Madison organizers and poets reflect on National Poetry Slam 2008

"They were pleasantly surprised with Madison as a city," says Kelly of the visiting poets. "The feel of it, the look of it, and the venues were hospitable. I keep getting responses saying that it was more than they expected. I had one response from a woman who said that it has re-energized the community." Madison team member, coach and organizer Evelyn Gildrie-Voyles says she likewise spoke with many poets who enjoyed their experiences.

Slam poets are not wallflowers, however, and are not likely to keep mum on criticisms either. Participants grumbled about various organizational issues such as the scheduling of preliminary bouts, the UW campus location of non-competitive events, and the promotion of the slam to the surrounding community. The number of non-poets attending the bouts, and the difficulties this caused with selecting non-affiliated and unbiased judges from the audience was probably the most general concern raised by both organizers and visiting poets.

This doesn't mean that audiences were small, though. Café Montmarte general manager Jeremy McKenna says turnout was great for the late night slam gatherings held there, and would like to see more slam poetry at the venue in the future. Kelly says she received more positive feedback from the venues that she could have hoped for, particularly since many were originally leery about what the slam would entail. "It's a hard thing to explain what to expect until it actually comes barreling through," she notes.

Assembling overall attendance figures is not simple, due to the variety of venues that sold tickets and the many different ways that patrons could purchase them. Generally, though, Kelly says that she puts the number of attendees at the preliminary bouts at over 1,000, which does not include any of the slam competitors who filled seats at every bout throughout the week.

Overture Center publicist Abigail Kozel provides numbers for the semi-finals and finals for the slam. The former, held on a Friday night in a variety of locations inside the center, drew some 1,200 people throughout the evening, while the finals on Saturday brought more than 1,000 people in the stately Overture Hall.

"I think attendance was about the same," compares Gildrie-Voyles to that in Austin, where the National Poetry Slam was held the last two years. One issue that she believes may hamper turnout, though, is the way the tournament itself is structured, with venues not knowing which teams will be competing there until the week before event itself. This doesn't allow them to advertise certain big-name teams, or find a way to draw an audience for the preliminary bouts.

Gildrie-Voyles is in the unique position to comment from the perspective of someone who has participated in multiple National Poetry Slams as well as that of a host city organizer and hometown competitor. While it is fun to be a part on the organizational side of things, she says, it's more enjoyable to visit a different city with her fellow team members. "When you are in a strange city with the five people you know, you do everything with them, but because we were not, we didn't hang out as much," she says. "You're not in a hotel, just in your home, still trying to balance the slam with the rest of your life instead of letting this be your life for a week."