Page 85 of Glass Half Full
Stella and Owen come over to interrupt us where we’re talking by the sound system. The microphone is, as always, being uncooperative, and Zach and I have been messing with wires for almost half an hour. The slam was supposed to start fifteen minutes ago.
“Any luck?” Owen asks.
“This is the last possible thing for us to try,” I answer. “Zach, go test it.”
He bounds away into the crowd milling around Taverne Toulouse and disappears from view for a moment before popping up on stage. I see his mouth move behind the microphone, but no sound comes out.
“Fucking hell,” I grumble. “I swear, if this doesn’t work...”
I signal for Zach to keep talking as I grab one of the cords and plug it into a different outlet. Zach’s voice immediately booms out into the room.
“I like big butts and I cannot lie!”
“Oh my god.” Stella actually snorts as the whole room bursts out laughing. “Out of everything he could have picked to sing...”
“I’ve long stopped questioning why Zach does some of the things he does.”
“Well now that I don’t have to shout over the crowd,” Owen announces, “time to get this slam started!”
He strides over to the stage, and the crowd settles into the rows of folding chairs we have set up once he makes it clear things are getting underway. A few people are even left standing against the walls or claiming stools at the bar. It’s a massive turn out for a slam, and I feel a rush of pride at seeing tonight end up such a success.
“This is in fact our third slam of the season,” Owen is in the middle of announcing. He’s already got the crowd so amped up from his introduction that he has to shout into the mic to make himself heard. “This is, however, our first time back here at Taverne Toulouse since the reopening. Consider yourselves lucky. We held last month’s slam in my mother’s basement. She wore a bathrobe and sat in her armchair the whole time filing her bunions off.”
They actually had it at a library, but the crowd indulges Owen with a laugh.
“This is a big improvement. Let’s give it up for the folks at Taverne Toulouse who made it possible for us to be here tonight!”
After leading a round of applause, Owen gets down to explaining the rules of the slam. Judges have been randomly selected from the audience and will score each poem out of ten. The poet’s have three minutes to perform and receive time penalties to their scores if they go too long. The highest ranking poets from round one will move onto the second round to determine the winner.
I’ve heard it all a thousand times. I’ve said it all myself as a host more times than I can count, but I still feel that rush of static energy crackle through me like it’s my first slam.
There’s something special about the way the room seems to vibrate during a poetry slam, radiating anticipation. People come to a slam hungry. They come here to be fed. They open themselves up to words and feelings and ideas that would be too much to swallow on a regular day.
Only this isn’t a regular day. This is a moment when everyone in the room commits themselves to leaving regular behind, to dropping the masks and pretences and leaving themselves bare, ready to give and receive. Something magical happens when people do that. There’s no other word for it; it’s pure magic to feel that transformation, to witness it, to be part of it.
That’s what being at a slam feels like. It feels like being part of something.
There are a lot of new faces this season, but quite a few veterans take the stage during the first round as well. Everyone brings their A game, and I have no idea who’s going to come out on top. The poems spoken tonight range from humorous to heartbreaking, from things as mundane as flirting with cashiers at Starbucks to life altering events like watching a parent battle cancer.
Each poet brings a different energy on stage, takes hold of the crowd in their own unique way, letting their words come to life in a way that’s so different from reading poetry on a page. These are stories that rely on breath and sound instead of letters and spaces. They exist in this moment and this moment alone. They’ll never be spoken or heard in the exact same way again.
It’s enough to take my mind off my own life. For the whole first round, I forget about what will happen later tonight. I forget about the things I have to say. I even forget about the girl I hoped would be here to hear them. Instead, I listen. I give my attention to the truths these people are all brave enough to share tonight.
“What a first round!” Stella comments, finding me still standing by the sound system after the intermission is announced; I’m sure the mic is going to give us more trouble before this is over.
“Killer,” I agree.
She lowers her voice enough that I have to strain to pick it up over the noise of the crowd. “Renee didn’t show, huh?”
I shake my head. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“Maybe she needs more time.”
I don’t think she needed any time in the first place. My hesitation is the whole problem here. I wasn’t ready, and she must have moved on. Maybe she’s too far ahead for me to ever catch up with her. Maybe I was never meant to at all, but I still wish she was here to see what she’s inspired in me. I wish she got the chance to see how much she’s changed my life. She deserves to know she has that power, that she can be such a strong force of good.
Owen calls for the end of the intermission a quarter of an hour later, and I feel the first wave of that rush I get every time I’m about to perform.
“This is the part of the night where we bring up our feature,” Owen explains as he adjusts his ever-present newsboy cap. “That’s a very special poet we select every month to entertain us with a few of their pieces and bore us to death with some sob story about their inspiration or how they got their start as a poet. We like to give the illusion of humouring them. Do not let the broad shoulders and intimidating physique of tonight’s feature fool you. He has an incredibly fragile ego, so please be nice. Tonight I’m pleased to announce that our feature is a homegrown Montrealer who’s been giving his all to the slam scene for who knows how many years. He’s also, so I’m told, a somewhat decent member of staff here at Taverne Toulouse and the whole reason we have this lovely venue at our disposal. I knew we kept him around for something. Please raise your fists for Dylan Trottard!”
