I sat down with Eric Silver, president of NYU SLAM!, to speak about the team and the slam experience. When asked about how his parents feel about performance poetry he says, “They like that I do poems, but I think they’re learning things about me and it’s kind of shocking.” Eric has been involved with NYU SLAM! for several years and took over the role of team president in 2011. We spoke about the experience of performing and how fleeting the moment is, “If you don’t capture it . . . it’s going to take you over.”

“It’s about a human being getting up in front of a room full of strangers and slicing open their chest so that everyone can see what’s inside.”

Eric Silver is president of SLAM! NYU. After winning the College Unions Poetry Slam (CUPSI) in 2012, Silver said, “I am honored to a part of a team that is so talented and so committed to poetry. Although winning a national title is great, it feels that much more meaningful that I won it with these members of SLAM! NYU.” Silver’s poem, “Cut Brake Lines, and the people who ride with them,” featured here, and “30 Body Parts” were accepted into the Minetta Review’s fall 2011 issue. His works have also been published in the New Library and his poetry book Post-Awkward Expressionism is currently being sold through Blurb Books online.

Eric Silver performs “Cut Brake Lines, and the people who ride them”