Poetry Slam. Austrian Style.

I should have published this entry weeks ago, but I didn’t get around to doing it then. I thought it might be useful to publish it now, since it might give some context to the following entry, entitled “On Teaching and Performing”.

So at the end of October, I attended “Ö-SLAM”, Austria’s National Poetry Slam competition. According to its official description, Ö-SLAM defines a poetry slam as a “reading competition judged by the public”. Notice that the definition says nothing about poetry. All sorts of creative pieces were allowed. The only rules were “3 minutes. No tricks. No gimmicks,” meaning that each performer had three minutes to perform their piece alone, without any props or tricks that would take attention away from the piece being performed. The audience rates the performances on a scale of zero to ten. The poet with the highest score at the end of the night wins. The poet and slam master Alan Wolfe sums up the spirit of the slam in his famous quote: “The points are not the point, the point is poetry.” Of course it’s nice to win, but it’s even nicer to be able to have a venue where poets can showcase their creative work and where interested audience members can listen, and perhaps one day showcase their own work, too.

On a personal note, the woman who hosted Ö-SLAM was coincidentally the same woman who hosted the very first slam I ever attended, which was also in Vienna, when I was here in 2004. It was nice to come full circle again. In 2004, I barely knew what slam poetry was. Since then, I have attended many slams and open mic events. (Shout out to all the amazing people of W.O.R.D.S., past and present!) It was really interesting to return to hear the host perform again, especially since her style has changed significantly since 2004, and of course to hear all of the other talented Austrian poets perform.

There’s theoretically another slam in Vienna the day after Christmas. I might make it to that one … we’ll see.