Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to through the Mill, the podcast on all things poetry slam. My name is Mark Eleveld. I'm the editor of the Spoken Word Revolution book series. And I am here, as always, with the founder of Poetry Slam, the Chicago icon Mark Kelly Smith.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, it was good.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: That's good, right?
[00:00:27] Speaker B: You didn't go overboard that time with the introduction there.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: It's 2025 now, Mark. I'm gonna have to figure things out.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: So welcome back to the show. We've got some new plans for the new year. You've been traveling as usual. You know, you told me in last season of shows that I exaggerated how much you travel. But since our last show, you've been to Berlin, and you've been to Madagascar.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Brussels. Brussels. Actually, Ghent in Belgium. Belgium, yeah. And Madagascar. And today's show, when he gets here, we're gonna start our first attempt at zooming. Zoom interviews. And that will be with Benny, the organizer of slamagar. Slam. What do they call it? Madagasclam.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: What is Madagascar? Like, I know nothing about.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Madagascar is the big island at the east tip of Africa, the big island out there. If you played the game Risk, you would know where Madagascar is, because that would be one of your strong points when you're playing the game. Probably the only reason why I know so well where it's at. But it's a big, big island. There's like six or seven regions, whether it's mountainous, but then it's coastal. We were at the capital. I won't even try to say the name of the capital because that's hard to pronounce. So I didn't really get to see the outside, you know, the coastal area or anything. I just saw the city. The thing is, it's the people. I mean, wherever you go, you know, despite all the troubles they have, it's a poor. It's a poor nation. The poverty is right next to, you know, the big skyscrapers. So it's a big contrast. But here's these heroic people that just joyous people and very good people to be around. The experience was just wonderful. So. Well, when Benny gets on here, we'll. We'll talk about it. So let's. Let's try to zoom in on Denny.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Hi, Vinny.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: Mark will be doing most of question asking. I'm the color. I'm the color man for. I'm the flamboyant thing. So.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: So. Hi, Benny. Nice to meet you.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Well, first we should get, you know, we're calling you Benny. Your birth name is Joshua Nava.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: Navotina Navotina.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:50] Speaker A: There's a. There's a very.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: Okay, Benny.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: There's a varied, long tradition at the Green Mill Jazz Lounge in Chicago, the home of the poetry slam, that Mark has to butcher your name when you get on stage and mispronounce it over and over and over again.
So if it's okay with you, we're going to call you Vinnie.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: Okay. So it's a tradition.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Tradition carries on.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
So one of the things we've been doing on the podcast is we've identified, obviously, that it started in Chicago. Mark is the guy that started it. We talk about his international travels and how the poetry slam movement has taken off. You know, Mark has recently returned from your poetry slam in Madagascar. So I was hoping we could ask you, how did you first learn about poetry slam? How did you first get involved in poetry slam?
[00:03:47] Speaker C: At the beginning. I am from the theater field, so I first heard about poetry slam in 2005 through a friend named Mumu. So Mumu was an actor in my theater company, but also the pioneer of slam poetry in Madagascar. And he often talked about the slam, saying how amazing it was. And since he knew I loved rap and enjoyed playing with words, one day he told me, you could perform your workplace at the slam stage, man. So I gave it a try, and I immediately fell in love with it. This year, we are celebrating 20 years of slam poetry in Madagascar.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. So it's a pretty big scene in Madagascar.
[00:04:38] Speaker C: Yeah. So in 2005, we started just in the capital, Antananarif, at first. And in 2007, we organized the first national poetry slab, and then we opened it to. If I'm. If I am sure, Five Towns, Five Cities in Madagascar was the first national poetry slum. And now. So last year, it was the 15th national slum. So, Yeah, a big sin here.
Very huge. I think Mark can say more about it.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I do.
It was wonderful.
