The 2011 24-Hour Poetry Feature Setlist
2011 - 24-Hour Poetry Feature
SETLIST
April 2 - 3, 2011
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM - Scott Woods
Pan@YourMusicSucks.com
Mating Season
To the White Woman with the Black Child…
Barbershop Price List
Horror
The Book of Burgers
The Beach
To the Twelve Mug Shots of Ted Williams (Radio Version)
Haikus - The Weathermen Cycle
Boom-Boom Weather
12 Ways to Tell If You Should Decline the Drink He’s Buying You
(11 poems)
Four poems in this set were newly performed. The first poem - “Pan@YourMusicSucks.com” - was written the day of (April 2) and completed at about 6:15. It’s why I wasn’t there to help set up (thanks Ed!). I thought, let’s start the party with the most recent thing I’ve written, hot off the presses. It’s an evil little poem, but what do you expect? It’s Pan!
Also, all three of my poetry-hating brothers showed up to support (well, 2 haters, 1 “appreciates”)! There is a heckling that only family can do. Having them in the room made me acutely aware of just how much I have infused my relatives into my work in recent years (“The Beach”, ‘Boom-Boom Weather”). They asked me if I changed my set that hour to reflect their presence. I had not. That’s what’s so creepy!
I should have mentioned in “The book of Burgers” that the burgers were broken up by restaurant and such. I didn’t, so it all kind of flowed oddly.
I think this was also the most people that have shown up for a first hour.
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Allen Ginsberg
A Dream
An Imaginary Rose in a Book
Who Be Kind To
First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels
Kiss Ass
Swirls of black dust on Avenue D
After Thoughts
Hum Bom! (1984)
Xmas Gift
Some Love
Moral Majority
Improvisation in Beijing
Hum Bom! (May 1971)
Now and Forever
Is About
Don’t Get Angry With Me
Bad Poem
(17 poems)
I usually don’t do poets with this much profile because they don’t really need the press, but I got tired of being surprised by how many poets are into Ginsberg but can only name two of his poems. For shame! JG thought he’d caught me repeating when I did “Hum Bom (1984)” after doing “Hum Bom! (1971)”. Nope…they’re just practically alike.
My brothers sat through this hour and I had fun lobbing gay poetry at one of them.
9:00 PM - 10:00 PM - John Ashbery
The Tennis Court Oath
Thoughts of a Young Girl
Two Sonnets
The Ticket
Faust
To Be Affronted
Litanies
Cliffhanger
They Are Still Rather Lovely
Anticipated Stranger,
A November
Are You Ticklish?
So Long, Santa
(13 poems)
10:00 PM - 11:00 PM - Frank O’Hara
On the Way to San Remo
A Step Away From Them
Poem (“Instant coffee…” 1956)
Poem (“Wouldn’t it be funny…” 1959)
Poem (“Khrushchev…” 1959)
Ave Maria
Steps
Yesterday Down at the Canal
Fantasy
Poem (“The eager note…”)
Poem (“At night Chinamen jump…”)
Blocks
Poem (“There I could never be a boy…”)
For Grace, After a Party
Two Variations
Poem in January
Radio
(17 poems)
The running joke this hour should be obvious.
11:00 PM - Midnight - Louise Erdrich
The Woods
The Strange People
Owls
I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move
Indian Boarding School: The Runaways
Dear John Wayne
Three Sisters
The Butcher’s Wife
Shelter
Unexpected Dangers
Mary Magdalene
Christ’s Twin
Time
Grief
Advice to Myself
(15 poems)
Surprisingly, I hadn’t done Erdrich’s work at one of these before. For shame: she was a big hit with the audience. My favorite of these was “Christ’s Twin”.
Midnight - 1:00 AM - Scott Woods
The Good Times Plantation Poetry Slam Competition
The Organist
Love by the Light of the Perfect Arcade
Livingstone Avenue
(4 poems)
Yeah, four poems. Any idea how long these were?
“The Good Times Plantation Poetry Slam Competition” was one I wanted to have ready for last week’s slam but it was too long and I needed it where it was, so I banked it for 24, which is what it was for anyway. It had this tone to it that was more antagonistic than I intended. To me, it is a purely educational piece, dogging neither mentioned poets or Slam. Some people thought it had to be a statement about one or the other. I don’t usually like to tell people what to do with art but since it’s mine, you’re wrong.
