Tonight: Chicago slam grudge match

Chicago is full of problematic dichotomies: Cubs vs. Sox, North Side vs. South Side, Hipsters vs. People with Dignity, etc. Tonight, another age-old Chicago binary will once again be dumped in our laps: Green Mill vs. Mental Graffiti. Both of these slam poetry teams are going to verbally “attack” each other in a lyrical “battle” until one of the teams is “murdered.”

The Green Mill Team represents Cubs fans, the North Side, people with dignity and the Uptown Poetry Slam, which happens every Sunday at 7PM at the Green Mill. The Mental Graffiti Team represents the Sox, the South Side (not really), hipsters, and the show of the same name that happens every third Monday at the Butterfly Social Club. Both teams have been sending poets to compete at the National Poetry Slam for over a decade, and this year they’re going head-to-head for the sweet satisfaction of beating your close friends and community members in a mostly unfair competition.

Each team is organized by a “slam-master”: Tim Stafford for Mental Graffiti and Marc Kelly Smith for the Green Mill. The latter slam-master is the founder of the entire poetry slam movement, and still hosts the Uptown Poetry Slam. The former once got third place in a gingerbread house contest.  When asked about who would prevail in this epic battle, Stafford replied, “We've been leaving flaming bags of poop on the Green Mill's porch for too long. We're ready to ding dong ditch them... WITH WORDS!"  Smith declined to comment, but we can assume he would say something like, “The Mental Graffiti slam team are a bunch of dirtbag weasels.”

And besides the carnage, there are also some special features to this year’s grudge match, including an auction of fun and functional items to bid on, as well as a third competing team, comprised of winners from Young Chicago Authors’s Louder Than A Bomb College Poetry Slam Competition.

It goes without saying that the adult poets don’t stand a chance.

It all goes down tonight, at The Butterfly Social Club, 7:30pm $5.