Slamming, and a Love Jones hallelujiah moment
So I've slammed twice this week after dusting off the poetry muscles and weeks of being a bum, a rat bum I tell ya'.
Sunday night I had a team meeting with the Win-&-You're-In (W&YI or "Win & Urine" if you're nasty) team in preparation for the All-Ohio Slam Tuesday night. I was using myself, Rachel Wiley, Vernell Bristow and Rose Smith. I hadn't slammed since the Writers' Block iWPS Grand Slam (August, I think), Rose had been laid up in the hospital recently and was lucky to be available, and Rachel was largely a rookie outside of WB. Vernell was the one veteran who had a leg going into this, since she slammed for WOW, won it, and has been reading pretty steady since. Open mic chops are one thing...slam chops are another. Add on that I'm still deaf in my left ear which affects my performance and...well, we needed the meeting. The meeting/training went REALLY well. (Secret training stuff and a bunch of Slam philosphy goes here.) I switched up my coaching strategy a bit to accomdate the poets we had. That worked out really well when the slam hit on Tuesday.
For myself, I needed to write a new poem for this bout, which flew in the face of what the others were being asked to do, but for good reason. It takes a lot out of me to read an old poem smply to try to win a slam. (This will become more important below.) You know I'm that cat that needs to be challenged all the time. I needed a poem that I felt would be competitive to not only the room we would be in - Writing Wrongs - but for myself. Slam always comes second to art for me. A balance must always be struck. Otherwise I'll just coach.
So I did exactly what I've been trying to stop doing, which is to write a poem one hour before the slam. This is largely not my fault per se, in that Monday was a mental wash and on Tuesday work was busy in that way you-can't-get-away-with-writing-a-poem-all-day sort of way. So I was stuck trying to come up with something new from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Fortunately, I had spent the day coming up with an idea for a poem, so when I got home I unleashed the hordes and we got into some gansgta shit. Literally: the poem I ended up with, "6 In The Morning" (yes, an Ice-T reference) was a persona piece told by a gangbanger. I don't want to say anymore about it other than I like it a lot, even if I had to cut a full minute's worth of material out of it to get it AT three minutes. Too tight! I love Slam, but don't think I won't have a feature version of this poem at the ready.
Anyhow, the slam featured teams from WB, WW, Dayton and Cleveland. I know Dayton had some last minute emergencies that forced the team to resturcuyre a little, but I really liked the cats they brought as a unit. No one is more earnest than Dayton in staying with Slam through thick and thin. Cleveland is always awesome in one line-up or another. Keisha is a MACHINE. Tom Noy is providing some strong leadership up there from where I'm sitting, and he's brought this new crop in with the right attitude. Writing Wrongs was Barabara, Ethan, Jason Brazwell and Will and Barb doing a group piece. Jason's auto-tune is hilarious, but then he's always writing poems I wish I did. This squad is consistently strong anymore, especially with Barb seeming to turn a corner with her work. I feel like she's changed her mission a little, like there's been a shift in her poetic foundation, her goals. I hope she sticks with it, throws the right energy into the right poems. If I was doing at her age what she's doing at her age, I'd be rich.
My poem was strong, but still too new. I got good scores, but ultimately the poem deserves more attention from me. You'll see it again.
We came in a close third in this bout, which I'll take in a decent W&YI bout any day. I was so proud of the WB team. Nobody's doing the poems that come out of our night, telling those stories that way. I don't mean in a everybody's-a-snowflake sort of way; I mean in that don't-bother-asking-for-a-feature-if-you-sound-like-a-bunch-of-other-motherfuckers kind of way. There are a lot of great poets in Slam doing original work that isn't being performed in the same voice as a hundred other hollering cats. I'm honored that I was slamming with at least three of them Tuesday night.
Last night's slam was awesome. It was the first prelim of our Nats season and the list packed out to the maximum 12 poets, with only 2 of them not for contention. The lovely Rachel Reid MCed and despite a low-key open mic, got the slam to where it needed to be to be genuinely competitive. A couple of poems in and everyone knew we were in a serious slam situation.
I pulled a 7 for the first round, with a lot of unseen or less-regular cats in front of me. Yay for not pulling the 1 yet again! I got to see a lot of heavy-hitting before I got to go up.
I pulled about 7 poems to consider, and started whittling as the scores came out. While some poems scored better than they should have, no good poem got a score it didn't deserve considering when it hit the stage. I mean, Rose's "All the Stalls Are Full at Lithia Park" is an awesome poem, but it was the first poem in the slam after the sac.* She's simply not going to get what she would have gotten in that room if she went four poems later. So that exception aside, the scoring of strong poems seemed more or less fair to me.
