poet but rather to celebrate the community of which tthe poet is only a small part.

The slam should be open to all peoples and all forms of poetry.

With respect to its own affairs, each slam should be free from attachment to any outside organizations and responsible to no other authority than its own community of poets and audience. However, when its plans and projects affect the welfare of other slams, those neighboring slams ought to be consulted. No group, no individual should ever take any action that might greatly affect the Slam family as a whole without conferring with the Slam Family, the Slammasters Council, and/or the Executive Council first.

No group, individual, or outside organization should be allowed to exploit the Slam Family. We must all remember that we are each tied in some way to someone else's efforts. Our individual achievements are only extensions of some previous accomplishment. Success for one must spread to success for all.

The National Slam began as a gift from one city to another. It should remain a gift passed on freely to all newcomers. No individual, group, or organization should be allowed to seize it as its own.

The Rules of the Slam
(At least, those we can agree on)

"I have to submit to much in order to pacify
the touchy tribe of poets" - Horace, 14 B.C.

This revised collection of rules was tweaked and debated in Chicago at the 1998 Slammasters' meeting. Loopholes were closed, and gray areas were made either black or white. In the process, new loopholes and gray areas were probably created. But the rule book was never intended to put an end to the healthy controversy that has always been an integral part of the slam. It will always be an attempt to agree on the wording (if not the spirit) of the rules of the national poetry slam as well as the consequences and penalties for breaking those rules. All we can hope for is to make the playing field as level as our trust in one another will allow.

Poems can be on any subject and in any style. Each poet must perform work that she has created.

No props.

Generally, poets are allowed to use their given environment and the accoutrements it offers - microphones, mic stands, the stage itself, chairs on stage, a table or bar top, the aisle - as long as these accoutrements are available to other competitors as well. The rule concerning props is not intended to squelch the spontaneity, unpredictability, or on-the-fly choreography that people love about the slam; its intent is to keep the focus on the words rather than objects. Refer to Section V (Definitions) for further clarification on what is and is not a prop. Teams or individuals who inadvertently use a prop (for example, a timely yet unwitting grab at a necklace) can be immediately penalized two points if the emcee of the bout deems the effect of the violation to have been appreciable, but sufficiently lacking in specific intent. A formal protest need not be lodged before the emcee can penalize a poet or team in this way, however, the decision of the emcee can be appealed after the bout. Teams or individuals whose use of props in a poem appears to be more calculating and the result of a specific intent to enhance, illustrate, underscore, or otherwise augment the words of the poem will be given a retroactive score for the poem equal to two points less than the lowest scoring poem in that bout. This deduction, which can only be applied after a formal protest has been lodged against the offending team, will not be made by the emcee, but by a special committee assembled by the host city.

No musical instruments or pre-recorded music. No costumes. Further clarification of this rule was considered, but rejected as being niggling and ultimately unnecessary. The rule stands as is: No costumes.

Sampling: It is acceptable for a poet to incorporate, imitate, or otherwise "signify on" the words, lyrics, or tune of someone else (commonly called "sampling" in his own work. If he is only riffing off another's words, he should expect only healthy controversy; if on the other hand, he is ripping off their words, he should expect scornful contumely.

The No Repeat Rule. A poem may be used once during the preliminary and semifinal rounds and once again on the night of the finals (in either the team finals or individual finals, but not both).

Performances will be timed by a timekeeper.

The Three-Minute Rule. No performance should last longer than three minutes. The time begins when the performance begins, which may well be before the first utterance is made. A poet is certainly allowed several full seconds to adjust the microphone and get herself settled & ready, but as soon as she makes a connection with the audience ("Hey look, she's been standing there for 10 seconds and hasn't even moved"), the timekeeper can start the clock. The poet does not have an unlimited amount of "mime time." Poets with ambiguous beginnings & endings to their performances should seek out the timekeeper at each venue to settle on a starting & ending time. After three minutes, there is a 10-second grace period (up to and
including 3:10.00). Starting at 3:10.01, a penalty is automatically deducted from each poet's overall score according to the following schedule:

The announcement of the time penalty and its consequent deduction will be made by the emcee or scorekeeper after all the judges have reported their scores. The judges should not even be told that a poet went overtime until it is too late for them to adjust their scores. (That's Arthur Rimbaud.)

Team Eligibility. Teams must be chosen from an ongoing slam or reading series open to all poets regardless of age, sex, race, ability, appearance, or sexual orientation. Team members must be chosen through some form of competition; how that competition is structured is up to the local venue or slammaster so long as anyone who considers herself to be a part of the community fielding the slam team has the competitive opportunity to join it. Because some smaller/younger/more rural communities may not be able to assemble a team in this way, the host city for the national championships may at times accept a team not chosen through competition, but this should be the exception, not the rule, and every effort should be made to maintain openness.

Team Pieces. Duos, trios, and quartets (otherwise known as team, group, or collaborative pieces) are allowed, even encouraged, so long as all of the primary authors perform them. Refer to Section V (Definitions) for further clarification on primary authorship. The writer/performer who offers up his individual spot on stage in order to accommodate a group piece must be one of the primary authors of that piece. Thus, a poet whose only appearance on stage during a bout is as part of a team piece must be one of the primary authors of that team piece.

