It's My Blog and I'll Critique If I Want To ...

[ocvictor]

Very sorry to anyone who's annoyed at the sheer amount of navel-gazing poetry slam theory I've been spewing lately. I'm working on writing something, and the blog's always been my best sounding board, and frequently, I find myself arguing against myself, just to test things out in my head.

Still, I understand slam's more than an academic concept to

Comments

[twosnoos]

But what about iWPS and WOWps, which have 1 minute, 2 minute and four minute rounds, as well as the 3 minute rounds?

[hot_rod_poet]

great minds...

[hot_rod_poet]

Burke's criticism is as repetitive and monotonous and un-original as the type of slam performances/poems that he attempts to critique. For any criticism to be taken seriously, it has to include specific examples.

I want to know what slams all these criticizing observers (note my avoidance of the label "critic") are attending, what sort of sample size they're looking at. Burke's info says he's in San Diego. How many shows in different venues in different parts of the country has he been to? Some of his points are well taken, but they can't be spread about like so much Nutella over a diverse art form/movement/game with all our varied whole-grain goodness. Bring this guy to the Worcester slam and he'll see something different.

And while he's there, can you sit him down and teach him the proper use of "its/it's" and "their/they're/there"? If you're going to establish credibility as a poet or literary critic, you need to avoid citations from the Grammar Police. And he's got a windshield full of them.

[ocvictor]

Well, I'd cast stones, but there's rather a lot of typos in my post, too. (:

[hot_rod_poet]

Yeah, it's a dangerous road to go down, 'cause I'm sloppy in my posts too. Posts/columns/articles like his annoy me, though, and so I fight dirty and pick on his contractions skillz

Ted Burke coming at you

[hot_rod_poet]

Hi, Ted Burke here

[scottwoods]

Is it that point in the cycle again? Man, let me break out my shroud and cowbell

[scottwoods]

Hear hear! As a librarian, that's another one to not get me started on. I am constantly amazed at the willful ignorance of most poets.

[ocvictor]

Let me where my Devil's Advocate hat for a moment, and ask a question:

What's more interesting, from the media's perspective -- the slam as it exists now, or what poets do after they leave slam?

[jeditigger]

I just commented to someone else how people seem to feel entitled to bitch about how someone else uses his or her blog.

I like reading what you write. No matter what it is.

[ocvictor]

Oh, like anyone could stop me from blogging about whatever I feel like anyway. (:

Besides, no one has. I just know the sensitive types that read my journal.

[cynthia_french]

i always find it amusing how people who write these articles don't necessarily define what their slam experience has been. Have they gone to one local slam, three? at the same venue, different venues? been to a national event?

you can go to one event and decide you don't like something, sure, but you can't judge an international entity based on a singular experience.

It would be the same if someone picked up one book of poetry by robert frost, read it, didn't like it and said, "poetry sucks."

[ocvictor]

If he lives in San Diego, he can't have much experience at all. There's been a slam there on and off for years, but it's a bit sequestered from the national scene. And there's not been one in Orange County or Long Beach for years, and somehow I doubt he's traveling to L.A.

It would be the same if someone picked up one book of poetry by robert frost, read it, didn't like it and said, "poetry sucks."

And yet, our public education system produces this result all the time.