What do you do in features besides read slam poems?

[sirenoftitan1]

I am dissecting the anatomy of a good feature, because I think a twenty-minute set should be more than just five or six slam poems.

Some things I've used or seen others use:

Cover poems
Short poems
Some type of intermission (Limericks, haiku, beatboxing, etc.)
First drafts

What else, LJ kids?

Comments

[twosnoos]

Ooh, can we talk about things features should NEVER do as well?

I hate it when the feature takes forever to find the poem they want to read, whether that means flipping through a stack of papers endless on stage while narrating it ("Hold on... I know I brought it with me... here it is- wait no... hold on...") or flipping through the book a couple of time before finally checking the table of contects ("Page 34. I knew it was in here!"). Order your poems before hand and/or use bookmarks, post-its or little scraps of paper to mark your poems in your book. And I'll be honest I'm not sure which is worse: waiting forever for them to find the poem they are going to read, or waiting forever just have them go, "Fuck it! Let me read something else!"

Also, I hate redundant / unhelpful / not interesting intros to poems. Good intros add a dimension to the piece -- like what weird thing inspired writing the piece or what made the poet want to perform that poem in particular tonight -- but I hate when poets introduce their work in a way that is just completely unhelpful and redundant to the actual poem. I.e. "Um... this is a poem... I wrote inspired by Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler... and it's about the birds in Lousiana after Katrina.... It's called 'The Birds in Louisiana Post-Katrina, after Patricia Smith's Blood Dazzler.'" ARGH.

And a feature pet peeve from someone else: I know Taylor hates it when features ask, "How am I doing on time?" or "How much time do I have left?" because it shows you aren't paying attention or planning well. Also, he has noticed that whenever poets ask this the organizers will inevitably tell them they have time for "one more poem," so if your instinct is to go, "How am I doing on time?" just cut to the chase and say, "And this next poem will be my final poem for the night..." ;)

[sirenoftitan1]

Ha, and I just said that I am always the "how am I doing on time?" person. The problem, for me, is that no matter how many times I do my set beforehand and time it, I always get on stage, do my poems, and think that only three minutes have passed, so I am worried about running too short.

[twosnoos]

My trick to counter this is to either:

* Use a watch or a timer on your phone to keep track (which I never actually do, because I own neither a watch nor a phone capable of complex things like "timers");

OR

* Ask one friend in the audience to keep track the time for you. You can then look at that friend during the set and the person can give you a thumbs up sign, or five more minutes sign, or one more poem sign, or whatever. It works, I swears!

[sirenoftitan1]

Well, after my first few features I learned to trust myself, and if I've done all the poems I've planned to do, I get off the stage.