We appear to be in the middle of a hot debate over on gotpoetry.com concerning the role, future, etc., of slam…at least in part occasioned by my most recent column, at least in part by other considerations not worth going into here.
If you’re that interested in the details of this debate, go check em out. I’m not commenting specifically on it here. All I really feel like saying about it is: the best thing you can do when you’re done with something is fold your tents and retreat.
I’m actually good at that, usually. I think my constant fiddling about with this topic is telling me something…that I’m not really done with slam.
I think something’s got to give, and give big, for the slamiverse to move forward. It’s become a festival of the New, and tradition is secondary, so the whole’s become incessantly self referential — people are speaking to each other almost exclusively in real time, with no eye back to the past and the future limited to next week.
Who’s writing for tomorrow?
When I was growing up as a poet, I thought of myself as being in competition not with the folks around me, but with folks like Neruda and Whitman.
I really feel if you’re not gunning for Shakespeare, you’re a hobbyist at this — and maybe that’s my problem. Maybe I’m too fucking much of a purist. I ought to settle down and have fun with my poetry; but fun is secondary to transcendence in my world. Fun, in fact, is secondary to almost everything. And maybe, just maybe, I am losing out by being so committed to the primacy of Art in my life.
Dark Matter 
July 7th, 2004 at 9:35 am
T.S. was a smart guy.
I’m So angry right now about this I want to scream. I’m watching the comments on the article (over on the Youth Slam forum, where Bernard reposted it) and no one seems to get it…that they don’t know how their poetry differs, suffers from the lack of connection to any past earlier than Saul Williams. Shit — half these folks don’t know who Patricia is, never mind anyone else before her or even contemporary to her…
July 7th, 2004 at 9:35 am
T.S. was a smart guy.
I’m So angry right now about this I want to scream. I’m watching the comments on the article (over on the Youth Slam forum, where Bernard reposted it) and no one seems to get it…that they don’t know how their poetry differs, suffers from the lack of connection to any past earlier than Saul Williams. Shit — half these folks don’t know who Patricia is, never mind anyone else before her or even contemporary to her…
July 7th, 2004 at 9:35 am
T.S. was a smart guy.
I’m So angry right now about this I want to scream. I’m watching the comments on the article (over on the Youth Slam forum, where Bernard reposted it) and no one seems to get it…that they don’t know how their poetry differs, suffers from the lack of connection to any past earlier than Saul Williams. Shit — half these folks don’t know who Patricia is, never mind anyone else before her or even contemporary to her…
July 7th, 2004 at 9:35 am
T.S. was a smart guy.
I’m So angry right now about this I want to scream. I’m watching the comments on the article (over on the Youth Slam forum, where Bernard reposted it) and no one seems to get it…that they don’t know how their poetry differs, suffers from the lack of connection to any past earlier than Saul Williams. Shit — half these folks don’t know who Patricia is, never mind anyone else before her or even contemporary to her…
July 7th, 2004 at 8:16 am
Reposted from Gotpoetry, as it’smuch on my mind…
RCW wrote:
it may also be the star system mentality of so many american art forms. gotta get famous, gotta ride that 15 minute wave.
Some days–and this is my jaded, cynical side speaking– I can’t help but think that actual success is the worst thing that could happen to a poet.
T.S. Eliot on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature: “Yes, but what poet has ever done anything after?” (Paraphrased from memory.
July 7th, 2004 at 8:16 am
Reposted from Gotpoetry, as it’smuch on my mind…
RCW wrote:
it may also be the star system mentality of so many american art forms. gotta get famous, gotta ride that 15 minute wave.
Some days–and this is my jaded, cynical side speaking– I can’t help but think that actual success is the worst thing that could happen to a poet.
T.S. Eliot on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature: “Yes, but what poet has ever done anything after?” (Paraphrased from memory.
July 7th, 2004 at 8:16 am
Reposted from Gotpoetry, as it’smuch on my mind…
RCW wrote:
it may also be the star system mentality of so many american art forms. gotta get famous, gotta ride that 15 minute wave.
Some days–and this is my jaded, cynical side speaking– I can’t help but think that actual success is the worst thing that could happen to a poet.
T.S. Eliot on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature: “Yes, but what poet has ever done anything after?” (Paraphrased from memory.
July 7th, 2004 at 8:16 am
Reposted from Gotpoetry, as it’smuch on my mind…
RCW wrote:
it may also be the star system mentality of so many american art forms. gotta get famous, gotta ride that 15 minute wave.
Some days–and this is my jaded, cynical side speaking– I can’t help but think that actual success is the worst thing that could happen to a poet.
T.S. Eliot on winning the Nobel Prize for Literature: “Yes, but what poet has ever done anything after?” (Paraphrased from memory.