In the candle and lava-lamp glow of a side room at the Kamikaze,

Tom Noy works the mic like a hip-hop game show host. He starts with a poem, and then he chats the crowd up to the point where he can say "word" and they all shout back "word," and when he says "aaaiyt," they all say "aaaiyt." They've come to hear poetry and compete with it, and there's no stage fright in sight. About 50 people all paid $5 at the door. Noy is the slam master. He lays down the rules, and his voice rolls like it's coming from the radio, or a holy pulpit. A guy named Sanchez, whom Noy calls Vanna Black, strolls comically across the stage with a placard advising the crowd to put cell phones on vibrate. The poets don't want any ring-tone interruptions. And when Noy says the evening is brought to them by "Chief Rocka Entertainment," the crowd helps punctuate with an "Oooooooop! Oooooooop!"

This is poetry slam night, and the Kamikaze - a wing joint and coffee house across the street from Randall Park Mall - is the venue where Chief Rocka is building a new Cleveland team to send to the National Poetry Slam, run by Poetry Slam, Inc., in Austin, Texas this month. It will be the first time Cleveland has sent a team to the competition in two years. Chief Rocka Entertainment, an LLC founded in 2003 by the poet and emcee Q-Nice, aka Quentin Finley, has hosted open mic poetry Sunday nights at the Kamikaze since 1999.

Among the competitors are four poets whose top ranks in the audience-judged, Olympic-style scoring will earn them spots on the team that goes from Cleveland to the nationals. All spit the familiar, fiery cadence that dominates slam poetry, that wielding of the important words like drumsticks, and weighing of pauses against them. They are Q-Nice, Tom Noy, who is simply Tom Noy, Liberty, who is Lolana Price, and One Truth, who is Thomas Reeves. Theirs is not an academic style, but a voice from the street. That's not to say it lacks polish or technical skill, but that those qualities are honed specifically for the slam, to get the attention of a coffeeshop or bar crowd quickly, and hold it for the three-minute time limit.

Most poems run up into the two-minute and fifty-something-second range, and by the time they get to nationals, their competition will be pushing to three minutes and nine seconds, taking advantage of a 10-second grace period. It's that kind of competition.

Their subject matter is not subtle or metaphysical, or metaphorical very much, but the blunt and sweaty realities of life for everyday people in Cleveland. Slam poetry these days in this town is that kind of window on the city. Poet after poet spits verses on the struggle to hold a life together, the obstacles posed by drug dealers, unemployment, disinvestment in their neighborhoods, violence, absent fathers, big egos, and men who call women bitches and hos. Several work up to a kind of hypnotic shout. Behind them, the red glow of a neon sign declares "shouting stage."

Both in content and in person, for anyone who has paid any attention to slam poetry in Cleveland, two things become impossible to ignore about this scene: first, competition to represent the city on a team of bull goose poets is furious. And second, what started as a white hipster thing in venues like the University Circle Arabica, the Great Lakes Brewing Company, the Barking Spider and the Beachland Ballroom is now dominated by black folks. Everyone on the 2007 Slam team, everyone who competed for a spot and - at Chief Rocka's Tuesday night venue, the B-Side in Cleveland Heights - everyone who gets up to read at the open mic is black.

Cleveland is long on stories about cultures not mixing, and sometimes they are touched off by crime, statistically documented academic achievement gaps or, lately in the inner-ring suburbs, legislation passed to address the kind of culture clash referred to these days as "incivility." The accompanying police reports, research papers and council meeting minutes serve as paper license for newspapers to take up the touchy subject.

But this is a story where no such thing has happened. The only statistics that matter in the poetry slam are the scores, and those did not play a role. It's simply a matter of poets - white poets and black poets, both of whom often write about social injustice, who - whether because of egos or cultural differences, or the desire to build their machines separately - simply stopped mixing. A white slam master walked away from his role. A black poet, with help from some friends, picked it up. And now, after two years of absence from the national competition, a whole new Cleveland crew is going back to the slam, with hopes of bringing home the big prize.