What a great group of people. And correct me if I'm wrong, but the folks come from five different regions or six different regions in Madagascar.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: 8.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: Eight different regions, yeah.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: During the last edition, it was eight. Sometimes it tends. I think the record was 10. But last. Last year it was eight different regions.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And the final event was at the French Institute.
It had to be a thousand people there, right? In the audience.
[00:06:03] Speaker C: Yeah. The capacity of the. This place is 350 people.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Okay. Okay.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: Yeah, it was full that day. Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah, we're gonna call it a thousand, though.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: We're like, Trump.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: How do you define your style in Poetry slam. When Mark comes over there, are there similarities between Mark's. What's Marx doing? Are there differences with. With what you guys do versus the way the US does it?
[00:06:36] Speaker C: Do you ask for me personally or in general for the Malagasy poets?
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Both.
[00:06:43] Speaker C: Both. Okay. I think like everywhere, every poet has his personality and his style. So it's the same for us, for our community. You can observe different styles, different approaches and source of inspirations someday. Because, you know, we are in this generation, we are very connected on the web and we are inspired from various sources. Yeah. So I can say that it is very. It's very different for our poets if you ask for me most of the time, because as I said at the start, I am from the. The theater field, the drama field. So I play a lot during my performance. And I start most of the time I start with a word, for example, poet, and I will expand it. Poet, poet, poet, something like that, at the top. So the poet, poet, poet at the top of the mountain. And after, I can expand again and create a text like this from a word. And this is my style. And depending on the poet's other styles. Yeah. So it's very various. And as I said to Mark when he was here, we have different dialects depending on the region the poet is from.
And those dialects influence to the style of the poem.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: That was one of the great things that, you know, our thing that we talk about a lot is that a lot of the slam throughout America and the world has got to be kind of the same. The same voice, the same sound and everything. But when I was there, it was such a.
Such a joy to hear so many different. Such a variety of expression and topics. Also, although I didn't know, you know, I had Steve there was telling me, you know, what the poems were about, but it was like many different topics, some political, some love, everything. So the variety was quite big.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: Yeah. And in terms of them in the poems, again, touch on issues of love, but societal problems, current events, inequality, injustice, poverty, of course, because you're living in it. And politics. Politics, yeah. So it's. Yeah. A very varied range of topics.
And as I said, with the rise of the social media and the Internet, the young people are so heavily inspired by artists from outside Madagascar, particularly those in the urban poetry scene, such as the. You know, the rap for the rhythms and the fluid of world play throughout the year.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: How is there. Are there regular. There's regular slams weekly, monthly, or. Each region has their own slams going on. What's a typical year look like throughout the year for the slam world.
[00:10:01] Speaker C: I can really talk about the same slam community in the capital Antananarive. We are the biggest town and the biggest community of poetry slam in Madagascar. So here we have the minimum. We have one scene every week in different places. For example, the first Saturday of the month, we organize it in the French Institute. The second Saturday, it's in the German Institute, the German Cultural center. The third Saturday is on Malagasy Cultural Center. The fourth is in another place and we'll talk about it. But we are developing the poetry slam in English. So we are in discussion with some places to receive poetry, Islam in English. So, yeah, I think this year we'll have maybe two poetry sent in a week. It's really possible. This is for the capital of Tananarivo and in the other regions, it really depends. We have some big towns.
There are something like two or three sins every week. Every month. Sorry. And maybe some. Just one each month.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Talk about your relationship with the embassy, the American Embassy, because that seems like that's a new thing that's happening and you want to expand it in the coming years, don't you?
[00:11:35] Speaker C: The American Embassy, they provided logistical support and particularly for the events involving Mark. Of course, they cover your travel, your stay, and they also donated the prizes for the winners on January. And what is the next step with them? So they will support the words of the ambassadors. She said during this event in January this month that they will support the first national slang in English in the region this year.
Yeah.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: And are there a lot of people that speak English that will be able to participate in that? I know, yeah.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: You know, I was amazed during your stay. We visited some places, of course, at the American school, of course they speaking. They're speaking English. But we were at this public high.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: School that was wonderful.
