Is Slam Becoming Too Popular

Poetry slam has grown increasingly in popularity, especially among the youth. All over the world people from all walks of life are doing poetry slam. But some of the original practitioners seem to be troubled by the growing popularity of the art form. They seem to fear that it may be getting too commercialized or watered down. And with good reason. Everybody sees what happened to hip hop. Could the same happen to poetry slam? In my opinion, that’s up to the youth. They will grow up and they will decide whether poetry should be exploited for greedy personal gain, or whether it will remain a form of expression that is accessible to any poet or mere poetic pop culture icons. Here’s a link to an article with Marc Smith the “creator” of poetry slam talking about this very topic.