The Big Dog was “Livingston Avenue” ( a working title, still), which is one of the longest poems I’ve ever done. It probably is the longest straight poem I’ve ever done (meaning if I discount last year’s 18-page prose poem). A lot of people were drawn to this one. You’ll be seeing it again very soon in another format.
The one that touched my heart was “Love by the Light of the Perfect Arcade”. True story, and the love for the video games was VERY real. I have only seen one Star Rider machine, ever.
1:00 AM - 2:00 AM - Maxine Kumin
After the Poetry Reading
Connecting the Dots
Grady, Who lost a leg in Korea, Addresses Me in the Rehab Gym
Oblivion
Mulching
Essay, Freshman Comp
Please Pay Attention as the Ethics Have Changed
What You Do
Seeing the Bones
How It Is
Getting Through
(11 poems)
Loved her “Grady…” poem.
I should also mention that around this time I started to fade hard and fast. I was out of steam after my midnight feature. I NEVER sleep during breaks (poems maybe, but not breaks), but I was sleeping through every break for a few hours by this point in the show.
2:00 AM - 3:00 AM - Jack Gilbert
After Love
A Fact
The Secret
The Danger of Wisdom
Infectious
Not Easily
Crusoe on the Mountain Gathering Faggots
Getting It Right
Feeling History
Once Upon a Time
Homage to Wang Wei
Doing Poetry
What Plenty
Looking at Pittsburgh from Paris
The End of Paradise
Maybe Very Happy
Burma
In the Beginning
Ylapa
A Taste for Grit and Whatever
(20 poems)
3:00 AM - 4:00 AM - Elaine Equi
Bad Folk Song
Lesbian Corn
Puritans
Being Sick Together
Things to Do In the Bible
Brand X
Dear Michael
My Father Sees a UFO
Ninety Percent of All Serial Killers
Thesis Sentence
Table of Contents for an Imaginary Book
Remorse After Shopping
Letter of Recommendation
Autobiographical Poem
The Objects in Fairy Tales
Alien Fantasy
The Lost Poems
Intersections
(18 poems)
I was not very familiar with Equi before the 24 this year. Man, was I missing out! “Things to do in the Bible”? Genius. She’s awesome with list poems (“The Lost Poems”, et al.).
4:00 AM - 5:00 AM - Wendell Berry
October 10
To Know the Dark
The Springs
Prayer After Eating
Stay Home
The Hidden Singer
A Meeting
A Warning to My Readers
Except
A Marriage Song
The Vacation
Anglo-Saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men
Enemies
(13 poems)
5:00 AM - 6:00 AM - Ron Padgett
We Three Kings
Inaction of Shoes
Earl Grey
The Hatchet Man
I’ll Get Back to You
Crush
The Joke
The Japanese Garden
The Song of Rene Descartes
Drat
Flame Name
(11 poems)
6:00 AM - 7:00 AM - Ron Overton
Littleton
Why Tom Continually Runs After Jerry
Noir
Do You Have Prince Albert in a Can?
Great,
Invitation
Compleynte
Dear Mr. Overton
Ars Poetica
(9 poems)
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM - Kevin Young’s “Ardency”
Exodus
Covey (“Hijacked on the War Road…”)
Misericordia
Cut-Up
Questioning
Friendship
Sightings
Greeting
Blackmarket
Tank
Easter
Sermon
Covey (“I returned here with my soul…”)
(13 poems)
If Kevin Young puts a book out, I’m going to cover it, period. That said, this book was the most dense of his collections to perform. It’s a book that really demands to be seen, not heard. His research is incredible here.
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Courtney Queeney
Elegy for My Mother
Notes for my Future Biographer
Confession
The Anti-Leading Lady on Longing
No-Man’s-Land
A Condensed History of Our Childhood: The Plague Years
The Trouble with Openings
Reckoning
Conviction
Upper-Crust Adolescence
Love Song for the Boy Who Got Away
Filibuster to Delay a Kiss
Invitation
Love Song of the Insomniac and the Narcoleptic
The Anti-Leading Lady’s Libido
Fame: My Version
The Anti-Leading Lady’s Self-Defense
Eloping Alone
My Future as the Farmer’s Wife
Back to the Body
(20 poems)
The ladies really ruled this year, and Queeney was a true gem. Had no idea about her work until I went digging. SO glad I found her for this. “Filibuster to Delay a Kiss”? Smart and fun.