That's the place where they had the dancing from all the different regions. Oh, it was so moving.
I was almost in tears at how wonderful it was. Go on. Sorry I interrupted you, Minnie.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: Yeah. And during those events, so I discovered myself that in a month of high school, they had an English club. I didn't know that. So we have something like six big high school in Antana, Naribu, and each high school they have their English club. And as you observe, they are very fluent in English. I was.
Yeah, I was surprised. And so this is for the high school. I'm sure if it's an event in the high school, we'll have participants, a lot of participants. And I was so surprised because I interact with a lot of poets. And before your event, I didn't know that they perform in English. You saw these girls during the Green Mill Experience.
And she performed in English. I didn't ever heard her. She performed in French, in Malagasy. But it was the first time for me. She's very fluent. And we organized different workshops, too. And we discovered that a lot of Malagasy young people, they're more and more in the English expression, in English.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: You know, one of the events that we did for the 15th annual was the Green Mill. We just. Vinnie and I decided the Green Mill Experience. So we tried to create an atmosphere, and I think we succeeded. From me saying hello to people as they're coming in, who is this guy? You know, I'm saying. And just, you know, work in the crowd at the front to the performance that we. That they put up. And they were. There were performances that they rehearsed. Like Connie at the Green Mill. He rehearsed it in the afternoon and put it up that evening. And the whole thing ended with a conga dance. Every conga line that went through the whole thing. That was a gas, wasn't it?
[00:14:56] Speaker A: It sounds like it's open to a lot of different art forms that the community, when it comes for the poetry slam.
[00:15:02] Speaker C: Yeah, you know, this is a community and we have different personalities. Some are for the. We said, what is it in French? The purists. So for them, poetry, Islam follow certain rules, and we can't go outside from those rules.
And now since Marx visit, because he shared a lot about his vision of Islam and the philosophy behind it. So we learned a lot.
So the founder said that.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Okay, I.
[00:15:46] Speaker C: Think they are more open now.
But, yeah, it's always a work in progress. And every year we add new things, enrich it with new ideas and new concepts.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: One of the questions we were thinking about is, why is Madagascar a good place for poetry slam? Are there oral traditions already present when you're going through school? Does poetry play a part? Are there things culturally in Madagascar that lend themselves to poetry slam? And then by adopting and bringing in the philosophies and ideas of Mark Smith with the poetry slam, how does that help inform and shape your community?
[00:16:31] Speaker C: So in Madagascar, I think, like in a lot of countries, we have this oral tradition that we give the most of them. It's the senior, the adult who is talking during the ceremonies, you know, official ceremonies. And young people, they have to listen.
This is the traditional format of it. But by listening, it's a kind of a transmission from the elder people for their children and the youngest we learn. So we have this culture of oral tradition with the poetry Islam. You give the opportunity for those young people that normally in the official ceremonies they don't talk anymore, they have to listen. But you know, we are young, we have a lot of problems. We have to manage our lives and everything. Hormones.
And in poetry slam, you have this freedom of speech. You can express yourself. And then for the our population, because you know, Malagasy, the age of our population is around 20, 20 years old, very young. And you give the opportunity for this freedom of speech to express them, express themselves and directly. Wow. I want to express myself and they're always listening to me. Wonderful. I like this. And. Or some. It's a drug, you know, if you give me time after to perform a text, I use this as a poetry, like a drug, you know, you have a good drug, let's say good drug. I think it's a mix of the heritage of the oral tradition and the modernity of poetry slam that give the young people this freedom of speech. And this is a kind of formula, this is meant in the community of poets, because we have other community of poets here before the poetry slam. But they are very strict, they follow rules, they don't accept. Everyone want to come, you have to say something or to perform, to follow structures and something like that. Because for me, as I said at the beginning, Momo said, you can perform your world play on stage in the poetry session. Okay, so let's do that. Let's try. Let's give it a try. And for me, it was not poetry. It was not a poem, you know, the text I performed on stage. But the people like this, the public. So I don't know if I answered your question.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: That's my answer all the time. Did I answer your question? He heard that from. He stole that from me. Did I answer your question?
