I HATE colds.  I’d rather have a stomach bug than a cold, which makes you feel vaguely guilty for being subpar in daily life. 

"Goddammit, it’s just a cold, Brown…get back to work on that writing!" 
"No, Conscience, I must sniffle.  I am sorry." 

I want to go to the Vernon tonight to see Sam Teitel and Steve Subrizi but in the last six hours or so, the small sniffles I’ve been experiencing all day turned into a body-ache and severe runniness.  Grr.

Warren to deliver inaugural invocation.

Y’know…if he’d taken a less vocal stand against Prop 8, or not justified it by using the free speech argument to say that pastors would have been unable to preach against gay marriage if it passed, I’d have no problem with Warren, or with Obama choosing a conservative pastor for the invocation. 

I’m all for balance and competing views.  This isn’t balance; this is appeasement.

posits that we have a right to the "pursuit of happiness."  Not its achievement.

I tend to believe that the misunderstanding of this clause is a major problem with most Americans. 

There is no right to "be" happy.  You don’t "deserve" happiness; you deserve the opportunity to pursue it as you wish.  If you don’t get it, you don’t get it; pursue it some other way or give up the pursuit as you wish.  That’s your right.

Happiness is a result.  You have a right to try for it.  It is not owed to you.

My favorite IWPS moment had nothing to do with poetry:  watching an orchestra and choir of robotic bears in Founders’ Hall playing pre-recorded Christmas carols for an assembled audience. 

At the close of each song, the audience applauded. 

…newbies in the open, a full list, good poetry, and silliness and fun from our singer-songwriter feature, Jacob Haller of local favorites the Killdevils.

Come down next week for our holiday open mike…which might include anything from anti Christmas poems to traditional fare. 

At Reflections, we did a monthly poetry and music night with Faro available to back up poets on the mike; there were also various singer songwriters who showed up.  One of our favorites was the hysterical Jacob Haller of the Killdevils…his wedding song to his daughter on the occasion of her marriage to Satan was one of my personal high points of the series.

Jacob’s our feature tonight in a break from our tradition of featuring poets.   Come down and laugh your ass off!

GotPoetry Live!
@ Blue State Coffee, 300 Thayer St, Providence, RI
sign up @ 7:30 // reading from 8-10
pass the hat /$2 suggested donation — 1 food or drink item minimum

— "Three chords and the truth" is a standard phrase used to describe country music, punk rock — and, I think, the best slam poems.

— As much as I love jazz and other complex forms of music, "three chords and the truth" have moved me more in my life than anything else I’ve experienced.

— When we talk about "slam" we mean, in any given conversation, one of three different things — an activity, a movement/subculture, a genre of poetry.   

— Slam as an activity is neutral in its effect on a larger category of art called "poetry." 

— Slam as a movement is having a major effect on that same category; that effect cannot be categorized as positive or negative — it’s simply an effect.

— Slam as a genre may in fact be coming into its first true prime, as people master the use of the formulas and forms that have evolved over time.  This genre may or may not be changing the larger game of poetry, but within itself, it has great power.

— As with all formulas and forms, there are those who master them and those who are enslaved to them.

— Slam as a movement is currently rent with discord over the existence and quality of slam poetry as a genre, down to a complete denial by some in the movement that a genre called "slam" exists at all, or should exist.  Much of that discord centers on a disconnect as to what the intended impact of slam poems is and should be. 

— The discord is largely — perhaps even mostly — caused by a clash of cultures within the movement that is directly connected to larger cultural wars.  It is related to the old "raw vs. cooked" divide, but is far more personal and powerful, because it goes directly to individuals’ beliefs and desires for their work.  It is a matter of life and death, survival and liberation, a belief in art as a tool for global salvation versus art as expression of personal experience. 

— For some, the idea of "the personal is political" is not an observation, but a battle cry. 

— Racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and similar prejudices drive at least some current critique of slam as a genre, if not always in obvious ways.  Class, in particular, seems at play in much of the critique.

— Personal epiphany:  I am not, for the most part, a writer of slam poetry.  I never truly was one, and my long-term dilemma of feeling out of place in a world that has largely embraced me and my work feels resolved now.  I am committed to seeing where it will go, and following its progress, because paradoxically, the movement is my natural home in a way no otherplace has ever been.  Part of that has to do with finding those within the movement who share my beliefs as to the potentially transformative nature of art.  Part of it has to do with finding that many slammers are more eager for diversity in what they hear than ever before, and that there is a place for me and my work in the movement, if not in the activity or the genre itself.

— Extension of above: How to remain more than just "an elder" in the movement when competition is no longer of interest to me is unresolved, but I am committed to doing that. 

— Yet undeveloped thought that feels right but needs more exploration and validation:  What happens, internally and externally,  when an individual judges a slam, or applauds or jeers at a slam, is the most important factor in the spread of the movement — not the poetry itself. 
 

My next column for GotPoetry is going to be about what I saw this week.

Some of you aren’t going to like it.  Some of you are going to love it.  And some of you may defriend me as a result.  I don’t care. 

Bottom line: I’m a lot more hopeful about this rude beast than I’ve been in years.  And in order to talk about that effectively, I’m going to have to talk in some way about a cultural divide within slam that no one talks much about, at least not directly.  This may take a few days to do well, but I will do it.

And then, we’ll see what we shall see, won’t we?

Ganked from McGee: the number is their final overall numerical rank after all the math.  If you want to know more about that, post the question; someone other than me is sure to answer it.  😉

Lizz Straight 7
Jason McBeth 8
The Original Woman 8
Queen Sheba 9
Colin Gilbert 11
Andrew Tyree 11
Tara Hardy 11
6 is 9 12
Bobby LeFebre 12
Joaquin Zihuatanejo 12
Joshua Bennet 13
Buddy Wakefield 14
Ayinde Russell 14 (Sac)

Would like to point out that three of those (Lizz, Andrew, and Ayinde) came out of the bout I emceed tonight, which WAS HOT and excellent if I do say so myself.

More tomorrow on all this.

I mentioned in my previous post that I read the poem "Total Recall" at the Cultural Identity reading yesterday.  Wanted to say something about what I’ve noticed about varied audience reactions to the poem.

When I first read this poem out to an audience, it was at the Poets’ Asylum, where (obviously) people know my work well.  It got a lot of horrified gasps, with a couple of chuckles at the "funny" lines (the "buffalo lasagna" incident being the most obvious).  For the record, I prefaced it with a comment or two about being scared to read it, so I know that prepped the crowd for that reaction.

The next couple of times I did it, it was in front of audiences that were mostly white.  It was received on those occasions with gales of laughter throughout, and there were post-reading comments about how "hysterical" the poem is.  In each of those cases, though, there was always someone who approached me and asked for a copy of it — a mixed race kid in Delaware being the most memorable one.  I’ve given away several since.

Doing it here, and in the past in front of more racially diverse crowds, was a different experience…big laughs at the "funny lines" and lots of angry, impassioned and positive vocal response to the ones that aren’t meant to be funny;  huge sustained applause and cheers afterward with all kinds of after-talk with people about it.

No real insights, because I don’t think it needs a lot of commentary from me…just an observation about how the same poem can mean different things to different people, or at the very least evoke very diverse responses based on the experiences of the folks in the crowd.