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM - Aimee Nezhukumatathil
One Bite
Fishbone
Wrap
Table Manners
Peacocks
The Rolling Saint
Swear Words
Suddenly As Anything
The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer
Lewis and Clark Disagree
Cheese Curds, The First Time
The Woman Who Hates Frogs
Meditation on Flannel
The Bonsai Master’s Daughter Breaks Her Silence
Lagoon
Mr. Mustard’s Dance Club: Ladies’ Night
(16 poems)
I’ll never be able to say her last name right, but man can she write. I like poets who can technically write well, but I LOVE poets who have engaging stories to tell. She’s both. And a Mean Mr. Mustard’s shout-out? Come ON.
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM - David Tucker
Columbus Discovers Linden, Tennessee
Kingdoms of Laziness
The Day Off
Putting Everything Off
The Dancer
Voice Mail
Always Here
The Brief Life of the Box
Detective Story
The Way It Works Up There
Downsizing
Enough of It
The Beating
Perspective
(14 poems)
This guy makes laziness sound awesome. That’s why I picked him (not).
11:00 AM - Noon - “Black Nature” African-American Nature Poetry
Ed Roberson - Urban Nature
Audre Lorde - The Bees
Arna Bontemps - A Black Man Talks of Reaping
Major Jackson - Pest
Thomas Sayers Ellis - The Market
Tara Betts - For Those Who Need a True Story
Audre Lorde - The Brown Menace or Poem to the Survival of Roaches
Yusef Komunyakaa - Yellowjackets
Natasha Trethewey - Monument
Rita Dove - Three Days of Forest, a River, Free
Wanda Coleman - Beaches. Why I Don’t Care For Them
Terrance Hayes - Root
Nikki Giovanni - Winter Poem
Ross Gay - Thank You
Claudia Rankine - The Man, His Bowl, His Raspberries
Elizabeth Alexander - Geraniums
(16 poems)
I have stayed away from anthologies for a while but this year I got my hands on one that really stood out. I really enjoyed the scope and mission of this book. I wish more black poets had been in the room when I was doing the work from it.
Noon - 1:00 PM - Audre Lorde
All Hallows Eve
Times Change And We Change With Them or We Seem To Have Lost Touch With Each Other
A Family Resemblance
And What About the Children
To a Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On
The Black Unicorn
Touring
The Same Death Over and Over or Lullabies Are for Children
From Inside an Empty Purse
To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and the Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman
Stations
Diaspora
Burning the Water Hyacinth
Learning to Write
Making Love to Concrete
The One Who Got Away
jessehelms
Kitchen Linoleum
What It Means To Be Beautiful
Girlfriend
(20 poems)
The master. I’ve done her before, but she deserved an hour well before now.
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Charles Bukowski
a magician, gone…
miracle
helping the old
garbage
putrefaction
shoes
close to greatness
final story
death sat on my knee and cracked laughter
Glenn Miller
concrete
Gay Paree
gone
you get so alone at times that it just makes sense
a good gang, after all
someday I’m going to write a primer for crippled saints but meanwhile…
(16 poems)
I’ve collectively done more Bukowski than any other poet at these readings. It says more about the format than it does about the poet. Trust me: after about twelve hours of performing poetry, all you want to do is curse. Bukowski lets you do that while remaining relevant.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM - Tony Brown
Immortals
Negative Energy
Chastisement
Open Text for the Elitists
Self-Delusion, My Old Friend
Emptyville
Retort
Settling The Guitar
Me for President (Platform)
Want To Animal
How To Interpret Current Events: A Lesson Plan
Family Estrangement Blues
Close-Up
Music For Funerals
Hard Knocks
Well-Meaning
The Archaeology Did Not Mean To Oppress
(17 poems)
One of my idols, and one of the people I met very early in my Slam life. I owe a lot to Tony, and he is easily the most prolific poet I know. PERIOD. And at the level at which he writes? You can keep that yeah-but-how-good-were-his-500-poems-last-year argument in your pocket. His worst poem after 200 straight is better than many people’s best in their whole poetry experience.