I ended up performing an old piece, "They Hate Your Poem". I did it for a number of reasons, but the one I'm willing to share here is this one: I just like to let the judges know that using paper doesn't excuse the poet's performance. That's what their voice is for, their face, their free hand. Plus, I planned to do a new poem in the second round - assuming I made it - and it was a poem of less intensity. I would need the karma if people were going to keep bringing heat.
I made it into the second round - barely, but the scores were so tight it was nuts - and was going up 5th out of the 8 people who made it through.** I had my sideboard whittled down to about four pems at that point, then three as Shameaca Moore - new to us, but not new to the scene, and unfortunately too young for Nats - blasted through the judges. She scored so high both rounds she basically had the slam locked. Even with a 30 I wouldn't catch her. SO that meant that consideration could kind of take a backseat and I could try the new poem I wrote right before the slam last night without worrying about how it would score.
Yeah, you read that right: I wrote ANOTHER NEW POEM RIGHT BEFORE THE FREAKING SLAM. I swear, this was not how I planned to approach the 2010 season...it just happened that way.*** While I was reading trhrough the lines of my new piece, JG got up and did - swear to God - the most perfectly jonesy of the Love Jones suck-you-up poems ever. It had all of the traits: rhyming, smooth talking, heaping spoonfuls of nasty, deep voice, proper hand placement on the imaginary thighs...it was a jaw-dropping display to behold. I thought those poems were laregly resigned to nightclub readings. I don't think I've heard a love jones poem at a national competition in seven years. It was not merely textbook; it was goddamned prototype, son. JG had it down. As someone who used to do that type of work early on, I have no problem saying he performed it better than I ever would have.
The problem, of course, is that despite how these poems are received by judges and audiences they are still largely cliche. They're fun and they get the room hot, but they're not considered good poems. The reaction to them is carnal, largely amusement. It is a poem for the room, the moment, not for the canon or the career. Now, you'd be hard pressed to prove that to be a bad thing when you get a 28 for it in a slam or something, but that doesn't change the facts or their shelf life or how the poet will utlimately be considered. Some poets care about that sort of thing. I say that as a poet who had to make that transition.
I think I verbally responded out loud when the poem started. I do know I blinked hard a number of times. I thought that maybe the poem would take a twist or something. It didn't. I do recall my mouth was open. I barely recall leaning over to dig into The Book to find the perfect poem to follow it. I pulled it out. I looked at it. I kept listening while I was looking at it. I set the poem underneath the new poem I was really, really comitted to doing. When my name was called to go next, I didn't even move at first. I just stood at the back of the room looking down at the two poems under my hand. Finally, I grabbed the paper and took to the stage.
I performed "Oral Elemental".
I need you to understand something: I didn't do this poem because I thought it would score well. I don't really ever worry about wondering what scores might be because it's impossible to know. At that moment it came down to the show, the moment, the intersection of art and purpose. It was if I wrote "Oral Elemental" all those years ago for this exact, perfect moment of poetry. It was the moment you wait your whole artistic career for, when you have the right poem at the right place at the right time and everyone KNOWS it. It wasn't about the scores or the slam; it was about exchanging ideas and emotion. As poets we like to think we're always doing that. I would say some of us are always trying to do that and some of us are using that excuse. But last night, poetry became larger than the Slam and JG and me and Love Jones and anything that wasn't that perfect storm of commentary. It wasn't a blast on JG...it was a connection to the power of poetry. Yes, about oral sex.
I got 5 tens.
(I also got a .5 time penalty, but that's because the room was throwing chairs and shit, nto because I can't perform it under 3 minutes. Again, this wasn't about the slam. It's a TP I'm happy to take for that one moment everyone will be talking about for a long time.)
So I'll do my new poem about Facebook another time. It could use an edit anyway. But for anyone who says "I thought you said we should try new work this season" and wants to use last night as a counterpoint? Don't. I had a new poem. I was ready to read the new poem. But the Poetry Gods exist. And when they say, "Here is your moment", you better do as the voices command or suffer the consequences of a slack life, son.
= = = = = = = = = =
* The sac is not really a sac. The open mic is the sac. The sac just confirms what you should already have noted about the open mic in terms of reaction.
** Usually it's just a 6 poet cut, but we don't let non-contention poets keep contention poets out of the second round. You still got to earn the points, but we give you every fair opportunity to do so.
*** I'm in this space where I feel I need to reinvent myself again, and part of that is keeping things fresh for even the people who already have a high opinion of you. You sometimes need that good will from week to week in even the most subtle ways, of which there are many. Notice I did not say from slam to slam.
