Verse case scenario

>> Adrenaline freaks, phony poets and putrid produce at the Sham Slam

by MITSIKO MILLER

This is thanks largely to a guy from Chicago named Marc Smith, who invented slam contests in the early '80s. He gave poetry a face-lift and it looked absolutely sexy. Smith's whole idea was to make poetry more appealing and accessible by combining it with performance. And to make sure no one would break the rules, the audience had to judge the poets. So shitty, boring blowhards and talentless hacks were hacked down to size on the spot.

There's a slam (of sorts) coming up that will be the perfect opportunity to let the little bully inside you express itself. This show will be structured like a slam with judges, competition rounds, prizes, the works. But contrary to usual slams, the better you are at imitating a lousy poet, the better your chances of winning. The idea is to earn a barrage of rotten tomatoes, not polite applause.

"The event is all about making fun of slams and the spoken word scene in general," explains Alexis O'Hara, the organizer, a performance artist with--surprise!--a sense of humour who firmly believes that poetry should be fun and dynamic. Describing all the different kinds of spoken word clichés, O'Hara says she hopes every kind of poetry will be caricatured during this event: "Raging feminist rants, tree-hugging New Age metaphors, monotonous monotone lectures, self-indulgent schlock and academic bullshit."

But why, you're asking yourself? Like, what for, other than a cheap laff? Well, every summer, slam poets from across North America meet for a slam championship. O'Hara herself discovered slam poetry a few years ago through the Vox Hunt Slams and actually went down to last year's championship in Connecticut and participated as one of the members of the Vox Hunt slam team.This year, they're gathering in Austin, Texas. And since O'Hara intends to represent Montreal's spoken word scene there, she's been hustling since March to put together a new local team. The girl sure knows what she wants, 'cuz they're going down, all right. In order to raise money for the trip, O'Hara is putting on the Sham Slam.

Hosted by performance artist Skid More with her male Vanna-White-style sidekick, Johnny Cheesecake (who is part of the slam team), the Sham Slam promises to be an evening of pure mayhem. O'Hara hopes that poets signing up will have enough good sense to craft some really bad poetry, and that the audience will have enough good sense to "hurl insults or underpants on stage." Or rotten tomatoes, perhaps? There's a decent chance I will. At the very least, I promise not to applaud politely.

The Sham Slam, with music by the Lullaby Baxter Trio, at Blizzarts on Sunday, June 28 at 9pm (sign-up at 8pm) $5