It’s somewhat odd that only now am I realising how wonderful YouTube is. I’ve been aware of its existence for some time but had never felt the desire to explore the bowels of this behemoth. I must add that there are a lot of dags that come with the golden fleece; comments are often crude and users seem to get easily distracted into simple sledging matches. But if you avoid sections that comprise the obvious haunts of these potty-mouthed denizens, there are some fantastic snippets around.

My curiosity was recently perked by the phenomenon (used loosely) of slam poetry. I love the speed, wit and expression of slam poets like Steve Coleman, Beau Sia and Taylor Mali, whom I discovered on a first sweep of the ‘tube’. (Aside - the appearance of spontaneity is somewhat eroded when you view multiple videos of the same poem/monologue/rant). Still, as a lover of poetry and stand up, it does seem the marriage of the two forms sits rather well on my palate.

So as I sat at my desk enjoying my afternoon lunch (as opposed to morning lunch) and watching the following piece of slam poetry, I was struck with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Not being an overly complex creature, I’m still struck by the awesome nature of the feeling, a real sense of having experienced the exact snippet of existence once before. Previous episodes have been reminiscent of dreaming the future (as tacky as that sounds), but this one was particularly poignant.

I love the singularly unique nature of déjà vu as far as experiences go and the mysterious nature of the event. It’s one area that I hope that science doesn’t figure out. After all, imagine if déjà vu was simply caused by a magentic flux in the frontal lobe…whoopdy fuck. I prefer the somewhat romantic notion that déjà vu provides an indication that you were intended to reach that moment in life, however cynical and skeptical I choose to be in remaining areas of my life.

So enough of the ramble, here is a video of some slam poetry – not necessarily my favourite piece, but it is the one that gave me the déjà slam.

I think Steve Coleman’s slam is particularly good.