106
General Discussion / Re: Needing Info on how to get feedback on poems i have written....
« on: January 07, 2008, 10:48:15 AM »
Also, when the subject of the poem offers to go home with you, you know you got it right.
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107
General Discussion / Re: Is there a (real) place for mythology in slam?
« on: December 30, 2007, 01:25:02 AM »I just don't know why some poetry styles are deemed unslammable. Why aren't they? Is there a real place for mythology (well done, of course) in slam?
I think there's room in slam for anything well done. You need a damn-the-torpedoes approach to this stuff, though. Don't ask the audience's permission, just get up on stage take the room in a new direction. I like the idea of a dark twist on Peter Pan and Captain Hook.
Sometimes open mics/slams will carve out little spaces for genres or themes that don't always do well in the general pool. Haiku Slam, "Nerd" Slam, etc. Maybe there's a need for a "myths and legends" slam. The jury's out on whether giving a genre its own space serves to incubate it temporarily or isolate it permanently.
108
General Discussion / Re: Is there a (real) place for mythology in slam?
« on: December 29, 2007, 11:08:33 PM »To geek out for a minute, watch the episode "Darmok" of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and this'll end any further discussion on this topic.
I was totally going to mention that episode, but I wasn't sure how many of you folks would hang in there with me. You know the alien captain in that episode was Paul Winfield, right? Same actor who got his brain eaten by hypnotizing worms in the movie Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan.
Sometimes I want so badly to go back and visit middle-school sci-fi geek me and reassure him that it'll all work out.
109
General Discussion / Re: Is there a (real) place for mythology in slam?
« on: December 29, 2007, 04:58:52 PM »
I think mythology works better on the open mic or in a feature than in a slam. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the three-minute rule.
If I'm working within established mythology (Zeus & Hera, Jesus & Peter, or even Huckleberry & Jim) then my poem is going to live or die on whether those 5 judges have read ancient Greek, the Bible, or Mark Twain. Some people are going to think I'm elitist and snobby: buddy, are you telling us a story or just showing off your collection of leather-bound books?
If I'm making up my own mythology, then I have to explain to you what a Freezleump is, why the city of Zionimoo is warring with the Kingdom of Yat, and why the Doctrine of Arcturius Kye is going to pressure my protagonist into self-defeating behavior. Okay, I'm a writer, I can do that, but laying down that kind of groundwork isn't going to leave me much time to tell my story.
I think that's why we see so little sci-fi, mythology, historical fiction, etc in slam. It's way easier to say "I'm me and this week I met a girl with freckles and this is my poem about that." Took me less than five seconds to get all the judges on the same page. And that's the easy way out and it's such a tempting rut to get stuck in but that's why so many of us get stuck in it. Open mic is a different story. Some people on the open mic come back week after week to tell an extended story. First-timers might be a little lost, but the regulars are on board and that's a choice those writers have made.
(For what it's worth, I knew the Yat King was bad news the minute I laid eyes on him.)
If I'm working within established mythology (Zeus & Hera, Jesus & Peter, or even Huckleberry & Jim) then my poem is going to live or die on whether those 5 judges have read ancient Greek, the Bible, or Mark Twain. Some people are going to think I'm elitist and snobby: buddy, are you telling us a story or just showing off your collection of leather-bound books?
If I'm making up my own mythology, then I have to explain to you what a Freezleump is, why the city of Zionimoo is warring with the Kingdom of Yat, and why the Doctrine of Arcturius Kye is going to pressure my protagonist into self-defeating behavior. Okay, I'm a writer, I can do that, but laying down that kind of groundwork isn't going to leave me much time to tell my story.
I think that's why we see so little sci-fi, mythology, historical fiction, etc in slam. It's way easier to say "I'm me and this week I met a girl with freckles and this is my poem about that." Took me less than five seconds to get all the judges on the same page. And that's the easy way out and it's such a tempting rut to get stuck in but that's why so many of us get stuck in it. Open mic is a different story. Some people on the open mic come back week after week to tell an extended story. First-timers might be a little lost, but the regulars are on board and that's a choice those writers have made.
(For what it's worth, I knew the Yat King was bad news the minute I laid eyes on him.)
110
General Discussion / Re: Needing Info on how to get feedback on poems i have written....
« on: December 19, 2007, 12:42:27 AM »
I second the recommendation for GotPoetry. I haven't had much luck with posting stuff on MySpace or my personal Website, for two reasons: 1) Not many people visit me on MySpace or my Website 2) I tend only to put my best stuff on those sites, stuff that isn't really up for discussion anymore.
I can't emphasize enough the importance of finding a circle of intelligent, well-read, supportive, brutally honest people who are willing to tell you what you are doing wrong. We are all doing something wrong, bank on it. We all need people who will goad/push/drag us toward improvement.
I count myself a very lucky guy in that I've got about 9 people (5 from my poetry slam, 4 E-mail buddies) who I can trust to give me the straight dirt on what I've written.