Sunday night I had a team meeting with the Win-&-You're-In (W&YI or "Win & Urine" if you're nasty) team in preparation for the All-Ohio Slam Tuesday night. I was using myself, Rachel Wiley, Vernell Bristow and Rose Smith. I hadn't slammed since the Writers' Block iWPS Grand Slam (August, I think), Rose had been laid up in the hospital recently and was lucky to be available, and Rachel was largely a rookie outside of WB. Vernell was the one veteran who had a leg going into this, since she slammed for WOW, won it, and has been reading pretty steady since. Open mic chops are one thing...slam chops are another. Add on that I'm still deaf in my left ear which affects my performance and...well, we needed the meeting. The meeting/training went REALLY well. (Secret training stuff and a bunch of Slam philosphy goes here.) I switched up my coaching strategy a bit to accomdate the poets we had. That worked out really well when the slam hit on Tuesday.
For myself, I needed to write a new poem for this bout, which flew in the face of what the others were being asked to do, but for good reason. It takes a lot out of me to read an old poem smply to try to win a slam. (This will become more important below.) You know I'm that cat that needs to be challenged all the time. I needed a poem that I felt would be competitive to not only the room we would be in - Writing Wrongs - but for myself. Slam always comes second to art for me. A balance must always be struck. Otherwise I'll just coach.
So I did exactly what I've been trying to stop doing, which is to write a poem one hour before the slam. This is largely not my fault per se, in that Monday was a mental wash and on Tuesday work was busy in that way you-can't-get-away-with-writing-a-poem-all-day sort of way. So I was stuck trying to come up with something new from 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm. Fortunately, I had spent the day coming up with an idea for a poem, so when I got home I unleashed the hordes and we got into some gansgta shit. Literally: the poem I ended up with, "6 In The Morning" (yes, an Ice-T reference) was a persona piece told by a gangbanger. I don't want to say anymore about it other than I like it a lot, even if I had to cut a full minute's worth of material out of it to get it AT three minutes. Too tight! I love Slam, but don't think I won't have a feature version of this poem at the ready.
Anyhow, the slam featured teams from WB, WW, Dayton and Cleveland. I know Dayton had some last minute emergencies that forced the team to resturcuyre a little, but I really liked the cats they brought as a unit. No one is more earnest than Dayton in staying with Slam through thick and thin. Cleveland is always awesome in one line-up or another. Keisha is a MACHINE. Tom Noy is providing some strong leadership up there from where I'm sitting, and he's brought this new crop in with the right attitude. Writing Wrongs was Barabara, Ethan, Jason Brazwell and Will and Barb doing a group piece. Jason's auto-tune is hilarious, but then he's always writing poems I wish I did. This squad is consistently strong anymore, especially with Barb seeming to turn a corner with her work. I feel like she's changed her mission a little, like there's been a shift in her poetic foundation, her goals. I hope she sticks with it, throws the right energy into the right poems. If I was doing at her age what she's doing at her age, I'd be rich.
My poem was strong, but still too new. I got good scores, but ultimately the poem deserves more attention from me. You'll see it again.
We came in a close third in this bout, which I'll take in a decent W&YI bout any day. I was so proud of the WB team. Nobody's doing the poems that come out of our night, telling those stories that way. I don't mean in a everybody's-a-snowflake sort of way; I mean in that don't-bother-asking-for-a-feature-if-you-sound-like-a-bunch-of-other-motherfuckers kind of way. There are a lot of great poets in Slam doing original work that isn't being performed in the same voice as a hundred other hollering cats. I'm honored that I was slamming with at least three of them Tuesday night.
Last night's slam was awesome. It was the first prelim of our Nats season and the list packed out to the maximum 12 poets, with only 2 of them not for contention. The lovely Rachel Reid MCed and despite a low-key open mic, got the slam to where it needed to be to be genuinely competitive. A couple of poems in and everyone knew we were in a serious slam situation.
I pulled a 7 for the first round, with a lot of unseen or less-regular cats in front of me. Yay for not pulling the 1 yet again! I got to see a lot of heavy-hitting before I got to go up.
I pulled about 7 poems to consider, and started whittling as the scores came out. While some poems scored better than they should have, no good poem got a score it didn't deserve considering when it hit the stage. I mean, Rose's "All the Stalls Are Full at Lithia Park" is an awesome poem, but it was the first poem in the slam after the sac.* She's simply not going to get what she would have gotten in that room if she went four poems later. So that exception aside, the scoring of strong poems seemed more or less fair to me.