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM - Alan Dugan
Letter to Eve
Stutterer
On Gaining a Soul
Cop-Shooting: On a Newspaper Photograph
On Going Up to Surgery in the Morning and In Favor of Pain-Killing Drugs
Conversation With a Dirty-Minded Little Girl
Untitled Poem (“What I remember most”)
To a Kid Who Believes in Astrology
From the Theater Lobby
Portrait of a Local Politician
On Hibernation in the Country
Winter Gale
Poem
Nomenclature
Against the Text “Art is Immortal”
Drunken Memories of Anne Sexton
For Euthanasia and Pain-Killing Drugs
(17 poems)
This was an odd hour. One of my brothers showed up again, but this time with two of my nieces. While I have little problem using whatever language I like (in my venue) in front of your kids, MY kids are a different story. So I didn’t use some of the work I intended to here and I think Dugan came off weaker for it. Not that he would care. He’d just hit me with his cane or something.
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM - Martin Espada
Public School 190, Brooklyn 1963
The Owl and the Lightning
Beloved Spic
The Meaning of the Shovel
My Native Costume
When the Leather Is a Whip
Sleeping on the Bus
Revolutionary Spanish Lesson
Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits
Courthouse Graffiti for Two Voices
The Pinata Painted with a Face Like Mine
Do Not Put Dead Monkeys in the Freezer
The Bouncer’s Confession
My Cockroach Lover
I Apologize for Giving You Poison Ivy by Smacking You in the Eye with the Crayfish…
(15 poems)
BIG Espada fan. Used his work before, but this year I wanted to share more of him. The crowd loved it. My favorite: “I Apologize…”
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Marge Piercy
Eating my tail
The ex in the supermarket
Your father’s fourth heart attack
What are big girls made of?
The grey flannel sexual harassment suit
Your standard midlife crisis
My mother gives me her recipe
The day my mother died
Gifts that keep on giving
Kamasutra for dummies
The first time I tasted you
The Hollywood haircut
Deadlocked wedlock
Money is one of those things
(14 poems)
I wanted to lead in to my final hour with a woman this year and man, was Piercy right.
My favorite is a tie: “Kamasutra for dummies” and “The grey flannel exual harassment suit”.
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM - Scott Woods
Chris Brown: The Good Morning America Remix
Method Man
Inferno
What My Mixtape Is Trying To Tell You
Scars
Milk
6 in the Morning
The Sunoco Station
If You Think There Is Nothing For You Here
(9 poems)
I was a little short on this one, but like I said: I’ve tapped Goldie pretty hard the last six years. Only one new reveal here, “What My Mixtape Is Trying To Tell You”, which if I’m honest is better read than performed. But then, mixtape poems usually are. The songs listed in this poem are listed here: http://groovelocker.livejournal.com/35128.html
Coffee Bean Poet - Bill Campana
Paper Dog
American Cat or Democracy in the House of a Thief
Chicken Soup for Me
I Think the Queen of Clubs is High
Groundhog Day 2011…Six More Weeks of Headaches
Poem in Three Parts and That is Everything
Dessert
Late Poem
Words of a Feather
The Ultimate Hypochondriac
Penis Monologue 2010 / God Darn My Socks
Nine Retirements
Said the Blues to Beauty and Beauty to the Blues, It All Pays the Same
Upside Down
Reasons You Find a Wheelchair in the Dumpster
Some Relationships
It Was and Never Meant To Be
Obituary
People Prefer Paths
Damn It
Pressure
By Appointment Only
Immediate Extinction
My Frugal Lifestyle
Introduction to Introspection
The Myth, The Lie
Snappy
Dear Spies
Morning Song Late At Night
Health Care (Death Panels)
The Go-Go Sixties
(31 poems)
What can I say about Bill Campana that I have not said before, many times, in many public places? Bill is one of my favorite people and poets on the planet. He is also a poet I look up to, and he is one of maybe two poets I have ever collaborated on a completed poem with. He has so many poems it’s dizzying. And they’re all twisted in such a way that they reflect their author’s voice and mission so perfectly that it makes me envious. He will very likely end up a featured poet next time around. And his poems were loved by all.
TOTAL = 377
This brings my total poem count for all six years to well over 2000 poems. How does this compare to other years? Thank Louise Robertson for the cool graph!
There were poems I was writing that I simply didn’t have time to finish for this year’s 24, poems about SVU and Cash Cab and Westboro Baptist Church and Denny’s fights. I promise you’ll be seeing them at some point in the near future. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to cover all of the awesome stuff I want to do right now.
Thanks again to everyone who came out, and those who wanted to but couldn’t. I learn something every year about poetry and myself. Those lessons will become evident in my work and my life.
See you next time!
