Editing Poetry slam (section)

==Criticism==
At the 1993 National Poetry Slam in San Francisco, a participating team from Canada (Kedrick James, Alex Ferguson and John Sobol) wrote, printed and circulated an instant [[Broadside (printing)|broadside]] titled ''Like Lambs to the Slammer'', that criticized what they perceived as the complacency, conformity, and calculated tear-jerking endemic to the poetry slam scene. Over time, slam poetry has been criticized for lacking depth and for its features, e.g., "[https://www.vice.com/en/article/this-is-why-you-probably-hate-slam-poetry-according-to-a-linguistic-scholar/ slam voice]," which may limit the range of emotion it can express.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Perspective|date=4 April 2022 |url=https://www.theperspective.com/debates/entertainment/is-slam-an-accepted-form-of-poetry/}}</ref>

In an interview in the ''[[Paris Review]]'', literary critic [[Harold Bloom]] wrote

<blockquote>I can't bear these accounts I read in the ''Times'' and elsewhere of these poetry slams, in which various young men and women in various late-spots are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other. The whole thing is judged by an applause meter which is actually not there, but might as well be. This isn't even silly; it is the death of art.<ref>Bloom, Harold (2009) quoted in Somers-Willett, Susan B.A., ''The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry''. University of Michigan Press. p. 21.</ref></blockquote>

Poet and lead singer of [[King Missile]], [[John S. Hall]], has also long been a vocal opponent, taking issue with such factors as its inherently competitive nature<ref name="aptowicz290">Aptowicz (2008), p. 290.</ref> and what he considers its lack of stylistic diversity.<ref name="aptowicz297">Aptowicz (2008), p. 297.</ref> He recalls seeing his first slam, at the [[Nuyorican Poets Café]]: "...I hated it. And it made me really uncomfortable and ... it was very much like a sport, and I was interested in poetry in large part because it was like the antithesis of sports. ... [I]t seemed to me like a very macho, masculine form of poetry and not at all what I was interested in."<ref>Aptowicz (2008)</ref>

The poet Tim Clare offers a "for and against" account of the phenomenon in ''Slam: A Poetic Dialogue''.<ref>{{Cite book |chapter=Slam: A Poetic Dialogue |title=Stress Fractures: Essays on Poetry |editor-last=Chivers |editor-first=Tom |publisher=Penned in the Margins Press |location=London |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-9565-4671-5 |oclc=680282058}}</ref>

Ironically, slam poetry movement founder Marc Smith has been critical of the commercially successful [[Def Poetry]] television and Broadway live stage shows produced by [[Russell Simmons]], decrying it as "an exploitive entertainment [program that] diminished the value and aesthetic of performance poetry".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.vocalo.org/explore/content/28448 | title=The Fall of Slam | work=Vocalo | date=June 3, 2008 | access-date=June 4, 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011163000/http://www.vocalo.org/explore/content/28448 | archive-date=October 11, 2008 | url-status=dead}}</ref>