Image: Lishai Peel by Michelle Darby-Wyatt
There was a lot on the line last night at the Toronto Poetry Project‘s Decathlon Slam. Aside from the official prize of a plastic dinosaur statue, the two teams of slam professionals were going to battle over bragging rights and community cred.
Despite the competitive atmosphere, the red and blue teams were able to keep things lighthearted. Performance jitters were still evident, however. “I think I should have a shot,” mumbled one of the participants while heading towards the bar, pre-show.
Once the night kicked off, the ten poets willingly participated in a series of unconventional categories, such as haiku battles and on-the-spot erotica. Held at the Supermarket, the evening served as a fundraiser to send local champion Alessandra Storm and coach Lishai Peel (who also co-hosted) to the Women of the World Poetry Slam in Colorado. For Storm, raising the money would give her the opportunity to “represent Toronto among the most amazing female rock star poets.”
Buoyed by their noble cause, the Decathlon’s participants were willing to get, in the words of team member Nico Al Ajillo, “totally ridiculous.” Improv, stripping, and sexy odes to Sudbury were all performed in attempts to garner the greatest audience reaction. Subjects ranged from breakfast cereal to the female anatomy to Smurfs, and much else in between. The highest level of applause marked each round’s winner, and plenty of heckling was provided by teammates on the sidelines.
A poetry slam virgin, I went in expecting a night of self-righteous seriousness. Instead, the Decathlon was as funny as a lot of the comedy I’ve seen in Toronto, and definitely as risqué. When participant David Silverberg launched into a popular slam poem about period sex, it was clear the battle had taken a turn for the blue. As Al Ajillo put it, “Slam is just a thin skin of bacon over a seedy underbelly.”
The evening’s rare serious moments were also a hit with the crowd, including a poem about the struggles of migrant workers set to a Calypso beat.
By the show’s second half, the teams had the audience singing along to their respective Flight of the Concords-esque poem songs. Four exchange students from Turkey at my table who had never heard slam poetry before were hooked, just as Peel predicted they would be. “Slam is all about communication,” she said earlier in the night as the teams were setting up. “You give the audience your heart, and they reciprocate.”
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Wyndham Bettencourt-McCarthy writes regularly for Toronto Standard.
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