SETLIST
April 2 - 3, 2011
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM - Scott Woods
Pan@YourMusicSucks.com
Mating Season
To the White Woman with the Black Child…
Barbershop Price List
Horror
The Book of Burgers
The Beach
To the Twelve Mug Shots of Ted Williams (Radio Version)
Haikus - The Weathermen Cycle
Boom-Boom Weather
12 Ways to Tell If You Should Decline the Drink He’s Buying You
(11 poems)
Four poems in this set were newly performed. The first poem - “Pan@YourMusicSucks.com” - was written the day of (April 2) and completed at about 6:15. It’s why I wasn’t there to help set up (thanks Ed!). I thought, let’s start the party with the most recent thing I’ve written, hot off the presses. It’s an evil little poem, but what do you expect? It’s Pan!
Also, all three of my poetry-hating brothers showed up to support (well, 2 haters, 1 “appreciates”)! There is a heckling that only family can do. Having them in the room made me acutely aware of just how much I have infused my relatives into my work in recent years (“The Beach”, ‘Boom-Boom Weather”). They asked me if I changed my set that hour to reflect their presence. I had not. That’s what’s so creepy!
I should have mentioned in “The book of Burgers” that the burgers were broken up by restaurant and such. I didn’t, so it all kind of flowed oddly.
I think this was also the most people that have shown up for a first hour.
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM - Allen Ginsberg
A Dream
An Imaginary Rose in a Book
Who Be Kind To
First Party at Ken Kesey’s with Hell’s Angels
Kiss Ass
Swirls of black dust on Avenue D
After Thoughts
Hum Bom! (1984)
Xmas Gift
Some Love
Moral Majority
Improvisation in Beijing
Hum Bom! (May 1971)
Now and Forever
Is About
Don’t Get Angry With Me
Bad Poem
(17 poems)
I usually don’t do poets with this much profile because they don’t really need the press, but I got tired of being surprised by how many poets are into Ginsberg but can only name two of his poems. For shame! JG thought he’d caught me repeating when I did “Hum Bom (1984)” after doing “Hum Bom! (1971)”. Nope…they’re just practically alike.
My brothers sat through this hour and I had fun lobbing gay poetry at one of them.
9:00 PM - 10:00 PM - John Ashbery
The Tennis Court Oath
Thoughts of a Young Girl
Two Sonnets
The Ticket
Faust
To Be Affronted
Litanies
Cliffhanger
They Are Still Rather Lovely
Anticipated Stranger,
A November
Are You Ticklish?
So Long, Santa
(13 poems)
10:00 PM - 11:00 PM - Frank O’Hara
On the Way to San Remo
A Step Away From Them
Poem (“Instant coffee…” 1956)
Poem (“Wouldn’t it be funny…” 1959)
Poem (“Khrushchev…” 1959)
Ave Maria
Steps
Yesterday Down at the Canal
Fantasy
Poem (“The eager note…”)
Poem (“At night Chinamen jump…”)
Blocks
Poem (“There I could never be a boy…”)
For Grace, After a Party
Two Variations
Poem in January
Radio
(17 poems)
The running joke this hour should be obvious.
11:00 PM - Midnight - Louise Erdrich
The Woods
The Strange People
Owls
I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move
Indian Boarding School: The Runaways
Dear John Wayne
Three Sisters
The Butcher’s Wife
Shelter
Unexpected Dangers
Mary Magdalene
Christ’s Twin
Time
Grief
Advice to Myself
(15 poems)
Surprisingly, I hadn’t done Erdrich’s work at one of these before. For shame: she was a big hit with the audience. My favorite of these was “Christ’s Twin”.
Midnight - 1:00 AM - Scott Woods
The Good Times Plantation Poetry Slam Competition
The Organist
Love by the Light of the Perfect Arcade
Livingstone Avenue
(4 poems)
Yeah, four poems. Any idea how long these were?
“The Good Times Plantation Poetry Slam Competition” was one I wanted to have ready for last week’s slam but it was too long and I needed it where it was, so I banked it for 24, which is what it was for anyway. It had this tone to it that was more antagonistic than I intended. To me, it is a purely educational piece, dogging neither mentioned poets or Slam. Some people thought it had to be a statement about one or the other. I don’t usually like to tell people what to do with art but since it’s mine, you’re wrong.
The Big Dog was “Livingston Avenue” ( a working title, still), which is one of the longest poems I’ve ever done. It probably is the longest straight poem I’ve ever done (meaning if I discount last year’s 18-page prose poem). A lot of people were drawn to this one. You’ll be seeing it again very soon in another format.
