The poetry culture around campus can be found in two organizations: Rap Poetry Music club, RPM, and the Poetry Association, also known as the SUNY New Paltz Slam Team.
Spoken word, freestyle, beat-boxing, guitars, singing, MC battles, banjos, poetry and more banjos are what one would hear on Tuesdays in the Shango Hall Kitchen at RPM where a gathering of a diverse group of students comes out every week to perform or listen or both. Anyone can perform whatever they’d like, whether it’s original or not. With an atmosphere that’s lax and inviting, the floor is open for anyone to jump in. There is no set structure to how the meeting goes; it just flows like the poetry.
But usually the poets “spit”, say, their pieces first and then, towards the end, those with musical talent take the stage. The meeting will most likely close with a collaboration of the artist in the room through music, beat-boxing and free-styling.
Sophomore Megan Falley explained RPM’s atmosphere as, “inspiring, creative, diverse, beautiful, welcoming, gorgeous, love.”
Falley, whose neighbor brought her to RPM in her freshman year, currently holds the first place spot on the SUNY New Paltz Slam team.
The slam team is a competing collegiate poetry team with six members and one coach. New Paltz’s slam team received third place in the national collegiate competition in Texas in 2006 and 2nd place in the regional competition in Oneonta in 2007. They will be competing for the national title in New Mexico this upcoming April.
The judges are picked randomly from the audience and they score from one to 10. Out of the five scores, the highest and lowest are dropped. The three middle scores give the poet his or her final score. The number of rounds the poet performs in depends on the structure of the slam.
“I personally don’t care much for slams for the simple fact that I don’t think spoken word should be judged,” said Carmen Mojica, past alternate and coach for the slam team. “Although I can say that seeing the caliber that other poets are at has made me step up my writing game.’
Falley agrees. “I don’t really care about the scores, and I’m not offended if a judge low-balls me,” said Falley. “I like to write, I like to perform and I like to connect with the audience. If I feel that I have done that successfully, then the scores are really insignificant.”
Spoken word, freestyle, beat-boxing, guitars, singing, MC battles, banjos, poetry and more banjos are what one would hear on Tuesdays in the Shango Hall Kitchen at RPM where a gathering of a diverse group of students comes out every week to perform or listen or both. Anyone can perform whatever they’d like, whether it’s original or not. With an atmosphere that’s lax and inviting, the floor is open for anyone to jump in. There is no set structure to how the meeting goes; it just flows like the poetry.
But usually the poets “spit”, say, their pieces first and then, towards the end, those with musical talent take the stage. The meeting will most likely close with a collaboration of the artist in the room through music, beat-boxing and free-styling.
Sophomore Megan Falley explained RPM’s atmosphere as, “inspiring, creative, diverse, beautiful, welcoming, gorgeous, love.”
Falley, whose neighbor brought her to RPM in her freshman year, currently holds the first place spot on the SUNY New Paltz Slam team.
The slam team is a competing collegiate poetry team with six members and one coach. New Paltz’s slam team received third place in the national collegiate competition in Texas in 2006 and 2nd place in the regional competition in Oneonta in 2007. They will be competing for the national title in New Mexico this upcoming April.
"Spread the Spoken Word"- Megan FalleyIn order to make the team, the poets have to perform in a qualifying slam. In a slam, a spoken word competition, the poets must perform original pieces that are no longer than three minutes. With every ten seconds that they go over three minutes, there is a time deduction from their score.
The judges are picked randomly from the audience and they score from one to 10. Out of the five scores, the highest and lowest are dropped. The three middle scores give the poet his or her final score. The number of rounds the poet performs in depends on the structure of the slam.
“I personally don’t care much for slams for the simple fact that I don’t think spoken word should be judged,” said Carmen Mojica, past alternate and coach for the slam team. “Although I can say that seeing the caliber that other poets are at has made me step up my writing game.’
Falley agrees. “I don’t really care about the scores, and I’m not offended if a judge low-balls me,” said Falley. “I like to write, I like to perform and I like to connect with the audience. If I feel that I have done that successfully, then the scores are really insignificant.”
Both RPM and the Poetry Association have different poetry events on and off campus. They sponsor open mics and secure poets from the other schools like Oneonta and UCLA to come perform. The Poetry Association also brought Saul Williams, a well-known spoken word artist, to campus two years ago.
Even so, both Mojica and Falley feel that not enough people go to poetry events.
“I think when people hear poetry reading, they judge it immediately, but the few who have given it a chance usually always come back,” Falley said. “Spread the spoken word.”
Photo taken by Barbara Baez
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