2009 Houston Slam Team Nationals Results and Analysis, Part One

I wanted to get this article out earlier, but needed time to reflect on the outcome of both our bouts. My plan was to post results the very next day after the bout, but I was a little emotional after each one. And once the team returned to Houston, I had to immediately start planning for the start of the 2009-10 Houston Poetry Slam season. Don’t be too discouraged by these results if you are a supporter of Houston Poetry Slam. Keep in mind that the only thing under the control of any team of poets is poetry – and while we didn’t have great poems this year, they were better than the scores reflected. The new set rotation this year is a variant of the previous random alphabetical system used in year’s past – which is out of my control. The judges are traditionally picked out of the audience at Nationals, but in the first bout volunteers were asked to judge so that the bout could start on schedule – again, out of my control. I call these volunteers “entourage poets” , and poets make the harshest judges because they usually have severe bias toward style or content. Anyway, let’s start the analysis with our first bout:

Bout #9 7pm @ The Lounge
Round One
A. New York Nuyorican Poetry Slam – 26.2
B. Madison Poetry Slam – 25.2
C. Houston Poetry Slam – 25.4
D. Boston Poetry Slam (Cantab) – 25.4

In my opinion “C” has the worst rotation in this new alphabetical system, and what did we draw? “C”! When New York sent up a romantic poem to start the slam, I was floored. So when they received a 26.2 I suspected a low scoring slam which means it might be within my control. Up next, Madison brought the scoring average down further, so I thought it was time to give emotional depth to the bout with Deep Blue See’s poem “Little Bird”. I was shocked when it got only a 25.2. We thought Boston would send Oz up next, and they did. Oz tied Deep Blu, so that meant we were tied for second with Boston in this round.

Round Two
C. Houston – (24.9 with time penalty) 24.4
A. Nuyo – 27.9
D. Boston- 27.1
B. Madison – 23.2

Well, this is where I screwed up as a coach making this call. I tried to increase the emotional intensity of the slam a little too soon, with a piece that, in retrospect, the “entourage poets” judging probably would be extremely biased against: a rape poem. There is a powerful duet poem about two women initially attracted to one another at a motel party, which ends with one woman raping the other violently. My thinking was that I wanted to get a group piece up first. And we thought that There was a great variation on the whole “rape poem” genre. You don’t hear a lot of poems about female on female rape, do you? Well, not only did Savannah and Sheba have a slight flub up with the mic set up, but we were penalized with a .5 time penalty for going 3:11 on a piece that has consistently clocked in at 2:45 – 2:50 in practice. Weird. Nuyo flipped our duet with a trio socio-political piece and broke the scoring average by two points. Boston followed suit with a solo, but thank goodness Madison brought the average back down. But this slam had gotten out of my control quickly based on one bad call.

Round Three
D. Boston – 26.2
C. Houston – 25.9
B. Madison – 25.5
A. Nuyo – 26.8

After a Boston solo that I was sure would score higher than it did, so when it didn’t, I thought we had to pull out some of our heavier duty pieces to get into second. I might have gotten a little too desperate. I was about to send Sheba up to do Beautiful, but went up myself to do my poem Move which is a poem that uses my grandmother’s death from Alzheimer’s to illustrate how basic the concept of life is. Living things move. Well, the judges were unimpressed with what I and my team thought was the most powerful performance of that piece that I’d done. But the “entourage poets” judging the slam probably considered it just another “disease poem” and lots of “entourage poets” are biased against the “disease poem” genre.

Round Four
B. Madison 22.3
D. Boston – 26.4
A. Nuyo – 27.2
C. Houston – 25.9

The slam was still within reach. We were only 3 points behind second place Boston, but based on how the judges were reacting to our work all we could do was hope since we would go up last in the final round. We needed 29 or 30 points to take over 2nd, so we sent Sheba up to do the poem dedicated to her mother battling with cancer:”Beautiful”. I was aware it might be perceived as yet another “disease” genre poem, but it was one of our best pieces. And much to our disappointment we still couldn’t get above the scoring average with one of our best pieces.

Bout Final Results
1st. Nuyo – 107.8, 2nd. Boston – 105.1, 3rd. Houston – 101.6 4th. Madison – 95.9
Scoring Average: 25.7

Conclusion: What I learned from this bout was a) lead off with more personality pieces; b) I need poems for when and if “entourage poets” are judging since this seems to be a trend that will continue for years to come; c) don’t throw away good poems if you can’t at least match a team that broke the scoring average, and you can settle for third place to save your good material for the next night.

As it turned out I could have used “Move”, “Beautiful”, and “There” in our Thursday night bout with probably better results.