A group piece with more than one primary author does not have to be used in the same primary author's slot each time it is performed in the course of the competition. But a group piece with only one primary author must only & always be performed during that writer/performer's slot. Group pieces may not be repeated in subsequent years unless all of the primary authors are present and on a team with one another again. The score of a team piece will be credited to the team as a whole, not to the primary author who offered up her individual turn on stage to accommodate it. Because team pieces do not receive rank scores in the bouts in which they are used, they do not affect the rank scores of individual poets in the same bout. In other words, even if a team piece receives the highest score in a bout, it will not receive the rank score of 1. The rank score of 1 goes to the highest-scoring individual poet of the bout

A poet may render herself ineligible for consideration in the individual competition if she opts to use her team piece during a round in which poets are competing both as teams and as individuals. A team piece may be substituted for any or all of the members of a team in any bout. Provided all other rules regarding team pieces and repetition are followed, one team could use four group pieces in one bout.

Judging. All efforts shall be made to select five judges who will be fair. Once chosen, the judges will: 1) be given a set of printed instructions on how to judge a poetry slam (see below for an example), 2) have a private, verbal crash course by the emcee or house manager on the do's and don'ts of poetry slam judging (where they can ask questions), and 3) hear the standardized Official Emcee Spiel (rewritten and tweaked each year by the host city of the national competition), which, among other things, will apprise the audience of their own responsibilities as well as remind the judges of theirs. Having heard, read, or otherwise experienced these three sets of instructions, a judge cannot be challenged over a score. Complaints, problems, and/or disagreements regarding the impartiality of the judges should be brought privately to the attention of the emcee or house manager BEFORE the bout begins. Having heard and understood the complaint, the house manager or emcee will then make a decision (also privately) that cannot be further challenged

Scoring. The judges will give each poem a score from 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest or "perfect" score. They will be encouraged to use one decimal place in order to preclude the likelihood of a tie. Each poem will get five scores. The high and the low scores will be dropped and the remaining three scores will be added together. Team scores will be displayed or otherwise publicly available during the bout.

Emcees. The emcee will announce to the audience each poet's name and the team he is from. She will also require that all judges hold their scores up at the same time and that no judge changes his score after it is up. She is expected to move the show along quickly and keep the audience engaged and interested in the competition. Since she must be completely impartial, any witty banter directed at individual poets, poems, teams, or scores is inappropriate. Even genuine enthusiasm has to be carefully directed. The safest thing to do is encourage the audience to express their own opinions.

Team Piece: a poem performed by two, three, or all four members of the same team.

Primary Author(s): Those writers/performers whose contributions to a particular group piece are so fundamental that they have at least as much of a right as any other writer/performer of the piece to claim ownership of it at any time. Primary authors must perform their pieces; if a writer/performer is watching other members of his team perform a group piece, then any contributions he might have made to it must not be significant enough to constitute primary authorship.

Bout: a competition between two or more teams.

Order: the schematic that determines the order in which teams will read.

Prop: an object or article of clothing introduced into a performance with the effect of enhancing, illustrating, underscoring, or otherwise augmenting the words of the poem.

Rotation: when each team's first poet has read in a bout, the first rotation is over. There are as many rotations in a bout as there are poets on a team.

Round: a complete set of bouts in which every team that is still eligible to compete does so. Eligibility to compete in successive rounds may be contingent upon success in earlier rounds.

"So, you've been chosen to judge a Poetry Slam?"

You have been enlisted in the service of poetry. This is supposed to be fun, and we don't expect you to be an expert, but we can offer certain guidelines that might help to make this more fun for everyone involved, especially you.

We use the word "poem" to include text and performance. Some say you should assign a certain number of points for a poem's literary merit and a certain number of points for the poet's performance. Others feel that you are experiencing the poem only through the performance, and it may be impossible to separate the two. You will give each poem only one score. Trust your gut; and give the better poem the better score.

Be fair. We all have our personal prejudices, but try to suspend yours for the duration of the slam. On the other hand, it's okay to have a prejudice that favors the true and the beautiful over the mundane and superficial, the fascinating and enchanting over the boring and pedestrian. It's hard not to be influenced by the audience, but remember that in a quiet poem, the audience has no way to communicate what they're experiencing.

The audience may boo you, that's their prerogative; as long as the better poem gets the better score, you're doing your job well. Be consistent with yourself. If you give the first poem a seven and the other judges give it a nine, that doesn't mean you should give the second poem a nine unless it's a lot better than the first poem. In fact, if it's not as good as the first poem, we count on you to give it a lower score.

Although the high and low scores will be thrown out, don't ever make a joke out of your score thinking that it doesn't really matter. A poem about geometry does not automatically deserve pi as a score. Nor does one about failing a breathalyser test deserve a 0.08. Your scores may rise as the night progresses. That's called "Score Creep." As long as you stay consistent, you're doing your job well.

The poets have worked hard to get here; treat them with respect. They are the show, not you (although there could be no show without you). All of us thank you for having the courage to put your opinions on the line.