March 16, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Say anything

by Alexandria Rocha

"ohhno... my nose twitched, shudder of a high pitched trill on a piano struck to my fingertips.

The burning rose up in my face, nostrils flaring.

My hand shook and then stopped. My long index finger rose up from the rest, and like my nose were its dog, it approached!!!! to pet it."

The poem, about trying not to pick his nose in church, is called "just an itch..." and the poet is Gunn High School junior Ian Barnett, 16.

Although it doesn't say anything about teenage angst beyond the nose picking kind, it has helped Gunn's Slam Poetry Team earn a name for itself at recent South Bay slam competitions.

This is the team's first year at Gunn, making it the only campus in Palo Alto to join the growing trend of high school slam clubs and teams. There are usually a few dozen students who make up the club, but only five or six represent the school at slams.

Slam first started in Chicago in the mid-'80s and is deeply rooted in hip-hop. Performers often sway from side to side as they hold the mic. They move from slurring words to rapidly blurting them out to yelling or whispering them, all in the same poem. Mostly, however, the poems are delivered with an air of confidence and a touch of arrogance.

Although slam poetry is far from new -- college students in coffee houses across the nation have been perfecting the form for years and slam professionals do it full-time -- the idea is relatively new to high schools.

A San Jose arts organization started the South Bay league in 2003 and only two schools were represented. In the last year, the league has more than doubled in size.

Slam poetry is not for the shy, quiet poet trying to express deep emotions in private. These are intrepid and audacious students who seek reaction, connection, and above all -- a high score -- from an audience of peers. The students in Gunn's team love writing and performing equally. In that way, the team has attracted many students who are also in theater.

"When you're writing something to perform, it's a whole different ballgame then when you're writing something to be read silently," said Jessica Hawkins, the club advisor and team coach, who also competes in slams -- but never against her students.

With slam poetry, Hawkins added, there's issues of choreography and timing. She encourages the students to watch and listen to recordings of other slam poets, from those who are nationally recognized to the granddaddies of slam, such as Mike McGee, Shane Koyczan and Taylor Mali.

She forces them to read chapbooks, to study gestures and movements. She makes mixed tapes and DVDs of the well-known. As the club and team's advisor, Hawkins' biggest role is to edit the students' work. Her coaching is often reminding the students their poems can be written well and have great imagery, but they need a point.

"That's the real difference between the good and bad in teenage poetry," she said. "It's also the difference between slam poetry and a diary entry. It needs to say something."

As the college students and slam professionals spout spoken word about social issues -- such as abortion, celebrity politicians and war -- so do the high school students. There is no topic too big, or too small for that matter, to tackle in a slam poem.

Gunn's team members, however, scoff at the stereotype that has quickly attached itself to high school slam poetry -- the one that says it's all about teenagers expressing their innermost angst. For Barnett, the club's president, and his teammates, it's about humor and connecting with the audience.

"My highest scoring poem is about me wanting to pick my nose in church. It's not my way of expressing my inner-most feelings," Barnett said. "You have to please the crowd, as well as be able to make yourself proud of your own poetry."

Barnett's teammate, Becky Bob-Waksberg, 18, said "it's too simplistic to say it's teenagers getting out their angst. We also have a lot to say.

"I'm very self-absorbed, so I write a lot about myself. When I first got a cell phone, I wrote about how I was succumbing to consumer culture. They're just things on my mind," she added.

At any given slam, the host randomly selects a few willing members of the audience to act as judges. The poets, who are typically limited to three minutes and cannot use any props or costumes, are called up one by one for their performance.

The judges rank them on a scale of either 0 to 10 or 1 to 10, depending on the host's or venue's rules. Rounds of tie breakers are held and the poet who emerges with the top score wins.

Originally, Barnett was signed up for the speech and debate team. He wanted an outlet to speak his mind where the audience had to listen. After all, he ran for the student body in middle school just to give the speech.

Then came English teacher Hawkins and her communications class, which included an innovative curriculum unit on slam poetry. There it was -- Barnett's outlet, and he didn't have to defend anything.

In a nutshell, that's how Gunn became the first high school in Palo Alto to host its own slam poetry team this year. The team quickly earned a name for itself after winning at the South Bay Slam Poetry League in January.

A few excerpts from Gunn's team members' poems:

I turn 18 tomorrow And I don't think I am ready for it. I know this must sound silly But to me Eighteen means oooold... I can buy cigarettes And I can buy porn And I can get a tattoo or join the navy without parental permission And non of those mean anything to me But taking the train to San Francisco Will suddenly cost two dollars and twenty-five cents more And that sucks because I am damn cheap.
-- Becky Bob-Waksberg
........................
The point is, we're not Poe or Whitman or Silverstein, who can sit and think and get that Mad stuff down, published, and out in the mainstream before you can say "copyright." But it's not rocket science. Writing flows. There's paper, there's a pencil. C'mon, it's easy. You're not tryin' to rap fo'shizzle. You're not a certain pop star getting married for two days. You're not governing Cah-lee-Foh-nia. You're not one of the millions of homeless in the world trying to make a living off of a crumb. You're not Little Man Tate. You want those points baby and wanna show the world. She says, "Shut up and write." I say, "All right."
-- Elijah Guo
.........................
I want to feel pain and thrist, let the devil do his worst. I want to feel horrible, my body's gonna burst. And though this might sound strange compared to luxuries up above. The love is flawless up with God, a peaceful white dove. But that is the problem with heaven, how it has no problems. And when push comes to shove, I'd rather slave away below where at least I can get hurt so that I can be healed. The reason I'd go to hell is because in hell I can feel.
-- Ian Barnett

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