CLEVELAND has had a strong presence on the National Poetry Slam scene almost from the beginning. Chicago poet and former construction worker Marc Smith invented competitive slam poetry in the mid-'80s, and by 1990 the national team competition was born, attracting three teams of poets to compete in San Francisco. The following year - since the rules of building teams with open competition were not yet established - the late poet Daniel Thompson hand-picked the first team to represent Cleveland. All the poets were white.

That second year, the event drew teams from eight cities. The third year it was 23 teams, and Cleveland placed fourth. By then, teams were being built via open competition in coffee shops and bars. By 1994, 24 teams went to Asheville, North Carolina to compete for bragging rights, and Cleveland brought home the national championship. The diverse team - Ray McNiece, Daniel Gray-Kontar, Tia Hodges and Kwanza Brewer, with Dan Chambers as coach - did what no Cleveland sports team had done in decades. Daniel Gray-Kontar placed sixth in the individual competition. The team of poets were guests at Cleveland City Hall, honored by a proclamation from Councilman Jay Westbrook.

That same year, the Lollapalooza music tour dedicated a stage to slam poetry, with Cleveland poet Michael Salinger as one of its stars. For most of poetry slam history, Salinger - a machinist known for writing sensually about the way metal parts of cars and shop equipment interact with each other and people - has been a key figure on the national scene (though he never won an individual or team title) and especially in the Cleveland poetry community. Poetry slam inventor Marc Smith recalls that Salinger's subject matter and fiery delivery - barking the first words of poems as if he were at the height of an impassioned argument, and not slowing down - were tailor-made for the slam stage.

"Mike showed up at Green Mill," Smith says, "with a lot of spit and vinegar. I thought we were aggressive in Chicago. He outdid Detroit and Chicago, and his work was so in tune with what we were doing at the beginning. He was a machinist and a blue-collar guy who could write beautiful poems on the subject."

Salinger would be either team member, coach or slam master - the person responsible for organizing the local slams, making sure they follow the rules, and representing the team at national meetings - for 10 of the next 13 years.

"Over the years," Smith says, "Mike has had a very important role. He's certainly one of the most important elders on the slam scene."

Q-Nice - "A strong influence because of the social and political issues in the city."

Q-Nice was on the national poetry slam team in 1995, when Cleveland placed second, and in 1996, when the team placed sixth. He and Salinger both are among the busiest poets in town, both making their living by teaching and performing at schools, summer programs, clubs and wherever opportunity knocks. Q-Nice just performed at the Tri-C MusicFest. He has traveled with MTV's Rock the Vote tour, and was on BET's Rapcity: the Basement. Along with Daniel Gray-Kontar, he was one of the founders of the Black Poetics Society, a group of African-American poets who held readings at the Cleveland State University Kiva.

Gray-Kontar says the Black Poetics Society was a response to black poets' need for a place where they could feel comfortable performing. He and a few other black poets read on the local coffee shop scene and had earned spots on teams representing Cleveland in the national slam, but, as he wrote in an essay for a forthcoming book on the Northeast Ohio poetry scene, "we were novel." So they built their own reading series that would eventually draw hundreds to listen, and earn for its core group of poets, including Q, a small measure of local fame.

Salinger became slam master in Cleveland in 1999. That year, Cleveland placed eighth in a national competition that had doubled in size, with teams from 48 cities. Nationally, the poetry slam had hit the big time, fueled by attention from the media, especially movies like Slamnation, and the HBO series Def Poetry Jam. That raised the stakes with money and the prospect of movie roles and record deals, but it also changed the nature of the game. In order to have a better chance at scoring those prizes, poets began to imitate what they saw winning poets do.

"People learned that identity politics wins," says Ray McNiece. "Ethnic identity in sync with political issues works with the audiences. And a lot of the stars of the slam have been black."

"Identity politics sells so well because we've established lines based on stereotypes that people know and accept. Like white people can't dance. They have no soul, no rhythm. Black folks - but I won't talk about that. I can talk about my own group. Other people can talk about white people too, and even get points for it. But you better not call anyone a nappy-headed ho unless you're a black rapper."

Picking up on McNiece's phrase after being asked about the term, Marsh says he thinks in a "general way" poetry slam rewards identity politics. "It's easy to cut through an audience's hesitancy if you slap them with their own perceptions of injustice. Because slam is scored immediately, not after reflection, you have to get them in the gut visceral level."

