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Combining rhythm and realism, Smith founded the slam poetry movement at the Green Mill Tavern circa 1986. From an origin steeped in subversion, the slam poetry movement evolved into decidedly more mainstream venues, like an HBO documentary and into the halls of the West Wing.
“At the beginning, this was really a grass-roots thing about people who were writing poetry for years and years and years and had no audience. Now there’s an audience, and people just want to write what the last guy wrote so they can get their face on TV,” said Smith.
Visit the Green Mill's weekly Sunday poetry slams and judge for yourself if Smith is on point or not.
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Of course, the much-too-often shitty poetry doesn't help.
Well, the occasinal "shitty" poetry was a given seeing as how it was an open mike, just like their far too often shitty music at acoustic open mikes. But that was the point of the thing; that ANYBODY can get up there and read. The shitty poetry was often funny and the good poetry was often good. And if the shitty poetry wasn't funny, Mark managed to make it funny with his follow up. But his point now is that that spontineniety is gone, that everyone is arriving trying to be already polished and perfect and that now that the winning formula has been established, it's not a free-wheeling "anarchic" take on established poetry readings, but some formulaic, overly stratagized program that is the exact opposite of what it was meant to me. It's the reason I stopped doing it. It used to be fun. But after a few slam teams and being in that huddle where he had to come up with a plan of attack like fucking Lord Moutbatten, I said enough. It wasn't fun anymore. There were times I'd KILL for a shitty funny poem than another "here is my personal pain I am using to score points" poem or another "down with the government/Bush sucks" diatribe that was only a few sentences short of being a New YOrk Time op-ed piece.
Sorry I went on too long...got riled up.
Any cultural movement will grow and change from it's roots. Thankfully, the slam at the Green Mill is a still a fantastic show.