I’ve read several posts this morning about poets getting “robbed” when they get low scores at a slam.

I pay little to no attention to it when poets feel that way. They have their own opinions, prejudices, and experience within this Star Trek fan universe we call slam. Those things color their reactions that it’s hard for me to decide what the truth of the experience is. (Being a thousand miles away, of course, I really know very little.)

But I adore it when the novice audience that comes to NPS feels that way and lets the judges know about it. Because for me, that’s when the beauty of slam is most evident — that the opinions of ordinary people new to the experience is what makes a slam a slam, and anything else is extraneous.

So — who’s really been robbed this week? That’s a sincere question. Who touched the audience without touching the judges? Who provoked them, honored them, entertained them, moved them, and then made some of them feel compelled to respond to a contrary opinion?

Those are the poets I’m interested in hearing more about.

Yes! There is a reading tonight at the Hotel Vernon!!!

Yes! There will be poetry in Worcester, even with all the slammers who’ve gone to Madison!

Yes! There will be crack smoked upstairs, blow jobs in the hotel halls, and drunks at the bar who’ve apparently been there since the place opened in 1908!

Yes! Your feature will be the awesome and perpetually thoughtful Chris Fortin, aka oni_express!

And yes! Stunt hosting for the event will be provided by yours truly, filling the inimitable shoes (as much as I can, since I know his shoes are bigger than mine) of Bobby Gibbs! I won’t be drinking (as much) and I refuse to don the Captain’s hat in his absence, but I’ll bring a hat, and ye shall fill it to honor our feature!

Hellfire, Damnation, and craziness will ensue! It’s my first hosting gig in Worcester since I stopped hosting the Asylum back in 2003, so come witness the MADNESS that is…

Aw, screw it. Come down and have a good time, as always. 7:30-8ish start, and so on. Kelley Square, Worcester, at the Hotel Vernon, where the elite of Worcester’s scum and community of letters (with, of course, some overlap) meet to get hammered on the coldest and cheapest beer in the city.

21+. I’ll be checking as needed.

See you there!