At the NW Poetry Slam I was struck by how many of the poems seemed to have the voice of the performer as the voice of the main character of the poem (i.e. first person poetry). Even if this work is not directly autobiographical having the narrating voice take this part can make it feel so...

...my question is this... is this the best view point for performance poetry? I think that having the voice in this role gives it the whiff of a dramatic monologue... is that a good thing? What are people's experience of other narrative viewpoints in performance poetry? Does it go down better with Judges? Audiences?

Good Question Ian.
You have got me thinking here.
I'm reading thru a lot of my work and my faves are the 'I' ones. Must be ego. However I woud say the craft resides in getting away from the 'I'.

That said a mix is important.

Gill Scott Heron said our favourite letter of the alphabet is I

Hi Ian,
''I''' ve thought about this subject a lot too, not just because of your post. All of my own writings used to be in the first person and about me. I think many others will admit that's where they started too.
I'm no expert but i'm working on personifying objects which makes the ''I am'' more acceptable in the poetry world. It's all about the analogy. Or i recently played around with giving the subject a character name which places a different angle on it. ''I'' becomes he or she.

Janet.x