when it comes to the impact a poet makes in the world, this is far sadder:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/08/09/poet.darwish.ap/index.html

In Jerusalem
by Mahmoud Darwish
Translated by Fady Joudah

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy . . . ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How
do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see
no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter. I fly
then I become another. Transfigured. Words
sprout like grass from Isaiah’s messenger
mouth: “If you don’t believe you won’t believe.”
I walk as if I were another. And my wound a white
biblical rose. And my hands like two doves
on the cross hovering and carrying the earth.
I don’t walk, I fly, I become another,
transfigured. No place and no time. So who am I?
I am no I in ascension’s presence. But I
think to myself: Alone, the prophet Mohammad
spoke classical Arabic. “And then what?”
Then what? A woman soldier shouted:
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me . . . and I forgot, like you, to die.

Yes, my friends from the Cantab are in Finals.

I’m rooting for louderARTS.

that have told me that St. Paul is in Semis, and that Worcester isn’t. Pretty sure I saw a Twitter last night that LouderArts won, which probably puts them into the mix.

Which means that there’s some list out there of who’s in.

Anyone care to share?

Also: I’ve been hearing that the crowds are pretty sparse on actual Madison residents, with the slam community making up most of the audience. So will this Nationals end up being essentially a referendum on who the slam community sees as its best teams?

Although the crowd was sparse due to the large number of folks out at NPS, we had a fun time tonight at the Ship and oni_express did a great feature, including covers by Ben Lerner, Antonin Artaud, Jim Carroll, and Dean Young as well as his own stellar work.

There were also shots consumed on stage.

See you next week!

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!

Congrats to my buddies on the Worcester Slam Team, who took a 2nd place finish in their bout last night!!! Rock on, buds.

Ditto to the Cantab Team for their 1st place finish!

In other news, another day, another training session. More later.

SIDENOTE from Jack McCarthy’s mailing list: Jack McCarthy got to read his “Walk of Life” (AKA “the Bill Buckner poem”) at a ceremony inducting Billy Buck into a baseball museum. Someone associated with the Baseball Reliquary, a museum, was at one of Jack’s readings by chance and invited him to be a part of the ceremony on the spot.

Serendipity? Fate? I don’t know, but it thrills me to no end.

With Buckner’s daughter in attendance, no less. Which leads me to believe that at long last, Bill Buckner might actually hear the poem if she got it on his CD, which I’m sure she did.

That right there? That’s a win, too.

Rough training day, for reasons not worth mentioning because overall, they’re boring…

After the day was over, spent time dealing with another client long distance from here back to MA; by the time it all was over it was too late to go have fun with campana and happinesstogo although we did get to at least chat and Bill and I got to have a telephonic curmudgeon fest of semi-epic proportions before I had to revisit the home client’s stuff one last time to straighten stuff out…

Then, I passed out. And now, of course, I’m wide awake and hungry at 2AM Phoenix time with room service closed and the flight home not until noon.

Tomorrow, more training back in MA and then I can collapse for a few hours.

For those of you back in MA, I’m stunt hosting for Bobby at the Ship on Thursday night with our feature, oni_express, AKA Chris Fortin. Just because the team’s gone off to Madison, no reason to skip out on poetry entirely; if you’re around, come on down.

Next week looks just as crazy: I’ll be in Westchester NY for training on Monday; if I don’t have to rush back for a session on Tuesday I’ll be hitting Bar 13 Monday night for Corrina Bain and their Shannon Leigh tribute night before coming home.

The following two weeks, my Sunday/Monday night marathon continues with visits to Austin and Atlanta; again, if the process continues I’ll be pretty much doing drive by visits with no time for poetry or frolic on those trips. But we’ll see what happens…

I am in Scottsdale, Arizona, where it’s 135 degrees at 9:30 at night and I can’t tell the difference between this place and Irvine, CA except that this place has better mountains.

The hotel is good, though, and the bartender at the casual bar and I had a nice chat about pretty much nothing.

Tomorrow, I’m training all day. In a conference room with the oh-so-quaint historical name “Apache.”

Truth in advertising, for once.

as Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, AKA Poet Laureate of the Plogosphere, AKA PLOP:

Whereas half, at least, of those of you on my friends’ list will be in Madison WI this week for the National Poetry Slam, and will therefore be partying, poetizing, and otherwise satisfying your appetites both spiritual and carnal, I hereby decree that you shall:

1.
Kick it old school, new school, or in whatever educationally descriptive manner that you most fervently wish to kick it;

2.
For those opposed to kicking it in a school-like fashion, that you shall ROCK;

3.
That you nonetheless shall not forget your duties to the blogosphere, and to the Plogosphere, and that you shall report back at least occasionally (dependent, of course, upon the Internet access you have, which considering the number of you who are bringing devices of access to said NPS should be NO EFFING PROBLEM) on poetry heard, scandals and protests raised, hook-ups of general interest to all, chunderings, blunderings, and shaken babies du jour;

4.
That while the bout scores are not of particular interest to me, as in I could give a rat’s ass myself, you should recall that I’m just one guy and there are others sitting at home who are dying to know and if past experience is any guide the official Websites won’t have the scores up within the 30-40 second window following the bout that some of your more anally driven compatriots at home will demand regardless of the practicality of trying to do things in said window, so please keep those people happy or they’ll do something stupid like commit suicide by prop or fill the Intertubez with pissings and moanings;

5.
That you shall have, maintain, and if neither is possible develop, a sense of humor about it all.

Have fun. I order it!!

Witness now my seal and hand and sea lion and handbanana, this the 3rd day of August, 2008.

Tony B
PLOP

Just came back from seeing it.

Honestly?

It was pretty good. No more than pretty good.

Heath Ledger was great. I thought he was amazingly creepy and authentically nihilistic. I get the Oscar buzz, completely.

Christian Bale was fine, although I liked him better in “Batman Begins.”

And as for the rest of the movie…eh. The interrogation scenes were great and thought-provoking. But I saw through every other plot twist with no trouble and I HATE that.

Sorry, gang. Rates a B+ at the most from me.