D e s e r t E x p o s u r e 
January
2008
Slam Dunk
Page: 2"Welcome to the Silver City Sla-a-a-a-am!" he yells. The excitement barometer in the room rises as his words rush out in a glib cascade — a rollicking description of the evening-to-be, what the audience can expect, how the poets will come up, one and all, to pour out their hearts. "It's gonna be a helluva show tonight! Are you rea-a-a-a-a-ady?!" The audience responds with whoops and applause.
The first of three open-mic performers takes the stage. A young man in an oversized New York Yankee sweatshirt and knit cap with the Yankee logo pulled down to his eyes lets loose with a rapid-fire poem reminiscent of rap music.
"Ignorance shouldn't hap-pen," he spits out. He gestures with stab of his hands, sharply, intensely, his voice rising and falling, his cadence insistent, passionate. And his lines, yes, rhyming, rhyming, rhyming.
At the end of the piece, he simply falls silent. The audience whoops and applauds again.
"I have one more," he says, almost shyly.
He pauses, takes a breath, and begins reciting his next piece, this one starting off with an expletive, along the lines of "Forget what you told me." The audience does not seem put off — four-letter words are allowed, within reason, at slams. The young man finishes, the audience applauds, and Slam Master Francis steps onto the stage to introduce the next open-mic performer, Rick Davis.
A well-known local musician, Davis pulls out a small notebook. His performance could hardly be more different from the last. Davis reads a very spiritual piece, repeating phrases about "The One" and "the source of all." His voice is soft but intense, and he looks up frequently to make eye contact with his audience.
Next up is a girl who looks to be about 10 years old, introduced in a booming voice by Francis as The Exceptional Kennedy!, and welcomed to the stage by warm applause. Dressed in a long-sleeve T-shirt with Ralph Lauren logo, her red purse slung over her shoulder and a pink cap with white shearling fur trim, she holds a sheet of her writing in one hand while clenching the other, perhaps in nervousness.
She reads her rhyming verse in a small but clear voice. One memorable phrase includes the words "deep dish pizza," which brings a delighted titter from the audience.
This concludes the open-mic portion of the evening. Slam Master Francis returns to the stage and gives a huge introduction to tonight's feature poet, who performs under the name "DaShade Moonbeam." A member of the Austin Slam Poetry Team, "Moonbeam" has traveled from Texas for tonight's special performance.
Featured poets, Castello explains, are not competing for points. They are here to energize the crowd and draw audience: "For our Slam, we always try to have a feature. We try to give them some kind of travel stipend and let them sell CDs of their work and any other merchandise they might have. DaShade came all the way up from El Paso, so we want to give something back to him. And our traveling feature poets agree to give a workshop as part of the deal."
Typically eight or nine high-school kids, ages 14 to 18, show up for the youth writing workshops the morning after Slams, Castello says.
And to keep the local poetry talent growing, Davies teaches youth writing workshops two evenings a week at the coffee shop. "Occasionally we meet on the weekends," he says, "and have a weekend class, like with the visiting poets. It started last summer and it's been going on for over a year now. The original group of students has changed, but it's become a solid after-school thing."
A number of Davies' regular writing students are on hand tonight, giving whoops of support to their friends who'll step up to the microphone.
But before they get their chance, it's DaShade Moonbeam. After Francis' rousing introduction, the young African-American man with close-cropped hair steps to the microphone to loud applause. He wears a black T-shirt with a design that looks to be an alien skull wearing headphones, guns crossed beneath in a pirate crossbones motif, the writing overtop resembling graffiti.
He starts with a poem recited from memory, about tough life in the city. "Rat traps and roach motels," he intones. "This house was a broken home." He details the broken walls and doors, then goes on, "You can heal cuts and scrapes, but death is a done deal," ending with the line, "Don't let the roaches and the rats get your hopes and your dreams."
Moonbeam starts his next piece by quietly singing a few lines, reminiscent of a song sung by slaves in fields in the old South, or perhaps by workers on a chain gang. It is soft, powerful, simultaneously sad and hopeful. This leads directly into the spoken part of the poem, a work about struggle. "I'm making payments on my payments," he says with a frustrated edge. He's got "a pocket full of anger and a fist full of strife," he says, then concludes the piece with more soft singing.
Pausing just a moment, Moonbeam then launches into another piece, this one mentioning three little girls with "a monster abuser father" who may be "put away at last."
He ends the piece and looks down, seeming almost exhausted at telling this last tale. He looks up at the audience and talks of his own difficulties as a struggling black man, "trying to change, trying to make a difference." He mentions he's brought CDs of his performances to sell, which draws more applause from the audience.
"Should I keep going?" he asks. The crowd gives an enthusiastic whoop, and he launches into a quiet piece, spoken in measured, syncopated syllables and lines, poetry with an intricate internal rhyme scheme. "DaShade/ the commodity/ is a prodigy," he says, punctuated by measured, dramatic breaths.
MoonBeam completes three more poems before Slam Master Francis holds up one finger to cue the poet that his time is running out.
Moonbeam pauses, then simply says, "I'm done."
The audience whoops and hollers, and Francis implores them to "buy some merch" to support the artist.
Francis returns to the microphone to whip up the audience for the start of the Slam, the competitive portion of the night. Like a game show host who's perhaps had an extra shot in his latte, he yells, "We're ready to sla-a-a-a-am!" He spits out his words rapid fire: "We have 13, count 'em 13 fantastic poets to astound you, amaze you, maybe even make you cry!"
He goes over the rules and regulations of scoring slam poetry in a humorous, glib stream of words, reminiscent of the obligatory recitation about "the accounting firm of Price Waterhouse" on Oscar night. Like the comical, well-rehearsed yells familiar to audiences of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Slam audience calls out animated replies in unison.
Francis asks if there are any newbies to the event — "Slam virgins," if you will. A seasoned bunch at the back of the room, including regular Slam Master Castello, responds. "Forget about those people at the back of the room," Francis yells to a roar of laughter.
He goes into the history of the phenomenon, the rules and scoring procedure. "The poets are competing for you, audience, and for you, judges," Francis says. He introduces the timekeeper and scorekeeper, and explains that of the five judges' scores, the lowest and highest will be dropped, the remaining three scores added together — much like the Olympics.