Hey, I asked you to.
[00:19:39] Speaker C: You understand a little bit my English or what?
[00:19:42] Speaker B: Yeah, you're doing great.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: You're doing great.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Hey, I asked you to have a poem to do, so why don't you. Why don't you show us one of those Beni poems?
[00:19:54] Speaker C: Okay. It's my. Not my first poem in English, but let's say maybe the fifth because it's in English, but you have the Malagasy version and I mix both.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: You're getting perfect.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm talking about the. My relationship with poetry and I make a link with life in general. So it's a work in progress, as I said. And you have to make some efforts to improve yourself, even if there are Inspirations that you need works too.
You need to work on it. But let's, let's, let's.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Let's just do it, man. Don't explain it. What are you doing? Don't explain it.
[00:21:26] Speaker C: Lost in translation.
Far from perfection.
Please don't pay too much attention on my accent, my diction. Just know that poetry is my drug, my addiction, the bridge, the connection with my dreams, my aspiration, the self expression of my inspiration. A mix of passion, a mix of transpiration.
Don't be worried.
Have the faith of Moses.
Just trust the process. Cause life is a work in progress.
Poetry.
Yeah. So It's a. Yeah.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: 10, 10, 10, 10.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Very good, Vinny. Very good.
[00:22:28] Speaker A: That's fantastic.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah, perfect, man.
If you were trying to charge up everybody to come to Madagascar to see the poetry slam, what would your kind of speech be to them? Tell it. Why? What would you tell them is the reason you gotta get here to Madagascar to see our poetry slam.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: So, for example, you say, I'm talking.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: To American people, for example, American people, French people, anybody.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Our director would call this an elevator pitch.
[00:23:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I understand. Yeah.
Come on, guys.
So you look, let's say, because I traveled a little bit in Europe and I feel how it is during the tournament or the open mic. And one big difference, first is the age of the participants, the audience here and the poets, they are very young, very young, around 20. If you are an adult, you'll have a lot of poets between 20 and 25. And you can feel in this young community the passion, because we are in, we can say that developing country, okay? And we have a lot trouble, a lot of troubles around us in our lives. A short power cut every day.
Sometimes we have days without water. We can reach water. And a lot of problems. And for the poets and for the young people, all of those problems are sources of inspiration. And when we perform on stage, it's a kind of therapy. And you feel the engagement, the involvement in the performance.
So when you come in Madagascar, you'll feel the connection with our young poets first. Secondly, for the elevated speech, the audience here. The atmosphere in Madagascar is quite unique because the audience, and Mark will confirm that, or not, is very vocal in supporting poets. And especially during the National Islam, the energy is incredible. But my words are not enough to explain. You have to come and feel.
[00:25:17] Speaker B: And I can attest to that because I remember now when you saying that the poets would come off the stage and there'd be a half dozen people, people in the audience that would run up to them and Hug them and everybody's cheering. And then at the end when we all ended up on this stage together, I mean, it was just incredible.
Just the energy and the support for one another.
And like you said, in an atmosphere where they're speaking about some very troublesome things that are happening in their society, but there was a certain joy and, and a lot of hope in that feeling in room. It's like you could feel that these young people have a chance to change things for the better in their lives. And the starting point for it seems to be them being able to express themselves. So I concur completely with. And Benny was out of his seat. Every time somebody come off the stage, he's up there. And he wasn't that way earlier in the week. You was. I just like what this is, this is a new biddy that's jumping up here and, and going so crazy.
[00:26:40] Speaker C: Yeah, because I was very professional, you know, and because I, I was you, I am the, the professional stuff went.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Out the window at that show.
