Unexpected creative learnings from a slam poetry open mic night

Right, who wants a cliché with their morning coffee?

Hold tight because I’ve got them coming thick and fast as I tell you what an agency founder (ie me) can learn from making her debut as a slam poet, and what you can learn too:

“Growth comes from outside your comfort zone”

Last night, having never been to a poetry open mic or even a poetry evening before, I got up and performed at an open mic poetry slam in front of 50 people.

The wheels were set in motion last November when my mates and I had our annual weekend away. During this, we made a list of our ambitions for the next twelve months. Slam poetry was among mine, and having bottled going to a different poetry slam last week, I finally bit the bullet and skulked along to strike it off the list.

Here, then, is the creativity thought piece you didn’t know you needed: Observations from an open mic night. 

“If you wanna go fast, go alone, if you wanna go far, go together”

I went alone. It’s the thinking woman’s move. I wanted to break the duck and I definitely didn’t want a mate in the crowd having to cover up their embarrassment if I sucked. If I was to suck, I wouldn’t know anyone there. I also chose not to be filmed. No evidence.

You see, dear reader, I was average. I came fifth out of ten. Or, as my mate Simon kindly said when I told him: “Out of all the people prepared to stand up at a poetry slam, you were better than half of them at your first attempt.” I’ll take that (see bio).

However, if I’m gonna move from mid-table to Man City levels, I’ll need other people. Seeing what other people do, and getting advice from people who’ve been doing it for ages, is going to help me be better.

“Be prepared to suck at something”

We all know about ‘vulnerability’. It’s been one of the leadership buzzwords of the last five years. Thanks, Brené Brown. Let me tell you what is really fucking vulnerable: standing up on a stage, reading words about something painfully personal that you’ve never read to anyone else. And then being live-scored out of 10 by five judges, with everyone looking.

Let me tell you what else is really fucking vulnerable: the absolute humility of being pretty decent at what you do as a day job (50,000+ hours practice and counting) but absolutely novice at something else.

“It doesn’t matter what you think, it’s about the audience”

One of the poems that beat me was about potato waffles. Another was about cancer. Universal experiences. Several were about being a vegan. Of course there were vegan poems, we were in Brighton FFS.

Mine was a bit more personal and specific. You write for yourself, sure, but if it’s about scores out of 10, it’s also about what’s gonna resonate.

So what you like matters, but what the audience wants and likes matters more in a numbers scenario. Strategy 101, am I right?

“You’ve got transferable skills”

I absolutely love standing up and presenting in the day job. It’s a chance to show off and it’s one time of my working life where my mind’s calm because it’s only thinking about the deck at hand. That prior experience helps when you stand behind a mic, on a stage, in front of fifty strangers ready to bare your soul and bear the crushing weight of (literal) judgement.

It also helps when your mouth is drier than it’s ever been, your heart’s beating out of your vest top and you know there’s a mic to navigate – because you’ve lived all these things before, and survived.

“When everyone zigs, zag”

I don’t have the poetry slam voice. You know the one. Fast, fast, fast, slow, fast. I might need to find it to fit in. Or I might find something different.

One of my favourite of the featured acts (the ones good enough to have moved from a three minute open mic to a 15 minute set) has taken performance poetry to the extremes of physicality, speed and subject matter. Never seen anything like it. And I really like it.

You can be good or you can be different.

As an aside, that poet also has excellent branding, merch and even groupies. TV deservedly beckons.

“It’s better to pitch last, you’ve only got one to beat”

The last open mic’er up won. But tbf it was because she was absolutely sensational, not because she was up last. I always find it fascinating to get a glimpse of what it’s like client-side being pitched to: How do you judge creative ideas? What makes you warm to people? What makes you remember them? What is not your vibe?

This was that on steroids.

The winner would have been my winner regardless of what slot she went on but in a field of nine different approaches, it begs the question: how are you standing out?

Also, don’t see ten agencies. It’s a good number of poems, a truly bad number of pitches.

“Get back on the horse”

It was terrifying but It was also a refreshingly lovely, supportive space. A competition where everyone’s gunning for each other.

Will I do it again? Tickets for the next one go on sale at midday today. So yeah, I will do it again. Weirdly, it wasn’t the massive dopamine high I was expecting with a work pitch.

It’s more thoughtful than that. It’s more like an ‘OK, I was OK at this. Better try and get better.’

And that’s an interesting place to be. Next time, I haven’t got the excuse – or the chance to play to the crowd – about it being my first slam, so what does next time look like? We’ll see…