The last Sunday of every month, Fort Collins’ own Avogadro’s Number hosts a poetry slam. Sign up starts at seven PM and the main event is divided into three rounds. During each round, the competing poets will perform one poem and judges from the audience will hold up whiteboards (handed out before the slam to willing participants) with a score between one and ten. One of the hosts adds up the scores while the master of ceremonies stalls and then finally announces a number to the room. At the end of the round, the poet(s) with the lowest score(s) will be dismissed and those remaining will read another poem. A tin is passed around the room, slowly gathering the bounty that the night’s winner will go home with. It is a tradition of “Slamogadro” to collect the night’s prize from the attendees, as an effort to actually pay poets who rarely make money off of their art.

I attended last Sunday and judged the competition. Before the slam started, a guest poet on tour, Jonathan Brown, read from his book. There’s something really cool about watching poetry performed that just isn’t quite the same as reading it. Over the summer, I picked up a couple of books of poetry released by Button Poetry, a well known publisher and YouTube channel among modern day poetry fans, who are best known for the viral videos of spoken word poets they produce. Reading poems which were meant to be spoken is an interesting contrast in ways I cannot even thoroughly describe. I liked it a lot, but the first poem I encountered for which I had already seen the video of it being performed definitely threw me off a little.

I’ve been trying to figure out the differences between spoken word poetry and poetry intended to be read, because I don’t think sounding good out loud is the only criteria. I think, save for maybe concrete or visual poems, just about all good poetry sounds good out loud. I never read poetry without also considering the sound of it, because poetry is built on a foundation of rhythm and lyric, and it’s just pleasing to the ears. No, there are definitely different qualities present that distinguish them. One defining characteristic is the performer, or more accurately, the performance. I’ve heard poets read their work countless times, and I think the most notable difference is that slam poets write their works and plan their performance at the same time, while traditional poets are used to letting their words speak for themselves. As a result, slam poems are usually faster and more colloquial, but also rely more on consonance and assonance– slam poets love subtle rhyme.

I’ve never thought of myself as a slam poet, and I’ve certainly never performed (though I have read), but the more I entertain the differences, the more eager I am to try my hand at a new kind of poetry. Maybe in a few months, I’ll make my way onto the stage at Avogadro’s. You should try it too!

Read more about Slamogadro here!

Check out Button Poetry here!

Neil Hilborn’s “The Future”, transcribed below

The worst thing about being naked and then being hit by a car is that road rash is a problem for skin.

Why was I naked in the middle of the road at noon? I’m glad you asked, imaginary other half of this conversation! I have no idea. Some characteristics of bipolar disorder include dissociation, hallucinations, and fugue states, so sometimes, I wake up in places I didn’t go to sleep.

Has this ever been a problem? My, you are inquisitive, imaginary conversation partner! And also a bad listener. See aforementioned attempt to befriend a windshield.

So there I am, nude, rolling on the hood of a car screaming about the government conspiracy to take away my feet. Not my real feet, just my brain feet.
I’m about six inches from the concrete when I realize, in slow motion: like the exact opposite of a bank robbery, this… is not how I imagined my life would turn out.

When I was young, I broke both of my ankles because I was sure a cape would enable me to fly. My parents attributed this to my strong imagination. When I did this last year, my therapist called it a delusion. I fail to see the difference.

Also, I really can fly and see the future and make people leave coffee shops with my mind 43% of the time. The point is, here is a list of things my brain has told me to do: join a cult, start a cult, become a cabinet maker, kill myself (so, in essence, become a cabinet maker), break into and then paint other peoples’ houses, have sex with literally everyone who reminds me of my mother, fight people who are much… fightier than me, like the cops (so, in essence, kill myself).

I think a lot about killing myself, not like a point on a map, but rather like a glowing exit sign at a show that’s never been quite bad enough to make me want to leave. See, when I’m up I don’t kill myself because holy shit! there’s so much left to do! And when I’m down, I don’t kill myself because then the sadness would be over and the sadness is the old paint under the new. I’d still be me without it, but I’d be so boring!

When they first told me I had bipolar disorder, I was somehow still surprised like, “You mean not everyone sees demons and feels as though they are covered in insects several times a day?” As it turns out, seeing and feeling things that aren’t technically there is called “disordered cognitive functioning”.  I call it “having a fucking superpower”. Sometimes, I see people as colors. This guy right here (gestures to man in audience) is purple, which means he just got a promotion or a blow job. A blowmotion, if you will.

Y’all, sometimes I really can see the future. The future, it looks like a child in a cape. The future looks like gravity. Everyone just wants to be a part of someone else. The future is a small town we’re all gonna move to someday. I saw the future. I did, and in it, I was alive.

My god, I was alive.