Slam poetry also became a refuge for spoken-word artists who got frustrated with the commercialization of hip-hop.

"It became a place where someone could rap and keep beat and rhyme," says Smith. "A hip-hop poet can walk into the slam world and have a similar style and do much more with it than the commercial hip-hop industry will allow."

"We're certainly strongly influenced by hip-hop right now," says Marsh, "though it's certainly not the only successful style. I like to think it's been a mutual influence."

The Wikipedia entry for slam poetry underscores the point, devoting the majority of its second paragraph to the idea that slam poetry is not exclusively hip-hop.

There's another kind of appeal too, Smith says, and it has to do with the rewards of fair competition. "The African-American community loves the slam very much," he observes. "That's because the slam was an open door. It wasn't liberally concocted or phony, just an open door and open stage that's equal."

Q agrees that hip-hop has been a strong force on the local and national scene. "Poetry is one of the five elements of hip-hop - voice percussion. I think there's a strong influence because of the social and political issues in the city."

SALINGER would hold down the role of slam master in Cleveland for six years, hosting competitions first at a jazz club called the Mardi Gras, then the Beachland Ballroom. Attendance went well for a couple of years, but then began to wane. In 2003, when Chief Rocka was hosting slam poetry events at the Kamikaze and Salinger at the Beachland, Salinger says he offered to collaborate with the crew as co-slam masters. He says they didn't want to. None of the Chief Rocka guys had made a national slam team since Q-Nice in 1996, though every team during Salinger's tenure was diverse - up until 2004, when Cleveland sent its first all African-American team to the national competition.

Then several factors intersected in Salinger's scene. The slam audience at the Beachland was declining. Salinger had become frustrated with the dominance of political poems he calls "rhetorical." He says poets would show up too late to sign up, and leave frustrated when they weren't allowed to compete. Salinger articulates his own awareness of a cultural divide. He says he got tired of people showing up late, got tired of being yelled at.

Daniel Gray-Kontar says Salinger probably wasn't culturally prepared to deal with young black men. "If you're an emcee going to a poetry slam, you not only show up late, but you show up acting like you're the baddest MF in the room. You've built this persona for self-defense."

Salinger points to a minor detail of culture, that rappers, emcees and hip-hop spoken-word performers often use stage names. "I never understood why a group of performers needs stage names. Maybe it's generational. I'm 45. But if I don't understand that, what else don't I understand?"

Salinger - "I'm not bitter, I'm tart."

So in January 2005 he posted a letter on the Cleveland Poetics Internet message board, declaring his retirement as slam master.

"I would be happy to help anyone that would consider taking up the task

of Cleveland slam master," he wrote. "I have truly enjoyed the company of every poet that graced the Classic Cleveland Poetry Slam mic, and am richer for all the people I have met."

He says he never heard from anyone at Chief Rocka. In the mean time, the company's open mic and slam scene at Kamikaze was growing.

"I think their vision was to do their own thing," Salinger says. "which you've got to respect."

SEVERAL of the region's best-known poets observed the schism from the sidelines.

"Allegedly," says Noy, "Michael accused Q of dividing the slam among the races. I think because of ego, he wanted to be the only game in town."

Noy says the Chief Rocka guys did try to make amends, though.

Rafeeq Washington - a poet who was on Cleveland's 1997 slam team, when a poet from Cleveland, the Boogieman, aka Anthony Rucker, brought home the national championship in the individual competition - puts it on both parties in a way that's frighteningly familiar: "The main problem with Cleveland," he says, "is the in-fighting. It's a bunch of little pockets fighting for the same crumbs. It's stupid. The Cleveland slam team should be the best poets in the city, period. We do a huge disservice to what people think of Cleveland poetry."

Washington thinks it was "a little bit of both" egos and cultural differences that split the slam community, and he thinks the city suffers by not putting all of what's best in the same spotlight.

"I get mad at both Salinger and Q when this comes up," he says.

But it's not even that simple.

Ray McNiece puts it three ways: "The old school gets pushed off the block by the new school. It's a competitive thing, and factions form."