The one that touched my heart was “Love by the Light of the Perfect Arcade”. True story, and the love for the video games was VERY real. I have only seen one Star Rider machine, ever.
1:00 AM - 2:00 AM - Maxine Kumin
After the Poetry Reading
Connecting the Dots
Grady, Who lost a leg in Korea, Addresses Me in the Rehab Gym
Oblivion
Mulching
Essay, Freshman Comp
Please Pay Attention as the Ethics Have Changed
What You Do
Seeing the Bones
How It Is
Getting Through
(11 poems)
Loved her “Grady…” poem.
I should also mention that around this time I started to fade hard and fast. I was out of steam after my midnight feature. I NEVER sleep during breaks (poems maybe, but not breaks), but I was sleeping through every break for a few hours by this point in the show.
2:00 AM - 3:00 AM - Jack Gilbert
After Love
A Fact
The Secret
The Danger of Wisdom
Infectious
Not Easily
Crusoe on the Mountain Gathering Faggots
Getting It Right
Feeling History
Once Upon a Time
Homage to Wang Wei
Doing Poetry
What Plenty
Looking at Pittsburgh from Paris
The End of Paradise
Maybe Very Happy
Burma
In the Beginning
Ylapa
A Taste for Grit and Whatever
(20 poems)
3:00 AM - 4:00 AM - Elaine Equi
Bad Folk Song
Lesbian Corn
Puritans
Being Sick Together
Things to Do In the Bible
Brand X
Dear Michael
My Father Sees a UFO
Ninety Percent of All Serial Killers
Thesis Sentence
Table of Contents for an Imaginary Book
Remorse After Shopping
Letter of Recommendation
Autobiographical Poem
The Objects in Fairy Tales
Alien Fantasy
The Lost Poems
Intersections
(18 poems)
I was not very familiar with Equi before the 24 this year. Man, was I missing out! “Things to do in the Bible”? Genius. She’s awesome with list poems (“The Lost Poems”, et al.).
4:00 AM - 5:00 AM - Wendell Berry
October 10
To Know the Dark
The Springs
Prayer After Eating
Stay Home
The Hidden Singer
A Meeting
A Warning to My Readers
Except
A Marriage Song
The Vacation
Anglo-Saxon Protestant Heterosexual Men
Enemies
(13 poems)
5:00 AM - 6:00 AM - Ron Padgett
We Three Kings
Inaction of Shoes
Earl Grey
The Hatchet Man
I’ll Get Back to You
Crush
The Joke
The Japanese Garden
The Song of Rene Descartes
Drat
Flame Name
(11 poems)
6:00 AM - 7:00 AM - Ron Overton
Littleton
Why Tom Continually Runs After Jerry
Noir
Do You Have Prince Albert in a Can?
Great,
Invitation
Compleynte
Dear Mr. Overton
Ars Poetica
(9 poems)
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM - Kevin Young’s “Ardency”
Exodus
Covey (“Hijacked on the War Road…”)
Misericordia
Cut-Up
Questioning
Friendship
Sightings
Greeting
Blackmarket
Tank
Easter
Sermon
Covey (“I returned here with my soul…”)
(13 poems)
If Kevin Young puts a book out, I’m going to cover it, period. That said, this book was the most dense of his collections to perform. It’s a book that really demands to be seen, not heard. His research is incredible here.
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM Courtney Queeney
Elegy for My Mother
Notes for my Future Biographer
Confession
The Anti-Leading Lady on Longing
No-Man’s-Land
A Condensed History of Our Childhood: The Plague Years
The Trouble with Openings
Reckoning
Conviction
Upper-Crust Adolescence
Love Song for the Boy Who Got Away
Filibuster to Delay a Kiss
Invitation
Love Song of the Insomniac and the Narcoleptic
The Anti-Leading Lady’s Libido
Fame: My Version
The Anti-Leading Lady’s Self-Defense
Eloping Alone
My Future as the Farmer’s Wife
Back to the Body
(20 poems)
The ladies really ruled this year, and Queeney was a true gem. Had no idea about her work until I went digging. SO glad I found her for this. “Filibuster to Delay a Kiss”? Smart and fun.
