Now, I think I understand why people think I’m arrogant.

And I’m not sure I care that much about it.

I’ll try to be kinder and gentler. Operative word being “try.”

In general, I think I’m a pretty good guy. I’m sorry if, on occasion, I am more direct than tactful.

I spend a lot of my life being tactful. Keeping my mouth shut. Trying to figure out how to say things in ways that make a difference without harming.

I care too much for this art we are in to lie about how I feel. Sometimes, my passion for the art leads me to hurtful talk, more bite than blow.

I am sorry for that; but who will say these things? Who is saying them? Who is saying them that anyone is listening to?

Performance poetry needs, far more than theory or better distribution structures, the courage to look mediocrity in the eye and say that regardless of the scores, mediocrity is mediocrity.

I keep finding ways to shoot myself in the foot on this one. I keep finding ways to blunder through thickets of thorns.

I care too much to be careful.

I am sick unto death with where we are. IWPS was a lovely day of relative health; I don’t see that it matters much in the long run.

I care too much.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

EDIT: Fuck it. I’m not a coward. You want to comment, comment.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about “hated genres of poetry.”

We include here the “Angry Black Male” poem, and the “Angry Woman” poem.

I would like to add mine, and I am terrified about doing it, because I suspect it will cause many people to hate me. I am terrified that it will be attributed to bitterness and age.

OK, I’m over it.

The genre?

The “White Boy Who Never Met a Three Syllable Word, Exaggerated Simile, and/or Twisted Syntactical Construction He Didn’t Like That Could Be Used To Disguise a Lack Of Things To Say On Some Mundane, Trivial, or Overdone Topic” poem.

Discuss. Or, conversely, just cuss.

EDIT:
My Perception of this as a “white boy” genre may be ill founded, or based in what I see most often; then again, maybe not.

Rock on.