ARTiculation: Slam poetry - The role of competition in art

Sitting with our desks in a semicircle in Grade 11 art class, we all looked around the room. Some into their laps; at the ceiling; others were fiddling with their charcoal, but all of us were anxious. The door creaked open, and whatever small amount of noise there was dissipated as everyone looked to see her walk in. She was wearing a white cloth and nothing else. As she walked into the centre of the room and dropped the sheet, we all picked up our pencils, nervously looked at one another and began to draw.

After some time, the teacher would get out of her chair and start circling the desks, surveying everyone’s work. It was the same routine every week. She’d hover over each student’s shoulder and make a comment about contrast or composition. And as she judged each piece of work, the other students would sit quietly and pray she liked theirs better.

Competition is surely bound to arise when you get a group of people together who share an interest. We see it everyday. Even in regular conversation, we often stop listening to the other person while they’re speaking or telling a story, thinking of what we can say to one-up them.

But in art – a practice some would consider sacred – should there be competition?

A few weeks ago I wrote about poetry slams – how they came to be and how much the scene has flourished even here in London. But one of the major criticisms poetry slams have always faced is how heavily it emphasizes poetry for the sake of victory. At a poetry slam, participants are rated on content and performance by an applause-meter of sorts, and the winner gets to go on to compete in the next round. At the end of the year, the leading slammers then get to represent their city in a larger competition.

“I don’t like the idea of competition and art being put together,” said renowned spoken word poet and professor Kip Fulbeck in an interview with Santa Barbara’s Independent. “I think it often distills the quality of work down to a caricature of itself. Seeing poetry slams often reminds me of watching American Idol.”

I remember reading somewhere once that competition causes the artist to create a caricature of what the piece would have been.

There’s no doubt that in the case of poetry slams, the element of competition does affect the artist’s content. It is common for poets to write about hyperemotional experiences.

Art is an emotional labour, so sensitive subject matter is inevitable. But I’ve found that they’re more inclined to go overboard with the dramatics at slams to get a reaction out of the audience, their judges in the contest. It detracts from the authenticity of the performance.

What I find most impactful is when somebody steps up to the mic and delivers the poem by embodying how they actually feel about what they’re saying rather than one-upping the last person on stage.

Considering the role of competition in art is an interesting and often taboo subject to approach. Art is notoriously subjective. How many times have you walked into a gallery and said, “I don’t get it.”

Poetry slams have an interesting dynamic and certainly push the boundaries of this subject, often to their own detriment.

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