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM - Aimee Nezhukumatathil
One Bite
Fishbone
Wrap
Table Manners
Peacocks
The Rolling Saint
Swear Words
Suddenly As Anything
The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer
Lewis and Clark Disagree
Cheese Curds, The First Time
The Woman Who Hates Frogs
Meditation on Flannel
The Bonsai Master’s Daughter Breaks Her Silence
Lagoon
Mr. Mustard’s Dance Club: Ladies’ Night
(16 poems)
I’ll never be able to say her last name right, but man can she write. I like poets who can technically write well, but I LOVE poets who have engaging stories to tell. She’s both. And a Mean Mr. Mustard’s shout-out? Come ON.
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM - David Tucker
Columbus Discovers Linden, Tennessee
Kingdoms of Laziness
The Day Off
Putting Everything Off
The Dancer
Voice Mail
Always Here
The Brief Life of the Box
Detective Story
The Way It Works Up There
Downsizing
Enough of It
The Beating
Perspective
(14 poems)
This guy makes laziness sound awesome. That’s why I picked him (not).
11:00 AM - Noon - “Black Nature” African-American Nature Poetry
Ed Roberson - Urban Nature
Audre Lorde - The Bees
Arna Bontemps - A Black Man Talks of Reaping
Major Jackson - Pest
Thomas Sayers Ellis - The Market
Tara Betts - For Those Who Need a True Story
Audre Lorde - The Brown Menace or Poem to the Survival of Roaches
Yusef Komunyakaa - Yellowjackets
Natasha Trethewey - Monument
Rita Dove - Three Days of Forest, a River, Free
Wanda Coleman - Beaches. Why I Don’t Care For Them
Terrance Hayes - Root
Nikki Giovanni - Winter Poem
Ross Gay - Thank You
Claudia Rankine - The Man, His Bowl, His Raspberries
Elizabeth Alexander - Geraniums
(16 poems)
I have stayed away from anthologies for a while but this year I got my hands on one that really stood out. I really enjoyed the scope and mission of this book. I wish more black poets had been in the room when I was doing the work from it.
Noon - 1:00 PM - Audre Lorde
All Hallows Eve
Times Change And We Change With Them or We Seem To Have Lost Touch With Each Other
A Family Resemblance
And What About the Children
To a Girl Who Knew What Side Her Bread Was Buttered On
The Black Unicorn
Touring
The Same Death Over and Over or Lullabies Are for Children
From Inside an Empty Purse
To the Poet Who Happens to Be Black and the Black Poet Who Happens to Be a Woman
Stations
Diaspora
Burning the Water Hyacinth
Learning to Write
Making Love to Concrete
The One Who Got Away
jessehelms
Kitchen Linoleum
What It Means To Be Beautiful
Girlfriend
(20 poems)
The master. I’ve done her before, but she deserved an hour well before now.
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM - Charles Bukowski
a magician, gone…
miracle
helping the old
garbage
putrefaction
shoes
close to greatness
final story
death sat on my knee and cracked laughter
Glenn Miller
concrete
Gay Paree
gone
you get so alone at times that it just makes sense
a good gang, after all
someday I’m going to write a primer for crippled saints but meanwhile…
(16 poems)
I’ve collectively done more Bukowski than any other poet at these readings. It says more about the format than it does about the poet. Trust me: after about twelve hours of performing poetry, all you want to do is curse. Bukowski lets you do that while remaining relevant.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM - Tony Brown
Immortals
Negative Energy
Chastisement
Open Text for the Elitists
Self-Delusion, My Old Friend
Emptyville
Retort
Settling The Guitar
Me for President (Platform)
Want To Animal
How To Interpret Current Events: A Lesson Plan
Family Estrangement Blues
Close-Up
Music For Funerals
Hard Knocks
Well-Meaning
The Archaeology Did Not Mean To Oppress
(17 poems)
One of my idols, and one of the people I met very early in my Slam life. I owe a lot to Tony, and he is easily the most prolific poet I know. PERIOD. And at the level at which he writes? You can keep that yeah-but-how-good-were-his-500-poems-last-year argument in your pocket. His worst poem after 200 straight is better than many people’s best in their whole poetry experience.
