Hurry up and give me the microphone before I bust in my pants

The mad author of anguish; my language, polluted
...
He took the words right out my mouth and walked a mile in my shoes
I've paid so many dues, I feel used and abused
And I'm.... so confused
...
I'm not watered down so I'm dyin of thirst
-Onyx, "Slam"

wow. i know i like to link to Globe articles way too fuqing much, but this one is just great. a ode to local spoekn word poetry. mind you, this IS the very same lizard lounge. fuq a link, i'm recycling this one. kinda makes me wish i'll be in town this sunday night. oh well.

The scene is slamming
Performance poetry is no longer just an underground art form

By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent | January 4, 2006

CAMBRIDGE -- Under the Lizard Lounge's amber lights, local poet Eric Darby mixes a verbal cocktail, one part politics, one part personal experience.

''What would Jesus drive?" Darby recites from memory as his three-minute explosive rant about SUVs and religion spills over the standing-room-only house.

Darby is one of two finalists at this night's poetry slam. He's competing against Erich Hagan, another talented poet, whose wordplay takes a different tack.

''Just hoping to feel necessary," Hagan implores in his tender yet violent love poem. Both poets receive roars from the mixed-race, multi-age crowd. After the judges' scores are tallied, Darby wins the night. Which makes sense, considering he happens to be ranked seventh out of some 500 slam poets nationwide.

The Lizard Lounge may be below street level, but battling head-to-head with words isn't an underground movement anymore. Whether you call it performance poetry, slam or spoken word, this literary art is definitely necessary.

After sharpening its cutting edge on a generation of young poets in the late '80s and early '90s, spoken word is big again. In Boston, slam just spawned a new record label and a poetry school. Throughout New England, spoken word has made significant inroads among academia and into the suburbs. Slam celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, fully matured and exerting a stronger influence on the area's cultural scene than ever before.

''It's not a novelty anymore," says Jeff Robinson, bandleader and founder of the Lizard Lounge Poetry Jam, a weekly open-mike slam. In February, Robinson, his co-host Joyce Cunha, and his jazz trio will mark nine years of Sunday nights backing up poets in the basement of the Cambridge nightclub. ''It's here to stay."

Robinson, who also hosts the biweekly radio show ''Poetry Jam" on WMBR-FM (88.1), launched two important ventures this winter that should help keep Boston at the hub of the poetry map: a spoken-word label, Poetry Jam Records, and a teaching venture called the Online School of Poetry, which begins classes tomorrow.

''By no means is this a 'slam institution.' Quite the contrary," says Robinson, who is 40. His school's teachers may have cut their teeth in seedy bars, not the halls of academia, but courses like ''Music, Mythography and Words," with the likes of Patricia Smith and Regie Gibson, will emphasize more than just high-scoring slam technique. ''Both are very good page poets who happen to perform well, but they will touch on performance when the time is right."

Until recently, Robinson would have had to convince more doubters that writing a good ''slam poem" isn't easy. Spoken-word artists have been less respected than traditional poets. But the second-class status of slam is changing.

''It's different now," says Michael Brown, 65, a Mount Ida College professor of communication widely credited with bringing slam from Chicago to Boston 15 years ago with Smith (who is a former Globe columnist). He was ''slammaster" at Cambridge's other well-regarded spoken-word venue, the Cantab Lounge, from 1992 to 2004. His ''Dr. Brown's Traveling Poetry Show" now runs Tuesdays at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Inman Square.

''It used to be hot in here, the atmosphere," Brown says, hanging out at the Cantab one Wednesday night. ''Now the atmosphere is less hot but the poetry is better." Unlike a decade ago, he says, younger writers today have more interesting things to say. Poets are more skilled, their writing more biting, and their audiences more discerning.

For its part, the Cantab keeps nurturing newcomers. The night Brown visits his old haunts, a woman named Gina, dressed in tight black clothes and a sparkling sash, takes the stage.

