Continuing the in class Debate
because we are only in class for five weeks, we don’t really have the time to devote in class to continue the discussion, I’d like to post what I think to be the final rebuttal for my argument concerning the status of Slam Poetry as poetry.
During the weekend, I spent some time digging through my philosophy books and came to a realization. We have been conflating two sets of philosophical concerns: the ontological and aesthetic.
For those who haven’t heard these terms before the ontological refers to a branch of philosophy that is concerned with being. For example, ontology is concerned with questions like: “What is real?”, “What does it mean to be real?”, “what does it mean to exist?”.
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy that deals with value judgements; things such as ethics, moral theory, and especially philosophy of art. This is the branch that concerns itself with what makes art worth witnessing, what qualifies as art etcetera.
when it comes to art, especially a form that has evolved as rapidly as poetry, an institutional view is probably best. This is to say that the title of “Art” has gained meaning not from it’s own existence, but through the labeling process that is entirely human driven, controlled, and manufactured. For example, how does one define “House” ? To most of us a house looks similar to the buildings that we see across from Combs on the other side of Campus, but what if we were to speak to a Pueblo Indian who built their homes out of mud? If that were the case we would have to shift our notion of house. Additionally, think 30 years ahead and what houses might look like then. The word house doesn’t hold universal meaning because we not only constructed the house, but constructed the schema of house as well. in the same sense, the meaning of poetry is constructed; before humanity there was no poetry, and we have made it a point (consciously or not) to make the schema and label of poetry as fluid and instable as possible.
So when we called slam poetry slam poetry, we included it to that schema. It’s no different than when Dr. Kennedy explained the uproar against free verse or other poetic movements. Those concerns could not, should not, and did not constitute ontological concerns of what is poetry because poetry in terms of its defintion has always been loose and vague. What it does raise is questions concerning the worth of the genre. These types of concerns are clearly Aesthetic concerns, and ones that will vary by culture circle, demographic, etc.
Also, when viewing the woman to woman poem that seems to lack any true artistic merit, we have to remember that is not symptomatic of non-art, that is a result of an artist not having respect for their medium. Would Twain ever dare to write the junk that fills most grocery store novel isles? Would Hughes ever dream of writing catchy jingles to sell soda pop? The answer is an obvious and resounding No. Yet artists that follow these pioneers in their mediums often waste what little skill and talent they have on such worthless ventures. In short, many things define art, and defining those things is near impossible, what is more worth while is to have open conversations about what is valuable in art.
=D
Sure, but aesthetics is also the study and understanding of the moral imperative to the beautiful, no? And yes, the beautiful is a subjective thing subject to sentiment and taste. OK. I suppose some slam poetry aspires to the beautiful, but what I see, and what I would distinguish from the intracies of hip hop, for example, is no effort to beautiful, to encourage a moral imperative to the beautiful, but people standing on a stage performing syllable counts. How is that a crafted effort at the beautiful? So, if I say I’m a poet, but I am a terrible poet, with no effort at exploring complex meanings, does that make it true that I’m a poet? Can I change my ontological status from “non poet” to “poet” because I say so? Can I change the essential nature of something through renaming it? If I call a Christmas tree a holiday tree so I can put it up in my office during the holidays, have I changed the ontological status of the tree?
How can one without respect for her medium call herself an artist?
Dr. K.
tkennedy
7 Jul 09 at 4:49 pm
Sure, change your ontological status to poet. What does it mean?
In a world where it is almost universally accepted that most of the poetry we run into is terrible, what can be said about the aesthetic “norm” of poetry. Did you know that I have many friends faculty and students alike here at the university. Are they awesome to talk to and collaborate with? Absolutely! Would I ever try and gather them in the same room? Not a chance in hell. The notions of poetry that they have are astronomically far from one another. If we all got together to share our work, we’d be appalled at the notions of work that we would try to pass off as poetry.
What I mean to argue is that poetry’s schizophrenic nature has made it ontologically unstable. I don’t really understand why slam gets the boot.
LoneEagle
7 Jul 09 at 7:28 pm
I did not see beauty in the performance of Woman to Woman. Slam poetry is new to me and I do not understand what defines slam poetry. Can it be any performance as long as the individual is expressing their interpretation clearly? I understand the analogy of the house and I guess to some people her performance was meaningful or entertaining. As a woman I personally found it sad and demeaning.
kitty
9 Jul 09 at 12:55 am
To me, the question seems to be “is bad poetry still poetry?” Good slam poetry, what little I’ve heard, does sound like poetry. However, I think that the parameters of slam poetry: the spontaneity, the presence of an audience perhaps, the dependence on innate rhythm over conscious manipulation of rhythm, etc., may cripple slam poetry’s ability to be good poetry. This seemed to be a bit of what Kennedy was saying in class that day. Why does slam poetry have to be poetry? Can’t it just be slam? If a house does not meet certain fundamental meanings of a house (shelter, protection), can it really be a house – or would it be better to term it something entirely new. Although there is a certain prestige in terming it slam poetry and thereby linking it with the longstanding poetry tradition, it seems to be outweighed often by the failure of slam poetry to live up to our expectations of poetry. For the genre/style of slam, it would be better perhaps to create different expectations than those that the term “poetry” is necessarily going to carry.
slawless
13 Jul 09 at 11:21 am
I guess ultimately, my feelings about slam guide me to say that it is poetry. but I guess upon calling into question legitimacy of slam as poetry, I’m forced to ask myself “what is poetry?”. and its a question that despite my best efforts, fails to find a sound answer. Poetry’s boundaries have been unstable for some time. and even with the advent of slam, I feel as though we watch slam and force into boxes that are unfit for it. Suheir Hammad is a poet that has been on def poetry almost countless times, and quite honestly, I think the last thing people are debating about right now, is whether she is more slam or traditional. I think the only thing that is at stake with the current, fluid notions of poetry is the ability to have scantron test questions like “what defines slam?”.
LoneEagle
14 Jul 09 at 6:38 pm