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM - Alan Dugan
Letter to Eve
Stutterer
On Gaining a Soul
Cop-Shooting: On a Newspaper Photograph
On Going Up to Surgery in the Morning and In Favor of Pain-Killing Drugs
Conversation With a Dirty-Minded Little Girl
Untitled Poem (“What I remember most”)
To a Kid Who Believes in Astrology
From the Theater Lobby
Portrait of a Local Politician
On Hibernation in the Country
Winter Gale
Poem
Nomenclature
Against the Text “Art is Immortal”
Drunken Memories of Anne Sexton
For Euthanasia and Pain-Killing Drugs
(17 poems)
This was an odd hour. One of my brothers showed up again, but this time with two of my nieces. While I have little problem using whatever language I like (in my venue) in front of your kids, MY kids are a different story. So I didn’t use some of the work I intended to here and I think Dugan came off weaker for it. Not that he would care. He’d just hit me with his cane or something.
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM - Martin Espada
Public School 190, Brooklyn 1963
The Owl and the Lightning
Beloved Spic
The Meaning of the Shovel
My Native Costume
When the Leather Is a Whip
Sleeping on the Bus
Revolutionary Spanish Lesson
Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits
Courthouse Graffiti for Two Voices
The Pinata Painted with a Face Like Mine
Do Not Put Dead Monkeys in the Freezer
The Bouncer’s Confession
My Cockroach Lover
I Apologize for Giving You Poison Ivy by Smacking You in the Eye with the Crayfish…
(15 poems)
BIG Espada fan. Used his work before, but this year I wanted to share more of him. The crowd loved it. My favorite: “I Apologize…”
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM - Marge Piercy
Eating my tail
The ex in the supermarket
Your father’s fourth heart attack
What are big girls made of?
The grey flannel sexual harassment suit
Your standard midlife crisis
My mother gives me her recipe
The day my mother died
Gifts that keep on giving
Kamasutra for dummies
The first time I tasted you
The Hollywood haircut
Deadlocked wedlock
Money is one of those things
(14 poems)
I wanted to lead in to my final hour with a woman this year and man, was Piercy right.
My favorite is a tie: “Kamasutra for dummies” and “The grey flannel exual harassment suit”.
6:00 PM - 7:00 PM - Scott Woods
Chris Brown: The Good Morning America Remix
Method Man
Inferno
What My Mixtape Is Trying To Tell You
Scars
Milk
6 in the Morning
The Sunoco Station
If You Think There Is Nothing For You Here
(9 poems)
I was a little short on this one, but like I said: I’ve tapped Goldie pretty hard the last six years. Only one new reveal here, “What My Mixtape Is Trying To Tell You”, which if I’m honest is better read than performed. But then, mixtape poems usually are. The songs listed in this poem are listed here: http://groovelocker.livejournal.com/35128.html
Coffee Bean Poet - Bill Campana
Paper Dog
American Cat or Democracy in the House of a Thief
Chicken Soup for Me
I Think the Queen of Clubs is High
Groundhog Day 2011…Six More Weeks of Headaches
Poem in Three Parts and That is Everything
Dessert
Late Poem
Words of a Feather
The Ultimate Hypochondriac
Penis Monologue 2010 / God Darn My Socks
Nine Retirements
Said the Blues to Beauty and Beauty to the Blues, It All Pays the Same
Upside Down
Reasons You Find a Wheelchair in the Dumpster
Some Relationships
It Was and Never Meant To Be
Obituary
People Prefer Paths
Damn It
Pressure
By Appointment Only
Immediate Extinction
My Frugal Lifestyle
Introduction to Introspection
The Myth, The Lie
Snappy
Dear Spies
Morning Song Late At Night
Health Care (Death Panels)
The Go-Go Sixties
(31 poems)
What can I say about Bill Campana that I have not said before, many times, in many public places? Bill is one of my favorite people and poets on the planet. He is also a poet I look up to, and he is one of maybe two poets I have ever collaborated on a completed poem with. He has so many poems it’s dizzying. And they’re all twisted in such a way that they reflect their author’s voice and mission so perfectly that it makes me envious. He will very likely end up a featured poet next time around. And his poems were loved by all.
TOTAL = 377
This brings my total poem count for all six years to well over 2000 poems. How does this compare to other years? Thank Louise Robertson for the cool graph!
There were poems I was writing that I simply didn’t have time to finish for this year’s 24, poems about SVU and Cash Cab and Westboro Baptist Church and Denny’s fights. I promise you’ll be seeing them at some point in the near future. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to cover all of the awesome stuff I want to do right now.
Thanks again to everyone who came out, and those who wanted to but couldn’t. I learn something every year about poetry and myself. Those lessons will become evident in my work and my life.
See you next time!