Maggie Estep, Who Brought Slam Poetry to TV, Dies at 50 (original) (raw)
Television|Maggie Estep, Who Brought Slam Poetry to TV, Dies at 50
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Maggie Estep presenting her work onstage in 1993. In addition to poetry she wrote several mystery novels set in New York.Credit...Kevin Mazur/MTV
- Feb. 12, 2014
Maggie Estep, a novelist and spoken-word poet who helped popularize slam poetry on MTV, HBO and PBS in the 1990s, died on Wednesday in Albany. She was 50.
Ms. Estep (pronounced EST-ep) died two days after having a heart attack at her home in Hudson, N.Y., a friend, John Rauchenberger, said.
An East Village bohemian when the neighborhood contained more discarded syringes than million-dollar condos, Ms. Estep became a regular at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, one of the incubators of the slam poetry movement. Slam poetry combines aspects of a live reading, a rap battle and stand-up comedy, as performers try to win over the audience with wit, braggadocio and, occasionally, nuance.
Ms. Estep’s poetry was characterized by gritty honesty, black humor and a post-punk brand of feminism. She became one of the form’s breakout stars, performing in showcases like MTV’s “Unplugged,” the “Free Your Mind” spoken-word tour in 1993 and, in 1994, the music festivals Lollapalooza and Woodstock ’94.
Her poems, which she delivered relentlessly, were a cascade of images, often tinged with absurdity, violence and innuendo. She performed one scathingly sarcastic poem, “Happy,” on the HBO show “Russell Simmons’s Def Poetry Jam”:
To hell with sticking my head in the oven
I’m happy
I’m ridiculously, vengefully happy
I’m ripped apart by sunshine
I’m ecstatic
I’m leaping
I’m cutting off all my limbs
I’m doing circus tricks with forks
She recorded two spoken-word albums with rock accompaniment, “No More Mr. Nice Girl” (NuYo/Imago, 1994) and “Love Is a Dog From Hell” (Mouth Almighty/Mercury, 1997). Her fame increased when a video for her song “Hey Baby” was mocked on “Beavis and Butt-head.” The song centers on Ms. Estep’s bizarre rejoinder to an amorous man on a New York street, and ends with this exchange:
“What’s the matter, baby?
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