[00:26:51] Speaker A: There, there's a, there's a friend of, of Mark's, a poet who passed away, Marvin Bell, and he used to. The cliche he used to use, which was very true, was that poetry is a survival skill.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: Survival skill.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Yeah. And it seems that that's very apt for some of the description you're giving that these are people who are coming and writing and thinking that they're changing the world and this is the place and the way to start doing that, I think.
[00:27:16] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're almost done, but I wanted to talk a little bit about. And when I was there with Benny, I said, you know, I'm going to go back to Chicago and all these people that don't like me in the big institutions. I'm gonna, with Emily over here, we're gonna go and I'm gonna swallow my pride and I'm gonna say, look, I'm not apologizing for all the things I said in those early years, but we've got all these, we've got Benny in Madagascar. We should be, we should be finding a way to bring this new English speaking Madagascar kids to work with the Chicago poets and create a one poetic voice thing. For those listening to podcast, One poetic voice is Mark, Emily and I, a few other people created this thing where we have, create performances where both languages are going at the same time. It's quite dynamic. It's called one poetic voice. We want to do that with you. So I'm just, I'm going on, I'm going on record right now that we're going to try to do that, but it may not work because these people, a lot of them still don't like me very much.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: That's not true. They. Mark. They all love Mark Smith. He's. He's the guy. He's the poet in Chicago. Benny. Mark Smith is an icon. He's an icon.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
You said Momo. Was it Momo that started. Was the first 2005.
[00:28:50] Speaker C: Yeah, in 2005.
[00:28:52] Speaker B: And where did he get that from? Pilot, was it Pilot?
[00:28:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Pilot is the French slam poet who organized the first.
The World Cup. The World cup in Paris till now. And so in 2005, Pilot was invited by the. The French Institute to organize a workshop and to initiate people in Antana Naribo first in poetry. In slam poetry. That was the. The very beginning of slam poetry in Madagascar with Pilot Lerotte. And one of the. The guy who attended. Who attended this first workshop with him was Momo.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Momo, okay.
[00:29:43] Speaker C: Momo is the artistic name.
His whole name is Mohammed Ali Ives.
And Momo, you meet Momoa in our last edition. And so he developed the poetry slam in Antana Narihu first and after in different regions and will have something like five tones.
Then they organized. At that time, I was not in the organizing team. They organized the first national slum in 2007, and it was the first edition of the national slum. And in 2008, we had the second edition and I was poets performance in. Performer in the competition. Okay, 2008. Yeah. And so I won the. The National Poetry Slam.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Whoa, you were the champion, huh?
[00:30:46] Speaker C: Yeah, at that time. And so it gave me the opportunity to. To attend the World cup of Pilots.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[00:30:55] Speaker C: In 2009. And so you. It opened my eyes about the potential of this form of art because, you know, when you go abroad, you discover new countries and new people and new way of how you can manage poetry. And after that, so I integrated. Is it okay.
The organizing team of Madagaslam. Yeah.
[00:31:26] Speaker A: Mark has never won a poetry slam.
You're one up than him.
[00:31:32] Speaker C: Yeah, he talked a little bit about that.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: It's been a pleasure meeting you, Vinny.
[00:31:38] Speaker B: Yeah, Vinny, thank you.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Thank you very much to invite me in this podcast and see you next time, guys.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: See you.
[00:31:47] Speaker C: Bye bye.
[00:31:47] Speaker B: Bye bye.
[00:31:49] Speaker D: You've been listening to through the Mill, our podcast about the poetry slam. My name is Mark Eleveld. I'm the editor of the Spoken Word Revolution Books. Emily Calvo is here with us. She named the podcast. It's an anthology. She's been working on since the early 90s. And we're here with Mark Kelly Smith, the founder of Poetry Slam. We're going to be bringing some podcasts and shows to you to hear the origin stories from a bunch of different poets and a bunch of different organizers. Our director Hugh's over there in the corner. I hope you had a good time and we'll talk to you soon.