I ended up performing an old piece, "They Hate Your Poem". I did it for a number of reasons, but the one I'm willing to share here is this one: I just like to let the judges know that using paper doesn't excuse the poet's performance. That's what their voice is for, their face, their free hand. Plus, I planned to do a new poem in the second round - assuming I made it - and it was a poem of less intensity. I would need the karma if people were going to keep bringing heat.
I made it into the second round - barely, but the scores were so tight it was nuts - and was going up 5th out of the 8 people who made it through.** I had my sideboard whittled down to about four pems at that point, then three as Shameaca Moore - new to us, but not new to the scene, and unfortunately too young for Nats - blasted through the judges. She scored so high both rounds she basically had the slam locked. Even with a 30 I wouldn't catch her. SO that meant that consideration could kind of take a backseat and I could try the new poem I wrote right before the slam last night without worrying about how it would score.
Yeah, you read that right: I wrote ANOTHER NEW POEM RIGHT BEFORE THE FREAKING SLAM. I swear, this was not how I planned to approach the 2010 season...it just happened that way.*** While I was reading trhrough the lines of my new piece, JG got up and did - swear to God - the most perfectly jonesy of the Love Jones suck-you-up poems ever. It had all of the traits: rhyming, smooth talking, heaping spoonfuls of nasty, deep voice, proper hand placement on the imaginary thighs...it was a jaw-dropping display to behold. I thought those poems were laregly resigned to nightclub readings. I don't think I've heard a love jones poem at a national competition in seven years. It was not merely textbook; it was goddamned prototype, son. JG had it down. As someone who used to do that type of work early on, I have no problem saying he performed it better than I ever would have.
The problem, of course, is that despite how these poems are received by judges and audiences they are still largely cliche. They're fun and they get the room hot, but they're not considered good poems. The reaction to them is carnal, largely amusement. It is a poem for the room, the moment, not for the canon or the career. Now, you'd be hard pressed to prove that to be a bad thing when you get a 28 for it in a slam or something, but that doesn't change the facts or their shelf life or how the poet will utlimately be considered. Some poets care about that sort of thing. I say that as a poet who had to make that transition.
I think I verbally responded out loud when the poem started. I do know I blinked hard a number of times. I thought that maybe the poem would take a twist or something. It didn't. I do recall my mouth was open. I barely recall leaning over to dig into The Book to find the perfect poem to follow it. I pulled it out. I looked at it. I kept listening while I was looking at it. I set the poem underneath the new poem I was really, really comitted to doing. When my name was called to go next, I didn't even move at first. I just stood at the back of the room looking down at the two poems under my hand. Finally, I grabbed the paper and took to the stage.
I performed "Oral Elemental".
I need you to understand something: I didn't do this poem because I thought it would score well. I don't really ever worry about wondering what scores might be because it's impossible to know. At that moment it came down to the show, the moment, the intersection of art and purpose. It was if I wrote "Oral Elemental" all those years ago for this exact, perfect moment of poetry. It was the moment you wait your whole artistic career for, when you have the right poem at the right place at the right time and everyone KNOWS it. It wasn't about the scores or the slam; it was about exchanging ideas and emotion. As poets we like to think we're always doing that. I would say some of us are always trying to do that and some of us are using that excuse. But last night, poetry became larger than the Slam and JG and me and Love Jones and anything that wasn't that perfect storm of commentary. It wasn't a blast on JG...it was a connection to the power of poetry. Yes, about oral sex.
I got 5 tens.
(I also got a .5 time penalty, but that's because the room was throwing chairs and shit, nto because I can't perform it under 3 minutes. Again, this wasn't about the slam. It's a TP I'm happy to take for that one moment everyone will be talking about for a long time.)
So I'll do my new poem about Facebook another time. It could use an edit anyway. But for anyone who says "I thought you said we should try new work this season" and wants to use last night as a counterpoint? Don't. I had a new poem. I was ready to read the new poem. But the Poetry Gods exist. And when they say, "Here is your moment", you better do as the voices command or suffer the consequences of a slack life, son.
= = = = = = = = = =
* The sac is not really a sac. The open mic is the sac. The sac just confirms what you should already have noted about the open mic in terms of reaction.
** Usually it's just a 6 poet cut, but we don't let non-contention poets keep contention poets out of the second round. You still got to earn the points, but we give you every fair opportunity to do so.
*** I'm in this space where I feel I need to reinvent myself again, and part of that is keeping things fresh for even the people who already have a high opinion of you. You sometimes need that good will from week to week in even the most subtle ways, of which there are many. Notice I did not say from slam to slam.