As buzz grows around Paterson poetry slam, contestants test their boundaries

PATERSON — A hush fell over the crowd just before the first sessions of the poetry slam began at Friday’s Paterson Poetry Festival.

The usual pre-show suspense was dialed up a few notches because one of the scheduled contestants — the reigning champion, Elliot Fant — was waylaid in Newark. But the host, Uninvited Maine, could no longer stall the event. One thing was clear: A new champion would be crowned.

The two combatants were Matthew Marroquin, 23, who is still a fresh face after moving to New Jersey from the Midwest last year, and Paterson’s own Isabel Cruz, 21. Her trajectory from 17-year-old open mic performer to headliner is one that the festival’s founder, Talena Lachelle Queen, takes pride in.

“I love Isabel’s story,” Queen said. “We can’t take any credit for her talent, but we can take credit for encouraging her and making space at the festival for young people to see themselves as writers, illustrators and performers.”

In the realm of poetry slam, the home court performer doesn’t always have the advantage. The crowd sometimes craves “new works, new faces and fresh perspectives,” said Rashad Wright, a featured performer on Friday who moved to Paterson two years ago to help local arts incubator Prototype 237.

Wright, the onetime poet laureate of Jersey City, where he was born and raised, said Paterson’s poetry scene is promising.

“It reminds me of the Jersey City I grew up in, with different open mics starting up out of nowhere,” Wright said. “There seems to be a buzz — and it’s great to be here while it’s happening.”

'It can go very wrong ... but it can also pay off'

Slams are notoriously unpredictable. In years past, unwilling contestants who were nudged by Queen to participate ended up stealing the show. That happened with Jordan Henry, now a Paterson police officer, who won the inaugural prize in 2018.

There is also strategy involved in the competition. A smart competitor has to read the room and come armed with backup material.

Cruz said she chooses her poems based on which order she draws and she tries not to cover the same topics as her opponent. She also considered performing a new work, but later opted for something tried and true.

“I've seen people forget a poem on stage if it’s a brand-new one,” Cruz said. “It can go very wrong if you're not confident in the poem — but it can also pay off if the audience knows a lot of your work.”

Drawing the unlucky first spot, Marroquin walked to center stage and paused to gather himself, standing outside the old Passaic County courthouse building on Hamilton Street, where the event was held. Just as he was ready to lunge into the performance, a strong wind rustled the papers on the lectern, briefly throwing off his concentration and making the atmosphere infinitely more tense.

But then the performance began, and both the crowd and the performer eased into the competition. In two rounds, the poets covered topics both confessional and political, from neurodivergence and inadequacy to refugees crossing the Rio Grande. In the end, Marroquin edged out Cruz by one point.

Paterson Press asked Cruz how it feels to have her poetry put through the grinder of competition, subjecting it to a stranger’s evaluation. “It’s hard to judge poetry when the topics are so personal,” Cruz said. “But it tests my boundaries.”

A line from one of her poems made that statement even clearer. “I’d like to believe in heaven,” she said. “But I can’t fathom eternity or that anything could be better than the high I get from performing.”

'Come a very long way'

The competition offered a chance to take stock of how far Paterson's poetry scene has come since the first festival six years ago.

“Paterson’s poetry has come a very long way,” said host Maine, who founded the festival’s slam.

Earlier that day, between scheduled performances, Queen took the stage to perform her poem “No Time for Love Poems,” which is a political manifesto that bends unexpectedly back into a love poem. In an interview the day before, Queen said the work often elicits a crowd response. Predictably, Felicia Sherelle, a poet and festival organizer, shouted, “Come on, Lena!” from under the blue tent near the merch table.

Queen's undulations and inflections showed why she is considered the shepherd of the city’s literati. On the steps of the courthouse — whose tall limestone columns hold up the promise of justice — her social justice-themed poems sounded timely and monumental.

The protective mesh around the historic building’s upper floor, remnants of an unfinished restoration, seemed a reminder that institutions need generational repair, and poets do a lot of the heavy lifting.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson NJ Poetry Festival: Competitors test boundaries