Kristian Knutsen
The lecture hall at MMoCA is at capacity for the Madison team's opening bout at National Poetry Slam 2008.
Setting: the lecture at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Status: packed. Time: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008. Context: H-Town Slam from Houston; the hometown heroes in the Madison Spoken Word Collective; Open Mic Poetry from Manchester, New Hampshire; and, Manchester sends The Colonel to the microphone. "Let's do something wrong," he exhorts the object of his affections, "let's revel in it….Our wrong is the kind of wrong that can sway governments….We've gotta grab hold of this wrong and ride it bareback." He approaches brazen ecstasy before concluding with "girl, we are suddenly so-o-o-o-o-o right." His performance is punctuated by another rousing roar from the audience. The judges' tally: 24.9. And so it goes. San Antonio sends their first-round poet to the stage. Houston follows. Round one yields to round two to three. One of the Madison team's most engaging contributions to the evening is a hilarious group piece about "The Man" involving Evy Gildry-Voyles, Josh Healey, and Smith. Saturated with irony, it addressed issues of race, class and privilege in ways that provoked the audience to both laughter and thought. It also provoked one of the judges to award it the low score of the evening, a 6 that was met with consensus derision from the audience. Yet another roar welcomes Madison's Eric Mata to the stage. The power of his words moves members of the audience to repeated audible reaction, and in a little under three minutes he has his listeners on their feet for a standing ovation. Judges' scores reflect this approval, tallying 27.3. Ryan Hurley represents Madison in round four, muting the volume of his delivery to great effect as he renders a soulful consideration of faith and human vulnerability that ends on a note of repentance that wrings a roar of supportive empathy from the audience and the Madison team's best individual score from the judges at 27.9. The points are tallied. "Poetry won!" someone in the audience shouts right before the results are read. There are whoops of agreement. And then the scores are read. In fourth place: Manchester, with 105.3 points. Third: San Antonio with 107.2. Second (pregnant pause): Madison, with 107.9 points. You can feel the pressure drop in the room, leaving Houston as the victor with 110.8 points. But the results are almost anticlimactic. As the audience files out, muted exit stands in sharp contrast to the excitement of the moment that has passed -- and the combustible anticipation of the next bout.
