Survivor Slam gives to the community

Hannah Coates
Staff Writer

Slam Nahuatl, a Richmond-based poetry group whose mission is to uplift the community through poetry, hosted its fourth Survivor Slam of the year at the Nile this past Monday night.

For some, the term Slam Poetry is foreign. Rob Gibson, a VCU student heavily involved with the movement, defines it as, “thoughts, ideas, words, put together in a form of expression that is community-based. It’s not just poets talking to themselves,” he said.

Slam poetry is not as simple as usual open-mic poetry. There is a level of competition between the performers because they have a limited amount of time to deliver their previously rehearsed poems. In round one they have one minute, round two they have two and in round three they have three.

There are a few key differences between Ram Slam, the slam poetry competition affiliated with VCU, and Survivor Slam, a Richmond-based group. According to Gibson, who has performed with both, the obvious perks of being at the Nile was the food and the smaller, more intimate setting of being in a restaurant instead of a black box theater.

To Faisal Ilyas, a VCU senior who has performed with the group before, “Ram Slam is a very general audience while the people (at Survivor Slam) have been coming to slams for a while and therefore there is a greater familiarity.”

Another difference between traditional poetry and slam poetry is that there are judges, usually randomly selected from the members, who give points (from one to 10) to each artist. In addition to the judges, the rest of the audience members are encouraged to participate in the evening by “giving love” to the poets in the form of whistling, snapping, “umhumm”-ing and “ahha”-ing whenever they feel something.

“Slam poetry is something ancient,” Gibson said. “You can trace it back to Homer and what he did. That was spoken word poetry. He had all this stuff in his head, thought of lines and one day he starting speaking to the masses. And if you follow the story of Jesus Christ, he also was a spoken word poet who gathered followers by (impressing them) with his words.”

Gibson, considering himself a poet and a “manicurist of words,” said slam poetry is an important way to communicate to a broader audience.

“It’s free to speak but expensive to be heard,” he said. “I saw that on the wall at Gallery 5 the first time I performed and it’s taken me awhile to fully understand what it means.”

Hamilton Graziano, Slam Nahuatl’s Slam Master, the host of VCU’S Ram Slam and the coach of VCU’S national team (composed of the winners of Ram Slam), enjoys this early art form “because it’s therapeutic.”

“When I first started writing it was primarily about things I needed to get off my chest and I found that speaking about the things that I couldn’t speak about in front of an audience of strangers is very freeing,” Graziano said. “It’s the rush of that release that draws you in, and once you get the negative stuff it opens you up creatively.”

“The spoken word is something all people can connect to. It’s not about grammar or anything, it’s real people telling real stories,” he said.

Ilyas, who came to support on Monday, said, “When people come up to me and say ‘I understand, I get it, what you’ve said has really helped me get
through some things,’ it’s so rewarding. And that’s why I do it.”

Survivor Slam, in an attempt to follow through on its mission to uplift the community, donates any and all money that they receive at events. The donation amount Monday night was a suggested $5 but that much was not required. Currently, proceeds benefit survivors of traumatic accidents and go to the Bruce McCoy Brian Injury Camp for summer 2013.

“I really think what they are doing with Survivor Slam, donating proceeds to charity, is great,” Ilyas said. “The whole Slam Nahuatl movement using this art to uplift the community is a really a beautiful thing.”

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