Poor Form Poetry Hosts Second Slam of the Semester

On Thursday, Oct. 12, the second poetry slam of the year took place in the Abernethy Room at the Axinn Center at Starr Library. Poor Form Poetry — the College’s slam poetry group — hosted the event, which drew a large crowd of students, professors and community members to the small, cozy space.

Presenters at the slam performed memorized poems about a wide variety of topics. At the beginning of the evening, five randomly selected members from the audience were chosen to serve as judges for the evening, and they rated each performance on a scale from one to 10 with dry erase boards and markers. Often the crowd disagreed with the judges, groaning in response to what they felt were low scores.

The judging system also serves to decide who will form the five-member team to compete at College Union’s Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) next semester — the national championships for college slam poetry.

In order to determine this year’s team, Poor Form poetry scheduled four events known collectively as the Middlebury Poetry Slam. The Oct. 12 event was the second in the series.

The top three performers from the first three events will compete in a “grand slam” later this semester. Of the nine competing in the grand slam, five will be chosen to represent the team at nationals.

Although Thursday’s slam was technically a competition, one would never get this impression from the performers. More than anything they seemed focused on effectively delivering their pieces, which touched on subjects ranging from the shallowness of some men to childhood memories and everything in between. Often the topic revolved around personal subject matter and the performances seemed emotionally-charged. One in particular discussed trying to find love after various negative encounters with men mostly interested in drunken hook-ups.

Perhaps because of their personal nature, many of the poems clicked with audience members, who were told before the performance by host Chris De La Cruz ’13 to snap or react if something “moved them.” There was a good deal of snapping throughout the slam, and the relate-ability of the poems seems to be their defining feature, as the poetry eschews standard poetic forms in exchange for greater freedom of expression.

Jocelyn Remmert ’13, a psychology major, enjoys going to slams and has been to four so far during her time at the College.

“I love them, and I just keep coming back even though I have no poetry background.”

Bella Tudisco ’13.5, who performed at the event, added that the slams are an inclusive forum.

“The slams are open and anyone can perform if they want to,” she said. “I hope they bring something new to Middlebury [and] bring a voice to new people.”

Although Poor Form Poetry is perhaps the only slam poetry group at Vermont colleges, according to Maya Goldberg-Safir ’13, president of the group, it is only a part of “a greater spoken word community on campus that includes Verbal Onslaught,” Middlebury’s premiere open-mic spoken word performance that happens monthly, usually at 51 Main.

For anyone looking to get involved in this community, Verbal Onslaught is a good place to start, but Poor Form Poetry also hosts weekly workshops on Thursdays at 5 p.m. in the Gamut Room in which anyone one can come.

The third round of the Middlebury Poetry Slam will happen on Friday, Nov. 8.