Guest post by Taylor Mali!
I never got to see Saul Williams perform during the preliminary bouts leading up to the finals, so watching this video was a glimpse into a past I never knew. There are wonderful lines and plays on words here, and Saul works with sound so well. There is a sense of humor, too, which is so important in spoken word. The crowd is small from the sound of it, but they are into it.
It's interesting to note that the piece is too long by "modern" slam standards. The poem itself clocks in at about 3:25, which would have merited a full point deduction under the current rules, but probably didn't hurt Saul back when judges were merely advised that they "could deduct points if the poem went over the time limit." Historically, with such vague instructions, judges NEVER penalized long poems! That's essentially why the rule was changed and time penalties became automatic.
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