Slam (v) /slæm/ - to (cause to) move against a hard surface with force and usually a loud noise; - (informal) to criticize
Есть поэзия возвышенная, воспевающая чувства и женские ножки. Есть же поэзия–точка зрения, поэзия-гражданская позиция. Neither of them не пользуется в наши дни большим спросом у читателя. Стихи, напечатанные в книге – это долгий путь как к сердцу милой дамы, так и к совести власть имущих. «Быстрее, быстрее, быстрее», - заклинает нас эпоха экранов и мониторов. No time to wait, пока мысль, запакованная в стихотворный сборник, разархивируется в голове у адресата. Но человек, придумавший чат и фаст фуд, - разве он не в состоянии облечь и стихи в удобную форму? Конечно, в состоянии! И форма эта называется Poetry Slam.
В первую очередь это течение отличается тем, что актуализирует не только сам текст, но и manner of performance. Чтение стихотворения превращается в маленькое театральное выступление, а то и вовсе в настоящее шоу. Poetry Slam – явление не новое и по происхождению отнюдь не западно-буржуйское. Взять хотя бы знаменитые стихотворные дуэли Есенина и Маяковского. Poetry Slam это тоже battle, со своими четкими правилами и регламентами. Вот здесь они вполне четко и доступно изложены:
Основателем Слэм Поэзии считается поэт Марк Смит, который в 1984 году организовал первый слэм в чикагском баре. Первый американский «National Slam» прошел в 1990 году в Сан-Франциско. Сегодня в нем принимают участие уже около 75 команд. Для того чтобы участвовать, совсем не нужно быть прозрачным от недоедания и черным от недосыпания поэтом. Самый обычный человек может написать стихотворение, и, обнаружив все свои спящие ранее актерские способности, выстрелить, как салют. Это не большая литература. Большая литература пугает своим снобизмом и надуманной рафинированностью. Poetry Slam – это хобби, просто развлечение, которое позволяет выразить свою Точку Зрения.
На официальном сайте PSI (Poetry Slam Incorporated) пишут что:
“The mission of Poetry Slam Incorporated (PSI) is to promote the performance and creation of poetry while cultivating literary activities and spoken word events in order to build audience participation, stimulate creativity, awaken minds, foster education, inspire mentoring, encourage artistic statement and engage communities worldwide in the revelry of language”
Конечно, нельзя обойти вниманием лучших участников Poetry Slam. Во-первых, хочу, чтобы вы посмотрели выступление великолепной Sarah Kay:
Если кому интересно, то here is the lyrics:
Instead of mom, she’s going to call me “point b”
Because that way she knows that no matter what happens, At least she can always find her way to me.
& i’m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands
so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say
“oh, i know that like the back of my hand.”
she’s going to learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face,
wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach,
but getting the wind knocked out of you is
the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.
there is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry,
so the first time she realizes that wonder woman isn’t coming,
i’ll make sure she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself.
because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers
your hands will always be to small to catch all the pain you want to heal,
believe me, i’ve tried.
& “baby,” i’ll tell her “don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, i know that trick,
you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back
to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire
to see if you can save him or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place
to see if you can change him.”
but i know that she will anyway
so instead i’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate & rain boats nearby
because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can’t fix.
okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate can’t fix
but that’s what the rain boots are for
because rain will wash away everything if you let it.
i want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat,
to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind.
because that’s how my mom taught me,
that they’ll be days like this,
“they’ll be day’s like this my momma said.”
when you open your hands to catch
& end up with only blisters & bruises,
when you step out of the phone booth & try to fly
& the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape,
when your boots will fill with rain & you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment
& those are the very days you have all the more reason to say “thank you,”
because there is nothing more beautiful than the way
the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline
no matter how many times it’s sent away.
you will put the “wind” in win some lose some,
you will put the “star” in starting over & over.
no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute
be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
& yes, on a scale of one to over-trusting
i am pretty naive but i want her to know
that this world is made out of sugar.
it can crumble so easily but don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out & taste it.
“baby,” i’ll tell her “remember your mama is a worrier
but your papa is a warrior & you are the girl with small hands
& big eyes who never stops asking for more.”
remember that good things come in threes
& so do bad things & always apologize when you’ve done something wrong
but don’t ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing
& when they finally hand you heartbreak,
slip hatred & war under your doorstep
& hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism & defeat,
you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.
А также Katie Makkai with a brilliant performance, где она поднимает вопрос о преувеличенной значимости внешности для девушки.
И опять же, текст:
When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, “What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? What comes next? Oh right, will I be rich?” Which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception, passing blood and breath into cells. The word hangs from our mothers' hearts in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry.
“Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?” But puberty left me this funhouse mirror dryad: teeth set at science fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long and pox-marked where the hormones went finger-painting. My poor mother.
“How could this happen? You'll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist. You sucked your thumb. That's why your teeth look like that! You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were 6. Otherwise your nose would have been just fine!
“Don't worry. We'll get it fixed!” She would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way and that, as if it were a cabbage she might buy.
But this is not about her. Not her fault. She, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade. By 16, I was pickled with ointments, medications, peroxides. Teeth corralled into steel prongs. Laying in a hospital bed, face packed with gauze, cushioning the brand new nose the surgeon had carved.
Belly gorged on 2 pints of my blood I had swallowed under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside out, “What did you let them do to you!”
All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on, like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood. “Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Like my mother, unwrapping the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her? Pretty? Pretty.”
And now, I have not seen my own face for 10 years. I have not seen my own face in 10 years, but this is not about me.
This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in 6 malls to find the right cocktail dress, but haven't a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath those 2 pretty syllables.
About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crest-fallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.
This, this is about my own some-day daughter. When you approach me, already stung-stayed with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters.
“You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you, will never be merely 'pretty'.”
И, конечно, замечательное выступление Tom Hanks. На шоу Jimmy Fallon он прочел spoken-word poem собственного сочинения под названием “Full House” об одноименном сериале.
Next video уже не с конкурса Poetry Slam, хотя идея очень похожа.
Это видео из television series produced by HBO. HBO (Home Box Office) – американский кабельный канал, подаривший нам такие чудесные сериалы, как «Секс в Большом Городе», «Игры престолов», и т.д. Серия передач, где люди читают свои стихи в стиле Poetry Slam называется Def Poetry Jam. Было выпущено шесть сезонов, и среди участников попадаются известные и очень талантливые личности.
Таким образом, поэзия заняла свое место в современной культуре, предоставив конечному потребителю привычный в наше время микс из искусства, эпатажа, смысла и формы. Такого рода перфоманс сложно назвать литературой, театром, или же любым другим термином. Однако, никуда не денешься, хоть слова и нет, а явление уже существует – живет, развивается, захватывает страну за страной. Есть такая штука и у нас в Киеве. Ни официального сайта, ни даже группы я не нашла, но зато нашла информацию, что несколько лет назад проводился слэм турнир по всем правилам и форме. Можно развивать. Пишите стихи, господа!
М. ПЛОЩАДЬ УКРАИНСКИХ ГЕРОЕВ,
