Gypsee Yo at Rustbelt Regional Slam, June 2011
Review by JW BASILO, Performance Editor
While this publication certainly isn't “slam-related,” the lion's share of its contributors, editors, and readers have at least some sort of root in the bar game wherein we assign numerical scores to poems and crown a winner based on the entirely arbitrary criteria of 5 random people who stumbled into the audience that night. Honestly, I've been trying to avoid the discussion of slam in this column but with the game celebrating it's 25th anniversary this month, I figured it appropriate. There was a time when I was a young, hungry, competitive slammer standing in the backs of bars and coffeeshops every week, pacing and muttering to myself, praying that the judges would award me my much-deserved perfect score and accompanying prize money. Nowadays, I just don't have it in me. However, I still occasionally itch for the rush and I truly do still enjoy playing the game. It is a game, after all, and can be a lot of fun if you don't take it so seriously that the victory becomes more important than the poems.
Part of the reason I've avoided writing about slam in this particular column is that it is very difficult to properly assess and critique one's performance within the confines of three minutes. It's also pretty rare that I find anything at a slam that would warrant mention in a column such as this. However, I would be remiss if I didn't discuss the spectacle that was Gypsee Yo at June's Rustbelt Regional Slam finals, which was possibly the best thing I've seen in my years around this game.
In the evening's first half, the individual finals, Gypsee was terrific in her first two poems, making her a crowd favorite and garnering her scores high enough to walk into the final round. It was in that final round, though, that she transformed her minutes on stage into something extraordinary. Even the most novice of audience members knew that something larger was afoot, one of those rare instances where a performer truly loses themselves in the performance. Halfway through the performance (“The Universe is a Love Poem” - a sprawling, personal manifesto of sorts), Gypsee had completely abandoned the microphone, the drape of her skirt bunched her fists, her eyes closed, hollering into the void. She spun and stomped herself into hallelujah. The crowd leaned in and fought for breath. I imagine this is what church is supposed to look like. At the end of the piece, as the crowd stood and cheered, I looked over the scorer's table and noticed the timekeeper staring at the clock and shaking her head. The performance lasted almost six minutes, nearly twice the allowed limit. The timekeeper looked up at me and said, “there's no way, I don't believe it, something has to be wrong.” Nothing was wrong with the watch; Gypsee Yo had simply bent time. She created a moment so pure and engaging that it passed and seemed to disappear. It was a moment akin to “coming to” while driving across country, one where you blink and look over at the clock and realize that you've been somewhere else without leaving the seat. Of course, the ensuing time penalty was insurmountable and knocked her out of the competition, but nobody cared, least of all the poet.
Gypsee, though, wasn't done for the night. Her team had qualified for finals as well, meaning she had to go up once more. In the first round, Team Minneapolis led off and sent up a poet who did a persona-esque love poem set against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin wall. The piece was well-written and performed, but clearly the author hadn't actually lived it. Something in its battle-heavy imagery apparently struck a nerve with Gypsee Yo, a native of war-torn Albania. Following a poem with another poem with the same theme is incredibly risky, you have to be sure you can top what was just done. And Gypsee did exactly that. In a stroke of sheer slam assholery and brilliance, Gypsee followed with the poem, “In the Year of Machine Gun Serenades,” a true account of falling in love amid a cyclone of violence.
In the year of machine gun serenades,
when angry men emptied their guns
into the mouths of stars,
I fell in love with your father.
We were the last of the cold war children,
born in the crater of the aftermath.
From the moment she opened her mouth, she painted a scape no one could deny and we all belonged to her. She told the story, juxtaposing the bleak scene against overwhelming hope, a kind of love we all dream to be possible.
...the same machine gun serenades
playing in the background by tone deaf amateurs,
and the juvenile delinquent brothers of the third floor
tearing around the corner on a stolen army tank,
roaring like a trapped dinosaur, taunted by the hoards
of neighborhood children with cultivated cruelty,
banging on the wretched beast with pipes and dull bayonets
we kissed, until the last police patrol whistle
quenched the lights on a thousand petrified windows,
turned the empty street into forbidden air,
and the tank, into the carcass of a murdered dinosaur.
As it stands, this performance is my favorite thing I've ever seen in a slam. By the poem's second minute, a smirk of unrelenting joy stealing across Gypsee's face, I was literally on my feet cheering. I wish I could copy the entire piece here. Alas, I cannot, but believe me when I say that even as I read it now, an electric caterpillar crawls across my neck. In a tournament beaten to death with persona poems and the exploitation of war, the authenticity and sheer beauty of this piece felt like the first blast of cool air after an all-nighter in a sauna. Tony Brown recently posited that slam is a lot like rock and roll: virtuosity or skill will never eclipse passion; to be successful, to truly transcend you just have to rock. And though Gypsee didn't “win,” in a matter of two poems she made me believe that there still is some beauty to be found in our silly little game.