"What has happened nationally is a macrocosm of what has happened locally. There are cults of personality. They break off."

And he cracks a laugh through a John Wayne drawl for a Wild West summary of the situation: "There's two groups of poets in this town."

McNiece observes that if the Chief Rocka crew had hosted slam competitions to pick the national team at the B-Side in Cleveland Heights - a more diverse neighborhood than the one around Randall Park Mall - the Northeast Ohio slam community might not have gone separate ways.

Team piece - Tom Noy, One Truth and Liberty rehearse.

"I wish they had done it at the B-Side," he says.

BUT ALL THAT'S HISTORY. Preparation for the 2007 National Slam is in high gear. For two months Q-Nice, Tom Noy, Liberty and OneTruth have spent their Monday and Wednesday evenings in rehearsal, and the night in between running an open mic at the B-side in Cleveland Heights. The team that Chief Rocka built is off and running. In the heat of a second- floor dance studio on Mayfield Road they begin rehearsal with exercise - walking, running, push-ups, sit-ups. At a rehearsal in June they sat in a circle of four on the wood floor, a scene doubled in the mirror, talking strategy. Noy - who does a lot of his poetical thinking on a motorcycle, "out lost in the twists and turns on country roads" - pragmatically observes, "Poetry doesn't win these contests. You have to connect."

Q-Nice tells the team that in order to get through the final rounds of the nationals, they each will need 10 to 15 poems memorized, with performances refined. He tells them they have to have those poems down like a playbook, to know when to use them in response to the audience's mood.

On a Tuesday night a couple weeks ago the audience's mood was high at Chief Rocka's Lyrical Rhythm open-mic poetry session at the B-side. About 100 people made the room buzz - 100 people, for open mic poetry on a Tuesday.

The back-up band, the Playscape All Stars percolated with improvised jazz in a semi-circle behind the mic. The Chief Rocka guys took turns giving the rules. No singing from the neck: They want singers from the diaphragm. And no rappers - only emcees.

It's just two weeks before the slam team heads to Austin, Texas for the national championship. Marsh says this year's national slam championship will be the biggest ever, with 75 teams competing in a five-day contest for bragging rights and a $2,000 first prize.

The open-mic session doubles as a fundraiser for the team, to cover traveling expenses and a frugal stay in Austin. Chief Rocka runs the show like a company. They're charging $5 at the door and getting it. They've got sponsorship from Coors Light. They've got the order of things down, and everyone knows their part.

Ray McNiece is there, but doesn't perform. There's plenty of competition for the mic, but none from the handful of white folks in the room. The poets take turns, without a list. Q-Nice says that makes some people uncomfortable, but that the idea is for people to learn to deal with it, and in the process become more confident and aggressive performers. At the halfway point Noy spins records. It's a high-energy party, with a couple dozen people dancing.

Salinger is complimentary of the scene Chief Rocka built. "I think it's much more accepting and supportive than the old hipster writing crew. And what's better for a scene? To be so accepting and supportive, or to be more discerning? I'll tell you, every one of those people goes home feeling good."

After the break Sanchez introduces the slam team, and Liberty talks the crowd through a raffle drawing. Then the open-mic poets get back on the stage. A guy raps freestyle as members of Chief Rocka take turns presenting him with random subjects - a white athletic shoe, a pretty girl, a notebook, a milk crate - and he improvises a place for each one in his rhyme. Several poets relate profound life struggles. The loudest applause comes when two black women perform a duet that takes black folks to task over a litany of familiar complaints: that they are not interested in black men who sell drugs or don't hold down a job, or aren't around for their kids.

"Black woman, black man, I really need you to stand," one reads.

But in the Chief Rocka house she's preaching to the choir. They run their open mic like parents. They don't allow rudeness. They give extra time to the elders. They set a tone where one poet asks permission to use the word "bitch," assuring that it won't be in an offensive way. The performance is reluctantly okayed.

And they know that when they represent Cleveland at the national slam, they're upholding a long, rusty and proud tradition.

"Cleveland has done well in the national slam," Q-Nice says. "Yes, they have. And we want to make sure we do our part to help continue that."

The 2007 National Poetry Slam takes place August 7-11 in Austin.