What are the differences between slam poetry and more traditional forms of written poetry?
Well, I guess what I do now is less slam poetry. It is more spoken word/performance poetry. I don’t think of myself as a poet. Performance is really my passion, and spoken word really bucks the notion of what a poet is supposed to be. Slam poetry takes into account the audience. There is this idea with traditional poetry that you should be speaking to everybody or nobody. I was taught that people should hear the poem not the poet. For me, it is too traditional to remove the body and the face and the voice from the poem. In spoken word and at slams, the body and the voice and the face are always present and I think that is feminist in a way. Slam poetry is really passionate and allows for that to come through. Luis Chaluisan, a playwright performing at the Nuyorican, was recently quoted as saying, “You know what a Nuyorican is? It is someone who finds solutions.” Do you think that holds true for the poets that perform at the café? Well, I am not sure. But for me, it is about trying to b
