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Bamuthi (SeeKing) twirls lyrics off the tip of his tongue. Sitting Ringside "Berkeley Slam," Wednesdays at the Starry Plough By Aaron Gardner The last poetry slam I went to at the Starry Plough was packed with over 150 people. The audience barely had room to stand, let alone to find a seat -- which left me and a friend sitting on the floor by the stage on pads. Not since Shakespeare's time has poetry been this popular in the realm of entertainment. It's an anomaly, seeing as many as 600 people per show in the Bay Area, most of whom are from the MTV generation, cheering, screaming, stomping, and basically loving poetry. A poetry slam consists of poets and spoken word artists signing up to read as they would at any open mike. However, in a slam, these poets are competing against one another for points assigned by random audience members. The poems are judged on a scale of one (don't quit your day job) to ten (your poem caused simultaneous orgasm throughout the audience). Winners at the weekly Berkeley slam walk away with 30 bucks and a big ego boost from the lively crowd. There are rules, however: each poem can be no longer than three minutes, no props or costumes are allowed, no musical accompaniment, etc.... These restrictions, along with the slam's competitive aspect, usually generate highly charged emotional, lyrical, and political poetry which can leave the crowd intoxicated (the fact that the slam is held at a bar may have something to do with it as well). Whole Enchilada Records and daniland.com have bottled up the slam experience, so to speak, in a new CD entitled "The Best of the Berkeley Slam." The album features ten poets who have graced the stage at the Starry Plough, and who have made their mark on the Bay Area scene in one way or another. The poetry on the CD embodies the diversity of the scene as well, from poems like Jamie Kennedy's emotionally intense "Xiana Fairchild," to Bucky Sinister's ridiculous "The Ballad of Chicken Larry." Overall, the production on the CD is excellent: each of the poets were individually studio recorded for a very crisp presentation. But you don't buy spoken word albums for the studio quality, you buy them for their content. And content is copious on the Berkeley Slam CD. The album opens with Bamuthi (SeeKing), who runs the largest slam in California, held at the Justice League in San Francisco. His poem "All I Hear" is the perfect opening for a project of this sort as it deals with the intricacies and contradictions involved in being a spoken word artist in the public sphere while being delivered in a highly rhythmic, lyrical manner. The rest of the album blossoms out from this point, exploring different avenues of thought and experience, and giving the listener an emotional workout. You'll cry for Marcus Rene Van's "Red Lipstick," laugh at Berkeley Slam's host, Charles Ellik, for his "Nibble the Nose," get hit with a double-dose of love poems from Michael Cirelli and Nazelah Jamison. And that's just the beginning. You can catch the slam in action and pick up the CD at the Starry Plough any Wednesday night at 8. Once you get down there, you'll need the album to tide you over till the next week, when you'll do it all over again. [ East Bay | Metroactive | Archives ]