This paper will investigate a body of lampoon poetry (hija’) by Umayyad poets Jarir (d. 728) and al-Farazdaq (d. 730). I will examine this poetry by focusing on the venue at which it was performed, Mirbad, in Basra, Iraq, in order to elucidate the changes the lampoon genre had undergone from pre-Islamic times through the Umayyad era. The Umayyad period was one of change as a new civilizational system brought with it new migration patterns as well as new sensibilities that affected the role of lampoon poetry in early Islamic urban centers. Whereas tribe and lineage had been the primary markers of identity in the pagan era, the new civilization encouraged migration to new Islamic cities and an ethos that valued ideas over blood ties, which brought about changes in how many people approached old customs, rituals and aesthetic systems, including poetry. I will investigate Jarir and al-Farazdaq’s performance of lampoon at Mirbad, in order to understand what role this poetry played in the Umayyad era, and how that was different from the role lampoon had played in earlier times. In the pagan era poets used lampoon to attack and dishonor competing poets’ tribes, but these attacks became increasingly out of place in the first Islamic century, not only because they were contrary to sensibilities against injuring another’s reputation, but also because to the new urban culture ties to tribe had waned in favor of other ties. People began to identify with their city, their region or their profession more than with their tribe. Using performance theory and drawing on Bauman (Verbal Art as Performance. Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland, 1977) and Ali (Arabic Literary Salons in the Islamic Middle Ages: Poets, Public Performance, and the Presentation of the Past. Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame P, 2010) I will show how, responding to new audience demands, Jarir and al-Farazdaq used lampoon to attack each other in a mock style not to actually harm the other’s tribe, but to meet the expectations of their new audience in an increasingly urbanizing world by providing an entertaining spectacle for them, thus creating a niche for pagan era lampoon poetry in the new ecology of Islamic civilization.