Slam poets get real to heal
Capcity offers a chance to dive into terrors, joys on stage
Greg Wilder steps up to the microphone, the spotlight revealing a five o’clock shadow and deep brown eyes. A few dozen audience members watch as he unfolds two pieces of paper. His hands shake. He takes a breath.
Wilder has felt this way before — the knot in his stomach, the excitement, the nervousness. It’s the same kind of slightly nauseous rush he used to get when he did heroin.
But he has stayed clean for one year,
11 months and 17 days.
This was his
NIGHT BEAT new high: poetry open-mic nights and the competitions known as slams.
“Hi, my name is Greg,” he reads. “And I’m a poetry addict.”
Wilder is one among a community of slam poets that get together a couple of nights a month to share their poems, speak their truth and write about their hardships — addiction, sexual assault, heartbreak, mortal loss or simple everyday frustrations.
“We aim to make space for marginalized voices to not only share their art but to also experience healing on the mic and with a community,” says Liv Mckee, a member of Capcity Slam, one of a handful of performance poetry groups in the area.
On the first Wednesday of each month, Capcity Slam invites poets to the Albany Barn, an arts venue in Arbor Hill.
As a poetry slam virgin, I don’t know what to expect. I imagined
it would be angsty college students ranting in meter about society’s inequities. There was certainly some of that.
Mckee sums it up perfectly: “It’s where people come to talk about real s--and heal.”
This isn’t middleschool-type poetry — indeed, some of the language would cause your sixthgrade English teacher to hand out detention slips or even suggest suspension. It’s not describing snowy cabins or beautiful mountains, but in many cases about trauma and grittier challenges.
As I stand in the back of the room, it’s easy to feel like you’re with friends at a late-night, judgment-free venting session where the deepest, darkest secrets are revealed. (Side note: I did ask for people’s permission before writing about their hardships in the newspaper.)
Amy Maiorano has Digeorge Syndrome, a genetic disorder that impedes the development of several body systems. Many of her poems grapple with the bullying she has faced as a result of her disability.
“This is a safe space,” Maiorano says. “It’s a place where I can express myself.”
“Treat everyone how you want to be treated because if you have a disability, you’re still human,” she reads. “I am still human. You can still be my friend, you won’t catch my disability.”
Maiorano says she hadn’t read a poem aloud in a while. It’s hard to tell: Her courage and message masks her nerves.
After the mix of newbies and veterans performed, the slam begins. Judges are randomly selected from the audience to score poets—zeroto10—on their performances.
Typically, higher scores go to poets who plumb deeper experiences, shift their tone more dynamically, and read the audience with greater skill. Enthusiasm counts.
The Capcity Slam team, which is made up of five women, competes at the national level. Last year, they ranked 24th in the nation after competing in the 2018 National Poetry Slam in Chicago.
While there were many moments in the night to applaud for, or rather snap for, there’s a specific performer that stands out: 19-year-old Jenari Mitchell.
She talks about recently losing two friends to gun violence. Her first year in college, four friends died. When I ask her how many she had lost in her lifetime, she says it was too many to count.
So Mitchell did what she has done for years: She wrote a poem.
“This is called, ‘We Just Trying to Grow Up,’” she says into the microphone.
“When we were younger,” she intones, “they told
us not to grow up too fast, but in the ’hood we never had that chance. A lot of us ain’t living to see 18, let alone 21.”
During the next three minutes, Mitchell chronicles a part of her life growing up in Washington, D.C.
Not all of us have gone through what Mitchell talked about — most of us hadn’t. But her words, her poem, moved us. And isn’t that what all the poets — from Percy Bysshe Shelley to Shel Silverstein — were trying to do?
“Because the color of your clothes can get a bullet put in your head,” Mitchell reads. “The color of your skin can get a bullet put in your head. The block you were raised on can get a bullet put in your head. Those nice shoes you got on can get a bullet put in your head. The gender you fell in love with can get a bullet put in your head.”
She’s raw and real. And as she sits down, multiple people go up and thank her for sharing her words.
“I think for a lot of people, this is a way to speak your truth,” Mckee says. “You share your vulnerabilities and even the smallest details in your life that may not seem relatable, and find they are universal. You see that you’re not alone.”