If anyone doubts that statement, all they need to do is look at the line that forms every Wednesday for the Open Slam. A solid hour before the show starts, the line starts to form with poets looking for a shot to read at this open slam and poet aficionados coming through to see what the Wednesday fuss is all about. Any Nuyo veteran will let you know, winning the Open Wednesday Slam is New York Slam Poetry's golden ticket—an invite to slam on Friday night.
And folks who are surprised at the long lines for the Wednesday Slam are left dumbfounded at the wait to get into the Friday slam. Rain or shine, in sweltering July humidity or freezing December chill, you can always spot folks lining up hours in advance of the Friday Night Slam to witness the poetic battleground that has spawned such luminaries as Edwin Torres, Tracie Morris, Regie Cabico, Sarah Jones, Willie Perdomo, Manny Xavier, Mayda del Vallle and Saul Williams, to name a few.
The Friday Slam is followed by the Open Room, an open mic that starts at 1:00am and can go on for hours. Legend has it Pietri would love to stop by at two in the morning and test out new material. To this day man poets drop by at this late night poetry stop just so they can say, "I've read a poem at the Nuyo."
The highest of all these accolades is to be invited by Slam Curator Mahogany Browne to feature on a Friday Night in front a standing room only crowd hungry for Nuyorican poetry. And your feature for this Friday Night? None other than Acentos Foundation director Rich Villar.
For a better sense of Nuyo history and what's going down now at the Cafe, I ask Rich a couple of questions for Letras Latinas:
Oscar Bermeo: With no advertising at all, the Friday Night Slam at the Nuyorican is consistently sold out 52 weeks a year. What do you think is the allure?
Rich Villar: Allure is a good word. I think people are attracted to what is considered outlaw, outsider, rulebreaking and such, though what it means to be “outlaw” has certainly evolved over the years. In the 90´s, when the hood was the number one heroin market on the planet, you really had to NEED to participate in something artistic for yourself and the people who live(d) there. Then when the Piñero movie hit, folks kinda wanted a piece of this bohemian oasis for themselves. Then Def Poetry hit, and suddenly folks wanted to see some of these poets they’d seen on TV up close, maybe even get to HBO themselves. Nowadays, it’s maybe not as dangerous and outsider…certainly not with a designer coffee house down the block…but it remains a mostly young and multicultural mix of folks wanting an experience that isn’t the typical Friday night lounge scene laced with banal conversation. It’s new. The slam is always new to somebody. And when it’s new in the mind, it’s usually the Nuyorican they step to first.
