Setlists from tonight at Rumba Cafe
Feature at the Poetry Forum @ Rumba Cafe was very cool!
I did:
Set 1
- To The High School Thug That Broke Into His English Teacher's Car
- I Hate Zombies Like You Hate Me
- What Was Left Out of My Suicide Note
- Bob Ross Loves You Baby
- How To Make a Crackhead
- The "Under The Dome" Haiku Cycle
- "High School Thug" title used to end with "...into Their English Teacher's Car", but an editor at Rattle who accepted the poem last year showed me the error of my ways.
- "Suicide Note" shouldn't be read after "I Hate Zombies..." because it has the word zombies in it and it gives it inappropriate resonance.
- "Bob Ross" got a lot of cuts from the previous version and a re-treatment of the narrative performance voice. All of that sevred to make it a much stronger piece; tighter. Focused more on the punches and less being a slave to the form.
- "Crackhead". I love doing this poem becuase it doesn't sound like any of my other poems. I perform it in a clipped, list-rattling voice that gives the set a nice change of pace, even if the subject is a little heavier. Also, I can gauge the intelligence of a room by whether or not there's laughter when I say the title.
- Doing the UTD cycle was far less a risk after I cut four haikus out of it. I made it a punchier, more streamlined and linear story, and so now it has a much better rhtyhm.
Set 2
- Republican Poets
- When Your White Friend Says "Nigger" By Accident
- Represent
- Bipolar
- Jesus, Judas and The Case of The Old Woman's Son (A Murder Mystery)
- Elementary
- "Republican" has received some non-slam tweaks and clarifications and now hums like a pretty engine.
- I got an observation after doing "Nigger" that, in reflection deserved this answer instead: "It ends the way it's supposed to."
- "Bipolar" is a new piece based on the scientific rabblerousing by Christian Drake in his LJ, specifically the entry about snails and thermohaline circulation, which I juxtaposed against politicians. One more edit for a better ending and it will be what it needs to be. Give me a break: it's a week old.
- "Jesus"? I love doing that poem, and I went all jazz and changed some stuff on the fly that works real swell.
- "Elementary" I did because it's just about the only one from the Larry's days I still might do, and guess what? When I treat it more seriously it gets a nice sheen to it.
A great time. I can think of fewer, better ways to launch a week of national-level poetry event oversight during which when no one will think of you as a poet at all.
Aside: To the WOW poet who showed up early and came to the academic-based reading and, after doing that thing we do, asked me if all of the readings in town were like this one (meaning wasn't feeling being yelled at for three minutes unnecessarily and gave you golf claps for your trouble)? You work for the room; the room don't work for you. If Slam has taught us nothing it should have taught us that the audience has a say. (And it probably didn't help to start off by suggesting that you're somehow a different kind of poet because you memorize (and I quote, "I'm a performance poet") and no one else did. Don't know if you were paying attention, but I perform the shit out of them paper poems, son.)
I did:
Set 1
- To The High School Thug That Broke Into His English Teacher's Car
- I Hate Zombies Like You Hate Me
- What Was Left Out of My Suicide Note
- Bob Ross Loves You Baby
- How To Make a Crackhead
- The "Under The Dome" Haiku Cycle
- "High School Thug" title used to end with "...into Their English Teacher's Car", but an editor at Rattle who accepted the poem last year showed me the error of my ways.
- "Suicide Note" shouldn't be read after "I Hate Zombies..." because it has the word zombies in it and it gives it inappropriate resonance.
- "Bob Ross" got a lot of cuts from the previous version and a re-treatment of the narrative performance voice. All of that sevred to make it a much stronger piece; tighter. Focused more on the punches and less being a slave to the form.
- "Crackhead". I love doing this poem becuase it doesn't sound like any of my other poems. I perform it in a clipped, list-rattling voice that gives the set a nice change of pace, even if the subject is a little heavier. Also, I can gauge the intelligence of a room by whether or not there's laughter when I say the title.
- Doing the UTD cycle was far less a risk after I cut four haikus out of it. I made it a punchier, more streamlined and linear story, and so now it has a much better rhtyhm.
Set 2
- Republican Poets
- When Your White Friend Says "Nigger" By Accident
- Represent
- Bipolar
- Jesus, Judas and The Case of The Old Woman's Son (A Murder Mystery)
- Elementary
- "Republican" has received some non-slam tweaks and clarifications and now hums like a pretty engine.
- I got an observation after doing "Nigger" that, in reflection deserved this answer instead: "It ends the way it's supposed to."
- "Bipolar" is a new piece based on the scientific rabblerousing by Christian Drake in his LJ, specifically the entry about snails and thermohaline circulation, which I juxtaposed against politicians. One more edit for a better ending and it will be what it needs to be. Give me a break: it's a week old.
- "Jesus"? I love doing that poem, and I went all jazz and changed some stuff on the fly that works real swell.
- "Elementary" I did because it's just about the only one from the Larry's days I still might do, and guess what? When I treat it more seriously it gets a nice sheen to it.
A great time. I can think of fewer, better ways to launch a week of national-level poetry event oversight during which when no one will think of you as a poet at all.
Aside: To the WOW poet who showed up early and came to the academic-based reading and, after doing that thing we do, asked me if all of the readings in town were like this one (meaning wasn't feeling being yelled at for three minutes unnecessarily and gave you golf claps for your trouble)? You work for the room; the room don't work for you. If Slam has taught us nothing it should have taught us that the audience has a say. (And it probably didn't help to start off by suggesting that you're somehow a different kind of poet because you memorize (and I quote, "I'm a performance poet") and no one else did. Don't know if you were paying attention, but I perform the shit out of them paper poems, son.)