In the heart of Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe, settled between an Ethiopian restaurant and an art gallery, Yellow Feather Coffee simmers. It is an intimate café filled with the lingering scents of fresh ground coffee beans, Peruvian hats, and weed, which the sounds of scratchy vinyl records accompanied. As I sipped on my latte and picked at my gluten free oatmeal raisin cookie, seven o’clock pm slowly crept its way into the back of the shop. Highschoolers, college students, and left-behinds swept through the door and into the back room to take their seat. The bear with a green tongue on the wall peered down at the small, young, crowd sizing this week’s Wednesday literary talent. Un-interpretable whispers, the clacking of keys on a laptop, and the rustle of page turning permeated the room.
Suddenly, from the front of the room (the confessional they called it), syllogisms of celebrity and sexy Halloween costumes streamed from the lips of a longhaired boy clad in a poncho, torn jeans, and Converse. So began the open mic poetry slam.
Rants, professions, confessions, warnings, memories, history, love, hate, insurgencies, and inspirations came one after the other like bullets from a high-power machine gun. On impact, some brought laughter, some joy, some hallelujahs, some pain, some sorrow, some a whole new thought. Whether they had memorized their work or not, these kids, these poets, entrance you and do not let you go even after they have finished reading.
As each reader stepped up to the confessional, it was clear that each had a different story. It was also clear, however, that they all shared a story as well. While their clothes reeked of different backgrounds, their passion screamed of common threads. The clothes on their backs ranged from Goodwill to Cherry Creek Mall. Their poetry was not based on money, but their clothes gave an idea of the experiences and privileges each had seen in their limited pasts. For some it was obvious, by their clothes and words, they had lived under a bridge at some point in their life. For others, their clothes and words told of hardships in the slums but that they were able to climb out and live the way they had always dreamed. For a handful, rebellion seeped through. Perhaps they lived a life of luxury, but their beliefs and feelings pushed them to step outside the realm of which they live and defy the “norm” of their community.
It could not have been more explicit what common threads existed between poets: hardship and emotion. No one gave themselves an introduction with the exception of their name and the title of the poem, but the words in the poems were plenty sufficient to give a listener an idea of who the reader was. No poem was a work of another, all were pieces that the readers wrote themselves, and each told a snippet of who they were.
Frank, a twenty (about) year-old Latino-American, spoke first of the Day of the Dead, a Hispanic holiday dedicated to deceased loved ones. The poem defined Day of the Dead and then transitioned into recollections of his late grandparents. His greatest regret is never knowing their childhood, “Both of you together are 128 years of history, and I only knew 20 of them. So I am guilty for not knowing the rest…” Through this poem, Frank shows he has great compassion and this lets his listeners connect with him. The topic of this particular poem is also one that most people can relate to: the loss of a grandparent. Frank urges the audience to get to know their grandparents as best they can before it is too late. Frank’s diction of his experiences subtly nudges the reader to act upon these experiences so that they may not have regret. Through a short history of Day of the Dead, the extreme compassion, and regret, Frank’s ethos was that of a knowledgeable and kind-hearted person to which the audience could easily relate to and learn from.
Poetry comes from the heart of a person and is generally written for that person’s experience alone. Although they may perform and share their writing with others, the relevance does not have to appeal to the audience, only to the poet. Some poetry, however, addresses current events in a particular situation. Brando, another performer at Yellow Feather Coffee, for example, discussed the current state of performance poetry in regards to poets who, “have written good poems in the past… and now are in the place where they think that whatever they write is completely perfect.” For an audience of a poetry slam (lots of poets), this theme could not be more relevant. Many audience members are constantly surrounded by other poets and could relate quickly to the ideas pouring from Brando’s mouth. In this cynical “rant that disguises itself as not being a rant,” Brando gave explicit examples of the ridiculousness of what some poets are writing; phrases that appear to have great meaning, but really the poet just wrote down some words that are confusing and meaningless; and yet, their audience still treats their work as gold.
“16- The pigeons on the steps of the cathedral where I married my suitcase are sunburned. Benefits. 17- Figure out what that means, I have no idea but I know that its brilliant. After all, I wrote it!”
Brando also offered his definitive beliefs about the poets to which this poem was about. “There are thousands of people speaking for all they’re worth, like this is the last poem in the world while your spit on the sidewalk is treated as gold.” The laughter and snapping of fingers in the room during this poem was louder and more profound compared to any of the other readings. Looking around the room, it was easy to tell that each of the poets present knew and could attest to everything Brando was talking about; this was Brando’s goal. The relevance of this poem was clear to the poets and it seemed as though this relevance would never die.
It is impossible, at a poetry slam, to resist emotions. Some poems instill emotion into the listener far more than others, but each still give you some sort of feeling. The amount of emotion the audience feels rides on the presentation and theme of the poems being read. The emotions are different for each audience member, depending on how well they can relate to the piece. During Frank’s second poem, about his sister, fear evaporated from each of the listeners. From the first word of this poem, it was obvious that Frank feels strongly for his sister. It was unclear what tragic event happened to her in the past, but it was crystal clear that Frank was ready to do anything to protect her from anything harmful happening again.
“When forensics try to decipher what happened, the incident report will read ‘velociraptor victim.’ They will not know it was due to these fists. I will channel samurai, Aztec, knight, pick an arc angel to collect your remains; your fate has been decided. God handed your mortality to me: this will be your end.”
Upon closing this poem, the audience was silent before they remembered to clap. Whispers of profanities buzzed in the room and, finally, to break the pleasant discomfort for some slight comic relief, someone said, “So, I for one am not going to make his sister cry.”
As the last words of the last poem floated about the room and the clapping started to praise the last reader, the longhaired boy clad in a poncho, torn jeans, and Converse stepped up to the confessional. It was easy to see the excitement pulsing through his veins hoping that the crowd of about fifteen would want to continue the slam. A few murmurs of approval flew around the room but were quickly drowned out by louder voices saying they wanted to have something to read for the next week. Hugs and praises passed from listeners to readers, and readers to readers, as everyone trickled out the front door.
One of the last ones to leave the shop, I opened the door and stepped onto the sidewalk with nothing to say. My jaw was hanging past my knees so words could not form. The power and emotion that had just come from each of the seven poets was stuck in my mind blocking the Broca’s area of my brain with the exception of, “Wow.” The skepticism towards the slam I had arrived with was so quickly squashed and I could not wait to return the following Wednesday. Everyone knows bad poetry, and this by no means was so. This poetry, an impeccable art form, was filled with every aspect of rhetoric and can teach you about so many things you never knew about before. Rhetoric does not only exist in politics and analysis, but is profound in art as well. If you have never been to a poetry slam, I cannot recommend a better place to go, Yellow Feather Coffee, for a first time experience and cannot urge more strongly to attend.
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