Phoenix (and parts there about), AZ
“Wait, I'm waitin' for the date
For the man who demands respect
'Cause he was great, c'mon
I'm on the one mission
To get a politician
To honor or he's a goner
By the time I get to Arizona.”
- Chuck D (Public Enemy), from “By the Time I Get to Arizona” (from Apocalypse 1991: The Enemy Strikes Back, 1991)
Some gigs you can't drive to. And since I'm not one of those traveling poets who has the time to or interest in connecting appearance dots to make their way across the desolate poetry landscape of America like a medieval bard, I am sometimes forced to get into the Big Shiny Bird That Spirits You Away On Its Magic Wings over the Sea to the Undying Lands. If it doesn't crash first, of course.
You already know I hate flying. This is old news. If you've flown with me in the past or laughed at my neurosis here before you'd have been proud of me yesterday. Despite being in the air for about 4.5 hours, I was surprisingly calm. It helped that Transformers was the first of two in-flight movies. (It did not help that Prime was the second). It also helped that I had my PSP. And that I was able to hunker down with parts of Mucho Mojo by Lansdale, which I'm enjoying immensely.
For the record, I did try to write (11,000 words to go. Shoot me now) but the laptop died on me. I didn't think to set it for whatever blah-de-blah setting you have to set such magical devices on so that they conserve energy without a plug, but the laptop screen is so large that it bends forward and becomes hard to read because airplane seats are made for tiny people with no spinal columns.
So I survived.
For those of you educated in public schools, Arizona is a desert. I don't mean it's dry and a little warm while we inthe Midwest are a little cold; I mean it's a dusty, coyote-laden, tumbleweed-spawning desert. Closest I'd been to that before was Albuquerque in 2005, but that city seemed more concentrated in one area (or I was more concentrated in one area). The valley area here is like a Coen Brothers movie at every turn. It's awesome landscape, and I can see why the poets from this area are either very good or very insane, but rarely both. One has to expend a lot of mental energy to keep from chasing random mirages off of the highways here, so one uses what gray matter they have left to write poems that may outlive them should someone find their bones in a dried-up creek bed or one goes bonkers and illegaly sends a team to Nationals.
I'm from Ohio, so this is a big deal. It's two days before December and I was running around without a jacket on yesterday. They have brush here. Lawns are practically illegal. The homes are cool and look like old pueblos that were deserted and then white people moved in and painted them. Cactus is everywhere, and I mean that stereotypical, head-and-two-arms-wears-a-cowboy-hat-and-smiles-a-lot-from-barbecue-sauce-bottles type of cactus, not those measly golf ball buds you see at your mom's house. This is the stuff you cut the arms off of and drink from when the desert has overtaken you.
Bill Campana - campana - picked me up from the airport and after some sundial reading and chicken bone tossing, we found his car in the labyrinth that was the airport garage. We then switched vehicles at his place - situated in a Native American petri dish disguised as a senior citizens' community - and rode his golf cart downtown to a place called El Charro, which rocks. I love me some Don Pablo, but real Mexican food done by real Mexicans is the bomb (or, as they say here in the dustbowl, "muy el bombo"). Now, if I can squeeze in some rainstick-making or genuine, back-to-Mother-Earth, tomahawk-wielding Indian casino gambling at the oh-so-originally christenede "Casino Arizona" my desert transformation will be complete. I'll have "gone native", as they say. Well, like they said in Thunderheart, anyway.
After weaving dreamcatchers with Bill by one of the many bronze statues of animals and people that dot the streets - statues we have surmised have been dipped in bronze they are so real - we saw their eyes move, I'm telling you! - we charged up his golf cart with my iPod and putted our way over to Bob Nelson and Sharon Skinner's adobe dwelling ( bobdapoet and sharonskinner respectively) and hung out there. I hadn't actually met Sharon yet, and she was nothing like I imagined she might be. She's PSI's Development Director and our contact had existed solely online over the last year or more. I thought, because she is so professional and concise online, that she would be kind of a straight arrow and the sort of person who throws coasters under your drinks. Way off: Sharon is a hoot and she loves to laugh. My kind of Development Director.
