First, I will examine some characteristics I think are common to spoken word across America. Then I will give a short history of spoken word in Bryan, Texas and take a look at their contemporary situation.
Spoken word forms a unique bond between audience and author. An unwritten contract is put into play. The author offers two levels of meaning: the beat and the language. The audience adds a third meaning, an interpretation of the previous two. By participating in providing meaning, the audience contributes to the creation of knowledge. This critical interpretation of an authoritative text based on the text itself is called exegesis. An exegesis turns into a hermeneutic when the text is examined through the application of a certain method of interpretation, revolving around the contemporary relevance of the text. So when context is applied to the poem, new meaning can be derived. Any performance artist must trust the audience to unpack metaphors and understand the spoken word. Progressive energy and power are transferred from the poet to the audience with this exchange.
Spoken word is so effective because it overwhelms you with what is true. Three aspects of spoken word are kinetic energy, principle or content and truth or simplicity. Kinetic energy refers to the idea that truth lead to truth. The power of the art cannot be diminished simply because it is art. The artist governs kinetic energy by content, not form. Slam poetry elevates the form. The idea has been presented that if something is said powerfully enough, it doesn’t matter what’s said. Spoken word liberates the artist from technique, while slam emphasizes style and ability.
Spoken word and Slam in Bryan, Texas.
Javashock is the poetry slam at the Revolution Cafe in Bryan. Founded and hosted by JeFF Stumpo, Javashock provides a venue for slammers to compete. JeFF established Javashock as Bryan-College Station's first poetry slam in 2003. He also helped organize various poetry events around Bryan, including 2006’s Southwest Writers & Artists Festival and a reading by several South American poets as part of the Poetry of the Americas Conference.
JeFF says a few words about Javashock:
“It's competitive performance poetry. It's words in motion, sound bounced off an audience that's encouraged to become part of the vibe. It's about bringing people together and lending ears, blending breaths, and rendering the issues that divide.”
Marc Smith says something about Javashock:
“Your show is wonderful and the community you've developed through it is just what I'm always hoping to find when I visit slams...When I experience shows like yours it makes me think that all this work we're doing is in preparation for something very important to emerge from it, something that will benefit humanity and moreso life itself. Thanks for putting hope back into the old man's heart.”
Since JeFF's the expert on JavaShock, I'll let him explain a little more:
"For me, the scene alternates between hopeful/inspiring and stale. Probably on a 3-month rotation. Seriously. There will be two or three months of new people coming in, regulars bringing in new material, everyone trying out something different. Then there will be two or three months of people settling into routines, old hands doing old poems because they know the crowd likes it (and are feeding off the need to be liked, not the need to produce art or move the masses), nobody new coming in the door. Rinse. Repeat. I'm hoping that we're at the end of a stale cycle right now. Have been seeing new faces come in the door, happily of various ethnicities and backgrounds. If I'm lucky, this Friday's Javashock will turn on a whole new set of connections with the deaf community. I've made it a personal goal to not repeat poems this year except at, perhaps, an end of year show. Steve is trying out new stuff that should be ready over the next couple of weeks.
The presence of A&M guides Javashock to a certain degree, insofar as a number of college kids come out to slam. It lets in, as special guests, people who don't normally come to a slam. Working with the African Studies Program, Herbert Martin and Patricia Jabbeh-Wesley were brought in as guests to the community. That's slam and academia working together like it should be. At the same time, independence is important, from both the university (too much red tape for something that's supposed to be part of the community) and Poetry Slam Inc (too corporate for slam). Being so small, there's always the risk of cult of personality - one or two really strong poets who cause everyone to want to emulate them. Luckily, there has been some very good poets there but not a lot of copycats."
Mic Check is a weekly open mic at Revolution Café. Stephen Sargent, along with Roger Reeves and Leanetta "Shug" Avery, founded and host Mic Check.
JeFF talks about audience at poetry events:
"At Mic Check, it's the same dozen or twenty people for the past few years, too. Javashock gets a different crowd, which includes but goes beyond those core 12-20. Of course, before I started it five years ago, there was no slam scene to speak of. Every once in a blue moon somebody at A&M would hold one, everybody would forget, and a few years later somebody would do it again. Javashock was the first regular slam in the area."
"Part of the issue is breaking out of regular nights. Mic Check happens on Sunday nights. You get regulars and...well...regulars. Some of us have played local charity events lately, which exposes us, and thereby the spoken word scene, to a whole new audience. You get college kids who come to listen to punk music and donate food and walk away going, "Holy shit. I didn't know you could do that with just words." You get septagenarians (sp?) at the movie night hosted by the Veterans for Peace who are more interested in our verse, spoken or page oriented, than in the movie. You get friends of friends who show up to "spit on the mic" and come back the next week still with hip-hop in their undertones but talking about the meaning of life instead of rims. Or better yet, the meaning of life through the metaphor of rims (who am I to deny the power of the automobile in the American subconscious?)."
Speak or Be Spoken 4 is a student organization committed to spoken word poetry. It is also an open-mic forum started in early 2006 by students Martin Caesar and Darrin Carkum. They started Speak of Be Spoken 4 as an outlet for students to express themselves and get to know each other on a personal level.
In 2007, JeFF and Stephen Sargent participated in Famecast.com’s national spoken word competition. The two were ranked in the top twenty participants. For the complete article with links to the performances, go here.
JeFF says a little about the scene:
"To answer two of your questions at once - what I hope to accomplish in this community and do I have any memorable stories - my favorite Javashock moment. Tonantzin Canestaro-Garcia was the feature. Not a slam poet, but a performance poet, indie filmmaker, was featured in a documentary called Voices from Texas. So it's about 9 at night, we're out on the patio at Revolution Cafe. Surrounded by brick buildings on three sides and opens up into a narrow parking lot and, just beyond that, railroad tracks. Beyond that point, it's just light enough to see some other buildings, but they're out of your mind when you're on the patio. So Tonzi is up on stage wearing face paint in this sort of tribalish design. Made me think Pacific Islander tattoo. She's wearing long, flowing clothes that get caught in the wind, and she's like something out of a dream - perhaps a drug-induced one, but definitely surreal - as she does a poem about bombing Fallujah. She's alternating between a husky broken down mother and high pitched child asking questions about what's happening. The place is dead quiet. There's suddenly a commotion in the bar. I glance over, and there's two guys at the door - bikers, leather jackets, one has a braided beard that goes down to his chest, one has a shaved head. And they scowl, and one of them leans in the doorway to whoever made the noise and the bar and goes, "shhhhh!" He leans back out and continues staring at this five-foot-nothing poet chanting death to the wind."
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