''If you can believe it," Gina tells the audience in the malodorous basement, ''I have worked as a stripper. I can dance around naked. But I'm terrified to read my poems." The crowd goes easy on her.

The reason a former stripper might risk literary humiliation is simple: Spoken word is less risque than before. Slams are now found in elementary schools, teen writing programs, and working-class areas like Brockton and South Boston. It has infiltrated all walks of life, spreading from urban centers to places like Providence, Lowell, New Haven, Burlington, Vt., and even Nantucket.

''There's been a resurgence lately," says Simone Beaubien, host of the Cantab's series, which attracts between 50 and 100 spectators each week. ''I don't know why but I'm not complaining." One explanation is increased activity: Beaubien organizes a regional slam ''league" among teams from Boston, Portland, Worcester, and Providence that she's continuing this winter and expanding to six teams. Adding to the Cantab's luster is local star Darby, who on Dec. 14 won the right to represent the Cantab at the Individual World Poetry Slam in Charlotte, N.C., this February. ''This year is the best we've done since 2000," says Beaubien. ''It's exciting."

Another ''why" is visibility. Boston slammers reach beyond New England and have competed in the National Poetry Slam and Individual World Poetry Slam every year since 1992. Last summer, at the nationals, Robinson's Lizard Lounge squad came in 16th out of 70 teams. This month, the Lizard Lounge begins slamming to build its team of poets for 2006 nationals. Anyone can compete. The infrastructure is in place for spoken word to keep speaking to a new generation.

''This particular medium seems to be an extremely long-lasting one," says Jonathan Wolf, 24, who is the ''slammaster" for Worcester's Poetry Asylum, a 15-year-old organization. ''With a rich history and grass-roots involvement, I can't imagine the idea ever being unviable."

That people now expect more than 20-something angst or political screed from slam has been part of spoken word's maturation as a real art form. The final hurdle was to convince academia.

Once, a rift existed between two camps -- poet-professors and their students on one side, and those who ''yell and wave, the wildly gesticulating types" on the other, as Cantab veteran Adam Stone, 28, of Somerville puts it. Today there is a two-way bridge, especially in Boston. Not only have slam poets benefited from more professional training, but university literature students now read slam-type poems in anthologies. Meanwhile, their prize-winning poet teachers have jazzed up their performances with more rhythmic language and lively deliveries.

''I think the twain are meeting more and more on campus, both outside the classroom and in the classroom," says Sue Standing, a Wheaton College English professor and poet. ''The academics have taken on some of slam's groove and attitude." Standing uses poetry textbooks like ''From Totems to Hip-Hop" and says students at her suburban campus have organized their own slams.

Robinson's Online School of Poetry further blurs the academic/slam divide. For his faculty, Robinson snagged former poet laureate of California and American Book Award winner Quincy Troupe, a dread-locked poet known for his powerful, melodic delivery. In September, Troupe visited Cambridge's Hi-N-Dry Studio, the legendary home base for the band Morphine, where he spent a highly charged evening recording live with Robinson's trio and several other spoken word poets -- Askia Toure, Richard Cambridge, Iyeoka Okoawo, and Patricia Smith. The session will be the debut release on Robinson's Poetry Jam Records.

During a break between sets, Troupe muses how slam, rap, and hip-hop have kept the craft vibrant. ''There are some intriguing rhythms that you can bring into poetry," says Troupe, who is 65 but seems younger. ''You gotta be a big sponge." All poetry has to be written well, he says, but working with a live band adds a final, improvisational layer that lets him weave his ''linguistic gymnastics" around the music.

Then Troupe sits back to hear Okoawo, who is representing the Lizard Lounge at the Individual World Poetry Slam in February.

''I want to believe that everything happens for a reason," Okoawo pleads in a raw poem -- part speech, part song, part sermon. Her body shimmies as each line rises to the surface. ''What reason comes from Ritas and Katrinas? All of what we think we know can all end abruptly."

Ethan Gilsdorf can be reached at ethan@ethangilsdorf.com.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company