Marc Kelly Smith (born 1949) is an American poet and founder of the poetry slam movement, for which he received the nickname Slam Papi.

Smith was born in 1949 and grew up on the southeast side of Chicago. He attended/graduated Charles P. Caldwell Elementary School and James H. Bowen High School. Smith spent most of his young life as a construction worker, but has written poetry since he was 19.

Uptown Poetry Slam

Smith started at an open mic night at the Get Me High lounge in November 1984 called the Monday Night Poetry Reading.

According to Smith, who once attended a conventional reading with his manuscripts concealed inside a newspaper,

With a like-minded troupe, Smith hosted the first poetry slam at the Get Me High Lounge in the Bucktown neighborhood in 1986. The event soon migrated to the Green Mill, a tavern and jazz lounge in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, where it has remained ever since. Other poets in the first slam were Mike Barrett, Rob Van Tuyle, Jean Howard, Anna Brown, Karen Nystrom, Dave Cooper, and John Sheehan, all fellow members of the Chicago Poetry Ensemble.

Since July 1986, Smith has run the Uptown Poetry Slam, a three-hour show featuring an open mic (1 hour), feature—poet or professional touring act (1 hour), and the poetry slam. It is the longest-running, weekly poetry show in the country, and one of the longest-running shows in Chicago history.

In 1990, the first National Poetry Slam was held in San Francisco (with three city teams attending including Chicago and New York City), and has continued to rotate among cities. The National Poetry Slam currently sees over 80 teams of poets vying for the title.

Over the years, Smith has turned down offers to commercialize the slam, including movie offers and bids for corporate sponsorship.

Smith has published several books about the poetry slam movement, as well as publishing two books of his own work. He tours extensively, performing his own, blue-collar, Carl Sandburg-influenced poetry and hosting poetry slams. He also tours with a show titled Sandburg to Smith-Smith to Sandburg, which combines the work of both poets with live jazz. With Mark Eleveld, he has developed a podcast, "Thru the Mill with Marc Kelly Smith".

Filmography

  • SlamNation - 1998, directed by Paul Devlin
  • Sunday Night Poets - 2002, directed by David Rorie, Pugi Films distributed by National Film Network

https://www.directedbydavid.com/portraits

  • Histoire de dires - 2008, documentary directed by Yann Francès & Matthieu Chevallier - produced by Vivement lundi !

References

  • Personal home page
  • "Thru the Mill with Marc Kelly Smith" podcast, with interviews by Mark Eleveld.