A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Poetry Slam Scene (Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry) [Paperback]

Susan McAllister (Editor), Don McIver (Editor), Mikaela Renz (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry | Publication Date: June 16, 2008

A Bigger Boat chronicles the Albuquerque Slam Poetry scene's growth and success at the 2005 National Poetry Slam competition, which it hosted and won. This collection of poems and personal memories explores Slam from the voices of the poets who began developing the Albuquerque scene in 1990 to poets who witnessed and celebrated the 2005 hometown victory.

Despite Slam's big city origins and arguments that smaller urban areas could not garner enough community interest to host national events, the Albuquerque event proved skeptics wrong. The swell of excitement so exceeded expectations that Danny Solis urged fellow organizers, "We need a bigger boat!"

The editors of A Bigger Boat gathered the works of well-known local and national poets to provide a window into the world of competitive poetry, where verse meets performance.

A CD with performances by many of the poets recorded at Albuquerque poetry slam events is included.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Exciting words by talented poets who have made Albuquerque's poetry slams so successful.

About the Author

Susan McAllister is the director of the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque. She headed the fundraising committee for the 2005 National Poetry Slam and was a founding member of the International Poetry Institute.

Don McIver is a performance poet who first started performing his work in Denver in the late 1980s. McIver hosts and produces KUNM-FM's "Spoken Word Hour" and is co-producer of "The Poetry of Vietnam" and "Slam: Literary Fad or Movement."

Mikaela Jae Renz has been the mentor for the Voces Program since it began in 2002. She received a B.A. in English from the University of New Mexico and works as a community planner in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press; Pap/Com edition (June 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826344836
• ISBN-13: 978-0826344830
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,547,329 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Shappy Seasholtz was the surly barkeep at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC for its first eight years and slam-master & host of their weekly poetry slam, NYC-Urbana. He has toured with Lollapalooza, was featured on season three of HBO'S Def Poetry and has been running the National Nerd Slam for over a decade. He has a book with PENMANSHIP BOOKS called SPOKEN NERD REVOLUTION that covers over 20 years of Shap's slam poetry career. He blogs at http://drycoolplace.blogspot.com and is currently working on his memoirs about growing up in Kettering, Ohio. He collects old Gold Key & Dell comic books and View-Master reels and watches old Hanna-Barbera cartoons until his girlfriend yells at him to come to bed. He recently moved to Austin, TX to help The Secret Nerd Cabal take over the internet.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Albuquerque Shines an Honest Spotlight on its Enduring Slam Scene, June 5, 2008

By 

C. O. Aptowicz (NYC, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Poetry Slam Scene (Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry) (Paperback)

It is extremely difficult to capture the spirit of an arts scene: all the different voices, different faces, different stories, different dramas, large and small. "A Bigger Boat" aimed extremely high by trying to capture the vital and diverse poetry slam scene of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and succeeded with this quirky, history-filled and utterly poetic volume. Brief essays by numerous New Mexican poets who have made the poetry slam in Albuquerque what is today help walk the reader through its eventful and homespun ten year history. National voices -- such as New York City's Taylor Mali and Shappy Seasholtz, Texas's Mike Henry, Phil West & Bob Whoopeecat Stephenson and Chicago's own (Poetry Slam founder) Marc Smith, among others -- help expand the book's vision when it showcases the 2005 National Poetry Slam, which Albuquerque not only hosted but Team Albuquerque also won. Controversy is not shied away from, criticism is not hidden from view and yet this book is not merely a collection of gossip and "back in the day" tales. It is an important regional catalogue, a family album for a true family poets. And to top it all, the book is filled to the brim with incredible examples of Albuquerque slam poetry at its best, both group work and solo pieces, spanning all ten years, PLUS selected works from some of the best poets who performed at their National Poetry Slam. The end product? A history book that reads like a perfect blending of poets' journals -- stories, faces and verse all unifying to tell a story which could've only happened in Albuquerque, New Mexico.