There’s a truth many of us carry quietly in this space: you can love something so deeply that it begins to take from you without asking. And if you’re not careful, that love unstructured, unmanaged will leave you empty.
I’ve seen it happen too often. The most passionate slam organizers the ones who show up early, leave last, and fill every gap between go missing after a successful event. We don’t notice it right away. We celebrate the turnout, the energy, the applause. But behind the scenes, they’re exhausted, frustrated, and sometimes completely burnt out.
What worries me most isn’t the exhaustion. It’s the silence that follows.
This isn’t a failure of character. It’s a failure of structure. Passion alone isn’t a plan. Good intentions without systems eventually become burdens. When poets and organizers are stretched thin, asked to produce excellence without support, something always breaks. And it’s usually them.
But here’s the thing we didn’t choose this path to break. We chose it to build.
We wanted to shape something beautiful, necessary, something that could carry our voices and our communities. But somewhere along the line, we began to carry it all alone. And that’s not sustainable. Not for the people, not for the movement, and certainly not for the vision we claim to protect.
I’ve been in rooms where amazing poets had no transport money to get home after headlining a national stage. I’ve been on calls where slam organizers whispered that they were tired of giving everything and receiving nothing but praise. I’ve seen people lead with heart, only to burn out because they had no system to hold them.
We need to normalize a different conversation.
Leadership in this space cannot mean self-sacrifice to the point of invisibility. It cannot mean staying up three nights for a show that doesn’t cover your lunch. It cannot mean giving away your energy, your ideas, your peace, until there’s nothing left for yourself.
Leadership must be redefined as the ability to build structures that support others and yourself. As the wisdom to know when to pause. As the maturity to say “no” without guilt. As the courage to mentor someone else to lead beside you not behind you.
We can’t keep waiting for funding, validation, or some perfect day to begin doing this right. Doing it right starts with how we treat ourselves and each other. It starts with having honest conversations about fatigue, about compensation, about the realities behind the stage lights.
This isn’t about being dramatic. It’s about being real. Because too many people have left this space not because they didn’t care, but because the space didn’t care back. We’re not just losing poets or planners we’re losing history, energy, and future leadership when we allow burnout to go unchecked.
If you’re a poet reading this, you deserve more than applause. You deserve systems that respect your time, your creativity, your growth. If you’re an organizer, you deserve a team, a rest cycle, and an environment that doesn’t treat burnout as normal.
I’m not here to shame or scold anyone. I’m here because I’ve been there and I don’t want you to go through it alone. If you’re tired, you’re not weak. If you need help, you’re not less of a leader. If you feel like quitting, take a pause. But don’t disappear. We need you.
And we need to build differently.
The mic will always be powerful. But it cannot matter more than the person holding it. Let’s build a scene across cities, countries, and continents that doesn’t just demand brilliance, but protects the people who make brilliance possible.
Not for the sake of ego. Not for the culture alone.
But for each other. For longevity. For the kind of future where poets and organizers can lead boldly and still have something left for themselves.