(Aside: I love talking to people who have been involved with Slam for longer than a few years, even if they don't compete anymore. There is so much history and perspective that gets tossed away when you only do this as long as you're winning or you don't see the many other challenges the device of Slam can bring into your art to keep you interested or developing. When you think you have it all figured out is when you should be shutting up and listening to someone who's done it for longer than the number of times you've been to Nationals. If you think that the people who tend to win or just score well are the ones who have the answers, you're screwed. They may have the answers on how to win slams or how to write pap that can pass Slam muster, but they don't necessarily have the answers to how to infuse Slam into your life to make you a better or happier poet. You know, outside of winning slams which, contrary to the tracts of some contemporary Slam theorists, does not take good poetry to accomplish, even at the national level. Deal with it.
End rant.)
Bob and Sharon have the largest collection of LOTR figures I've seen in one place outside of a store, some fine and fat felines, and a snake that moves so infrequently that I think it's fake. Understand: this was me using a coping mechanism. Trying to think of the snake as rubber didn't stop me from considering that I might be wrong and that it might slip out of its cage in the night and come for me. I could see it now: I wake up and this pair of yellow Sauron-dagger eyes is looking up at me with a mouthful of Scott-to-the-waist like, "What?"
While riding with Sharon to pick up the kids from school - two incredibly brilliant teens with more character than most adults - I got some key mysteries of the area solved. For instance, I wondered why I could see so much of the sky all of the time (it's because the buildings are all short) and why the buildings were all so short (because they have a lot of land to spread out on, so they build wide, not tall). I saw a magnificent sunset and Sharon and I swapped audiobook recommendations. I was regaled by the Nelsonettes with tales of teenage world domination, bridge collapse fantasies and how much Mein Kampf sucks in under two pages. I had fun pointing out how black I am and how well I write white. Either they're all easily entertained or I am the funniest black man in all of Arizona, especially when it comes to threatening to call Children's Services on their Village of the Damned-perfect brood. I'm here all week, folks.
Paper Heart is a great venue, and I'm sorry to hear it's closing soon. The poetry scythe continues to swing across the land. * It was great to see so many poets I only see once a year - if I'm lucky - and I met some really nice, great people. The workshop I did beforehand went really well. I shaped it to that particular group's needs and we had a good time with the exercises. Clam trellis!
Sharon did a feature before mine and she's really solid. I hear she doesn't get to read as much lately, so I'm honored that she was up front and doing her thing for her people. It's very easy for people behind the scenes of readings to get lost as artists, and I was happy for her getting the chance to put down her novelist jet pack and spread her poetry wings.
My setlist:
Whuppins
Elementary
A House Is Not A Home
Slow Jams (edited; haven't read in some time but enjoyed it)
Scowl (edited some more, but still needs revamping; went well)
Oral Elemental (I know, right? Hey: when was I going to be in Arizona again?)
The Fat Albert Gang: A Modern Teacher's Guide For Usage (edited version)
Queen Takes Black Knight
Comfort Woman's Gold
Shaman
It was a strong set, and way longer than usual. I didn't go for all the laughs here because Arizona don't play that meager poem/great performance jive. I wasn't 150% thanks to exhaustion, but we had a good time after I warmed up. Some obvious omissions:
The Flavor of Love (Too preachy for an audience of mostly white folks, which would have made it pedestrian.)
Jesse (Wasn't feeling like it. Besides, everyone here in the desert worships sun gods and rivers, so what's the point? What is this supposed to be, Black Robe?)
They Hate Your Poem (Energy didn't fit the rest of the set, but I think they'd have liked it. It has lots of cursing)
For Tyler (Locking this one out of sets until I edit it right)
Today I'm chilling out, going to try to get caught up on NaNo and generally be a bum until later, when I go to another reading and see Bill Campana feature. Whohoo!
* Poets at large: If you want to take breaks from poetry or need time to recharge your batteries or whatever your reason for not going to poetry readings is this month, get over it. Nothing says you can't sit in the audience like a normal person who doesn't write poetry and continue to support the night with your body, applause or jeers. If you want readings to be there when you get back on your poetry horse and ride down off your mountaintop from your poetry sabbaticals, at least get your butt in a chair. End rant.)