Customer Reviews

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

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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.