While this publication certainly isn't “slam-related,” the lion's share of its contributors, editors, and readers have at least some sort of root in the bar game wherein we assign numerical scores to poems and crown a winner based on the entirely arbitrary criteria of 5 random people who stumbled into the audience that night. Honestly, I've been trying to avoid the discussion of slam in this column but with the game celebrating it's 25th anniversary this month, I figured it appropriate. There was a time when I was a young, hungry, competitive slammer standing in the backs of bars and coffeeshops every week, pacing and muttering to myself, praying that the judges would award me my much-deserved perfect score and accompanying prize money. Nowadays, I just don't have it in me. However, I still occasionally itch for the rush and I truly do still enjoy playing the game. It is a game, after all, and can be a lot of fun if you don't take it so seriously that the victory becomes more important than the poems.
Part of the reason I've avoided writing about slam in this particular column is that it is very difficult to properly assess and critique one's performance within the confines of three minutes. It's also pretty rare that I find anything at a slam that would warrant mention in a column such as this. However, I would be remiss if I didn't discuss the spectacle that was Gypsee Yo at June's Rustbelt Regional Slam finals, which was possibly the best thing I've seen in my years around this game.
In the evening's first half, the individual finals, Gypsee was terrific in her first two poems, making her a crowd favorite and garnering her scores high enough to walk into the final round. It was in that final round, though, that she transformed her minutes on stage into something extraordinary. Even the most novice of audience members knew that something larger was afoot, one of those rare instances where a performer truly loses themselves in the performance. Halfway through the performance (“The Universe is a Love Poem” - a sprawling, personal manifesto of sorts), Gypsee had completely abandoned the microphone, the drape of her skirt bunched her fists, her eyes closed, hollering into the void. She spun and stomped herself into hallelujah. The crowd leaned in and fought for breath. I imagine this is what church is supposed to look like. At the end of the piece, as the crowd stood and cheered, I looked over the scorer's table and noticed the timekeeper staring at the clock and shaking her head. The performance lasted almost six minutes, nearly twice the allowed limit. The timekeeper looked up at me and said, “there's no way, I don't believe it, something has to be wrong.” Nothing was wrong with the watch; Gypsee Yo had simply bent time. She created a moment so pure and engaging that it passed and seemed to disappear. It was a moment akin to “coming to” while driving across country, one where you blink and look over at the clock and realize that you've been somewhere else without leaving the seat. Of course, the ensuing time penalty was insurmountable and knocked her out of the competition, but nobody cared, least of all the poet.
Gypsee, though, wasn't done for the night. Her team had qualified for finals as well, meaning she had to go up once more. In the first round, Team Minneapolis led off and sent up a poet who did a persona-esque love poem set against the backdrop of the fall of the Berlin wall. The piece was well-written and performed, but clearly the author hadn't actually lived it. Something in its battle-heavy imagery apparently struck a nerve with Gypsee Yo, a native of war-torn Albania. Following a poem with another poem with the same theme is incredibly risky, you have to be sure you can top what was just done. And Gypsee did exactly that. In a stroke of sheer slam assholery and brilliance, Gypsee followed with the poem, “In the Year of Machine Gun Serenades,” a true account of falling in love amid a cyclone of violence.
In the year of machine gun serenades,
when angry men emptied their guns
into the mouths of stars,
I fell in love with your father.
We were the last of the cold war children,
born in the crater of the aftermath.
From the moment she opened her mouth, she painted a scape no one could deny and we all belonged to her. She told the story, juxtaposing the bleak scene against overwhelming hope, a kind of love we all dream to be possible.
...the same machine gun serenades
playing in the background by tone deaf amateurs,
and the juvenile delinquent brothers of the third floor
tearing around the corner on a stolen army tank,
roaring like a trapped dinosaur, taunted by the hoards
of neighborhood children with cultivated cruelty,
banging on the wretched beast with pipes and dull bayonets
we kissed, until the last police patrol whistle
quenched the lights on a thousand petrified windows,
turned the empty street into forbidden air,
and the tank, into the carcass of a murdered dinosaur.
As it stands, this performance is my favorite thing I've ever seen in a slam. By the poem's second minute, a smirk of unrelenting joy stealing across Gypsee's face, I was literally on my feet cheering. I wish I could copy the entire piece here. Alas, I cannot, but believe me when I say that even as I read it now, an electric caterpillar crawls across my neck. In a tournament beaten to death with persona poems and the exploitation of war, the authenticity and sheer beauty of this piece felt like the first blast of cool air after an all-nighter in a sauna. Tony Brown recently posited that slam is a lot like rock and roll: virtuosity or skill will never eclipse passion; to be successful, to truly transcend you just have to rock. And though Gypsee didn't “win,” in a matter of two poems she made me believe that there still is some beauty to be found in our silly little game.