SlamNation
Encyclopedia
SlamNation is a documentary film
by director Paul Devlin
. The film follows the National Poetry Slam
in Portland, Oregon
.
It follows the 1996 Nuyorican Poetry Slam team (Saul Williams
, Beau Sia
, muMs da Schemer
and Jessica Care Moore
) as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam
held in Portland, OR. The film also features performances by Marc Smith, Patricia Smith, Taylor Mali
and Bob Holman
, among many others.
The film is one of the first films to document the art and competition of the poetry slam: a spoken word competition where judges, randomly chosen from the audience, score poets on a scale from one to ten and the poet with the highest score at the end of the evening wins.
SlamNation premiered at the 1998 SXSW Film Festival and was awarded Best Documentary at the 1998 Northampton Independent Film Festival. SlamNation was broadcast on Cinemax/HBO and Starz/Encore, 2000-2002.
Though it would only enjoy a limited theatrical run, the film was nonetheless critically well received. Roger Ebert
wrote a glowing review, calling the poetry slam "a pop culture phenomenon". In her book Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
calls the film "slam's second bible" (behind the Nuyorican anthology Aloud) and writes,
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
by director Paul Devlin
Paul Devlin (filmmaker)
Paul Josiah Devlin is a sports editor and documentary filmmaker.A five-time Emmy winner for his work on NBC's Olympics and CBS's Tour de France, Paul Devlin's films include Power Trip, which screened in 60 countries, theatrically across the United States and on PBS's Independent Lens, was nominated...
. The film follows the National Poetry Slam
National Poetry Slam
The National Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and France participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and takes place in a different US city....
in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
.
It follows the 1996 Nuyorican Poetry Slam team (Saul Williams
Saul Williams
Saul Stacey Williams is an American poet, writer, actor and musician known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop and for his leading role in the 1998 independent film Slam.-Biography:...
, Beau Sia
Beau Sia
-Biography:Sia was born in Ohio. He is of Chinese-Filipino descent. Raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Sia discovered spoken word poetry on MTV as a teenager...
, muMs da Schemer
MuMs da Schemer
muMs da Schemer is a poet and actor best known for his role as Arnold "Poet" Jackson on the HBO series Oz....
and Jessica Care Moore
Jessica Care Moore
Jessica Care Moore is an African American poet born in Detroit, on October 28, 1971.-Career:Moore first won acclaim as the first poet to ever win the nationally televised Showtime at the Apollo competition 5 times in a row. That same year, she would be filmed for the documentary SlamNation...
) as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam
National Poetry Slam
The National Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition where teams from across the United States, Canada, and France participate in a large-scale poetry slam. The event occurs in early August every year and takes place in a different US city....
held in Portland, OR. The film also features performances by Marc Smith, Patricia Smith, Taylor Mali
Taylor Mali
Taylor Mali is an American slam poet, humorist, teacher, and voiceover artist.-Life:A 10th-generation native of New York City, Taylor Mali graduated from the Collegiate School, a private school for boys, in 1983. He received a B.A. in English from Bowdoin College in 1987 and an M.A. in...
and Bob Holman
Bob Holman
Bob Holman is a poet and poetry activist in the United States.- Career :After graduating from Columbia University in 1970, Bob Holman founded, with Sara Miles and Susie Timmons, the NYC Poetry Calendar, a free monthly publication with all the readings and poets "on the same page"...
, among many others.
The film is one of the first films to document the art and competition of the poetry slam: a spoken word competition where judges, randomly chosen from the audience, score poets on a scale from one to ten and the poet with the highest score at the end of the evening wins.
SlamNation premiered at the 1998 SXSW Film Festival and was awarded Best Documentary at the 1998 Northampton Independent Film Festival. SlamNation was broadcast on Cinemax/HBO and Starz/Encore, 2000-2002.
Though it would only enjoy a limited theatrical run, the film was nonetheless critically well received. Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote a glowing review, calling the poetry slam "a pop culture phenomenon". In her book Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is an American poet and writer. Recently, she was awarded a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry.-Life:...
calls the film "slam's second bible" (behind the Nuyorican anthology Aloud) and writes,