''SlamNation'' is a

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

by director Paul Devlin. The film follows the National Poetry Slam in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populou ...

. It follows the 1996 Nuyorican Poetry Slam team (

Saul Williams Saul Stacey Williams (born February 29, 1972) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, musician, poet, writer, and actor. He is known for his blend of poetry and alternative hip hop, and for his lead roles in the 1998 independent film '' Slam ...

Beau Sia Beau Sia (, born 1976) is an American slam poet. Life and career 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. When not participating in his ...

, 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,

Alexandra Oliver Alexandra Oliver (born 1970) is a Canadian poet, who won the Pat Lowther Award in 2014 for her collection ''Meeting the Tormentors in Safeway''. A graduate of the University of Toronto and the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing, Oliver be ...

and

Bob Holman Bob Holman is an American poet and poetry activist, most closely identified with the oral tradition, the spoken word, and poetry slam. As a promoter of poetry in many media, Holman has spent the last four decades working variously as an author ...

, among many others. The film is one of the first films to document the art and competition of the

poetry slam A poetry slam is a competitive art event in which poets perform spoken word poetry before a live audience and a panel of judges. While formats can vary, slams are often loud and lively, with audience participation, cheering and dramatic delivery. ...

: 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 Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

wrote a glowing review, calling the poetry slam "a pop culture phenomenon".http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19981023/REVIEWS/810230305/1023Roger Ebert's review of SlamNation 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 ( ; born November 26, 1978) is an American nonfiction writer and poet. Life A native of Philadelphia, Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz graduated from Central High School of Philadelphia in 1996 and received a B.F.A. in Dramat ...

calls the film "slam's second bible" (behind the Nuyorican anthology ''Aloud'') and writes,

References

External links

SlamNation official website
*

Documentary films about poets American documentary films Works about slam poetry 1998 films 1990s English-language films 1990s American films {{arts-documentary-film-stub