Local poets prepare for the grand slam.

Byline: Lewis Taylor The Register-Guard

`I think it's pretty obvious to everybody that this culture hates itself," wild-eyed slam poet Nathan Langston announces from the stage of the Buzz Coffeehouse.

Up to this point, Langston has been playing the part of the happy hipster host at the Erb Memorial Union on campus for this open mike poetry reading, which he founded four years ago. But now, he's adjusted his thrift-store sweater and put on his performer's hat, and a change has come over him.

"But the sky is falling, the sky is falling," Langston declares, just a few decibels shy of shattering the pastry case. "The nation's drunk on the maddening wine of rage."

Playing with the tempo of his poem, Langston alternates between short, rapid-fire bursts and gentle puffs of phrases. His reedy voice begins to bubble with rage. But before things boil over, he turns down the flame and his anger turns into a righteous rap as he settles into a groove that takes him home to a chorus of cheers, whistles and "woo hoos."

Technically, Langston's coffeehouse performance isn't slam poetry, which is timed and judged, but it's the kind of performance he'll give this Saturday during the Eugene Poetry Slam finals at Foolscap Books, 780 Blair Blvd. He's one of six finalists who will compete for one of four spots on the Eugene team that's heading to Chicago in August for the National Poetry Slam.

"It's just one person and their voice and to see what one person can do with their voice," Foolscap owner Marietta Bonaventure says. `It's really empowering; it's pretty amazing.'

Slam poetry is the competitive art of performance that stresses strong delivery over well-crafted stanzas. Slams vary slightly by venue, but the basic rules are the same.

Poets have three minutes to state their piece, and they're judged by a panel of audience members selected just before the show. Audience participation is encouraged and can sometimes result in booing, cheering, finger-snapping and foot-stomping. In some cases poets actually can be heckled off the stage.

Spoken-word poets like Langston don't just read poetry, they perform it. Profanity is OK, anger is a hallmark, and there is little forbidden territory. At its worst, it can sound like a cliche-ridden journal entry spiked with too much profanity and too many references to vaginas. But when it works, when someone like Langston is baring his soul to a room full of strangers, it really works.

"I think the element of competition is pretty key," Bona- venture says. "I think there's also a sort of iconoclastic quality to slam that is really about taking it out of the realm of academia and making it accessible to everybody.

`The fact is, it's really amazing to have a forum where you can get up there and say whatever you want and have that be appreciated not just for what you're saying, but for the way you're saying it."

One of the main organizers of the Eugene slams, which have been happening since September, Bonaventure saw a need for a competitive poetry series after slams last spring drew overflow crowds. She contacted Poetry Slam Inc., the organization that runs the national slam, registered a Eugene team and applied for a grant from the Lane Arts Council to help pay for advertising and a public-address system.

The de facto "coach" of the Eugene team, she plans to travel to Chicago with whatever group is selected.

The site of the national slam championships changes every year, but Chicago is a fitting location because that's the place where slam began nearly 20 years ago.

A construction worker named Marc Smith was looking for a way to spice up the poetry readings at the Get Me High lounge when he stumbled upon the idea of a competition. Since then, the genre has continued to grow, and slams have cropped up in urban and suburban locales across the country.

As the genre has developed, different styles have emerged. Some poets veer closer to hip-hop. Some work comedy or political messages into their routines. Others take a more conventional literary approach.

Langston, a beat-style poet, has been known to read from the printed page; others, such as finalist Martha Grimes, insist on memorization.

"When you go up with a piece of paper, you chain yourself to that piece of paper, and when you put it down you realize you have two hands and you can do things with your body," Grimes says. "You realize you've got the words down, and you can actually perform the poem. ...

`I think that it frees you in a lot of ways, and the audience will connect more with you if you're not looking down the whole time."

Like Langston, Grimes is a senior English major at the University of Oregon, and both have witnessed the rise of performance poetry in Eugene. After Langston founded the open mike series at the Buzz, he began hosting "wine slams" in his living room, and the scene took off from there.

Performance poetry can now be heard at Tsunami Books, Cafe Paradiso, the Morning Glory Cafe and the Oregon Country Fair. And spoken-word artists have become a vital presence at local peace rallies.

"This town has so much poetry in it," Langston says. "I think it comes from the strange story this town has to tell. It's a big small town, so many people know each other. ... On the other hand, it's big enough to draw a lot of artistic talent."

Lewis Taylor can be reached at 338-2512 or [e-mail].

EVENT PREVIEW

Eugene Poetry Slam Finals

With: Dead Americans, power pop

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Foolscap Books, 780 Blair Blvd.

How much: $3 to $5 on a sliding scale

A stanza sampler

From "Portrait of a Rumor" by Nathan Langston:

Across town, the crowds gather

beneath the heat of red neon

and conversated convolutions

and evolutions of revolutions

and raved waves of wicked lyrics

into reflected chrome of microphone

and rant and chant and pant their poems

through the bones, prophetic tones,

as though they could spell the future. ...

Now I see us,

floating lightheaded and lighthearted

through the colorful cacophony

and symphony sounds of the city,

speaking a million words at the speed of light

but only meaning

"maybe... maybe..."

Maybe at the velocity of possibility we could be free,

to see the future as we want it to be

as we wear out shoe soles on the souls of the bridges,

smoke bowls, make love, blow our guts out on didges

and all the cynicism cannot stop romanticism

or the truth that's in momentums of youth!

CAPTION(S):

Sam Rutledge reads his poetry on campus in a Monday warm-up for this Saturday's finals. Slam: Poetry, but with the emphasis on performance Continued from Page 10