Last week, I was on my way home from a lecture at the Museum of Biblical Art. For those who are unfamiliar with NYC geography, the trip from MOBIA to my Brooklyn neighborhood is not short - about forty-five minutes from door to door. I wasn't feeling well, so I'd tucked myself into a corner seat with my current read and a cup of green tea for the long haul home. People in various states of exhaustion sat listening to their iPod earbuds, staring at the advertising lining the subway car. A crowd of teenagers bundled into the subway at the next stop and started talking loudly and heatedly down at the other end.

About twenty minutes later - somewhere in the Village - I realized that the crowd of teenagers were having a full-blown argument about something. I started to get nervous - you just never know what will happen when people get into heated discussions - but then I listened more closely and realized what was going on.

They were having something I could only describe as a slam-off. Each time the doors closed and we started moving, one of the young men would start on a new slam poem - as far as I could tell, they were completely spontaneous - and go as far as he could on it until the train stopped again. Then the other guy would get a turn. There was a lot of "your momma" and "your face" jokes going on in the poetry, but there was also truly entrancing rhyme and rhythm. Poetry arguments. Brilliant.

Fifteen stops later, I got out at my station. The teens, who had been angry with one another when they got onto the train, were laughing and continuing as I got off. Anger had been dispelled, and the potentially volatile situation had been defused with a duel - not with swords, but with poetry.

That was cool.