I can't emphasize enough the importance of finding a circle of intelligent, well-read, supportive, brutally honest people who are willing to tell you what you are doing wrong. We are all doing something wrong, bank on it. We all need people who will goad/push/drag us toward improvement.
I count myself a very lucky guy in that I've got about 9 people (5 from my poetry slam, 4 E-mail buddies) who I can trust to give me the straight dirt on what I've written.
111
General Discussion / Re: My first out-of-town show... publicity advice?
« on: November 24, 2007, 12:01:00 PM »I'd also check to see if there are any open mic nights on Thursday and Friday.
Then spit. Spit fire and pass out fliers. Talk to folks. If you're going to be doing this on a more regular basis, you're going to have to get comfortable with marketing yourself to strangers; how else will you get fans and supporters?
There's a music open mic Friday nights at the local state U. There's a poetry open mic on Monday, but I won't be there the Monday before and the Monday after will be too late. I might try the music open mic, at least run it by the host. I wrote half an opera many moons ago and I can sing pieces from that I suppose. I can find no contact information for the poetry open mic, so I can't even E-mail that host and ask for a plug sight-unseen. But at least I'm thinking, right?
I'm not much of a fire-spitter, though I take your point, Delrica. I'm a comedy act. So I'll bring the funny and hope nobody was counting on a transformative literary experience on Saturday night. (This was also my dating strategy, back in the day.)
My wife is a high school teacher and she says out-of-nowhere marketing to HS English teachers isn't going to get me anywhere, that she'd react with some combination of indifference and suspicion. Frankly I'll have enough to do this week without crafting press kits for high schools. Maybe someday.
Thank you, Steve and Delrica, for your advice and encouragement.
-Ransacked
112
General Discussion / My first out-of-town show... publicity advice?
« on: November 23, 2007, 07:53:42 PM »
A week from now, I'm going to be the featured poet at a place where nobody knows me. They put out a call a few months ago for features, I responded, and they booked me. I'm new at this, I've never been to the National Poetry Slam, heck, I only have 40 MySpace friends. I'm completely unknown on the West Coast.
The organizer says that December is usually their worst month in terms of attendance. (It's entirely possible that's why I got booked.) Still, I want to pack the place.
So, open question to you touring poets out there: what kind of publicity do you do for your shows? The venue has a MySpace page and Web site, and I'm mentioned on those. The SlamMistress (her term) sent a press release to the weekly Arts & Culture paper, and I suppose she has a mailing list or something. That's what the venue can do. What can/should I do?
I've printed up about 50 die-of-cute fliers and I'll be putting them up at the local university (my buddy attends grad school there, so he'll be my guide on campus). There's a big craft fair/farmers' market the morning of my feature; it's apparently a big event, so I'm going to put on my best smile and try to hand out fliers there, too.
Is there any percentage in getting in touch with student newspapers/college English departments/high school English departments? I mean, I was pretty nerdy in high school, but even I drew the line at asking my English teachers for suggestions on what to do with my Saturday nights.
The show is on Saturday, and I'll arrive in town Thursday night, so I'll have 48 hours to drum up an audience. I feel weird and awkward about marketing myself to strangers, but I also know that life doesn't get much more weird and awkward than reading poetry in a mostly-empty room, so I'm willing to put some effort into this. I'm very grateful to the venue for booking me, and I want them to feel good about that decision.
I'd be grateful for any advice.
-Ransacked
(PS: I've deliberately avoided giving out specifics on this post, because while I'd love to use the forum to plug my own shows, it seemed just a little bit icky. PM me if you'd like specifics or you'd just like to see the die-of-cute flier)
The organizer says that December is usually their worst month in terms of attendance. (It's entirely possible that's why I got booked.) Still, I want to pack the place.
So, open question to you touring poets out there: what kind of publicity do you do for your shows? The venue has a MySpace page and Web site, and I'm mentioned on those. The SlamMistress (her term) sent a press release to the weekly Arts & Culture paper, and I suppose she has a mailing list or something. That's what the venue can do. What can/should I do?
I've printed up about 50 die-of-cute fliers and I'll be putting them up at the local university (my buddy attends grad school there, so he'll be my guide on campus). There's a big craft fair/farmers' market the morning of my feature; it's apparently a big event, so I'm going to put on my best smile and try to hand out fliers there, too.
Is there any percentage in getting in touch with student newspapers/college English departments/high school English departments? I mean, I was pretty nerdy in high school, but even I drew the line at asking my English teachers for suggestions on what to do with my Saturday nights.
The show is on Saturday, and I'll arrive in town Thursday night, so I'll have 48 hours to drum up an audience. I feel weird and awkward about marketing myself to strangers, but I also know that life doesn't get much more weird and awkward than reading poetry in a mostly-empty room, so I'm willing to put some effort into this. I'm very grateful to the venue for booking me, and I want them to feel good about that decision.
I'd be grateful for any advice.
-Ransacked
(PS: I've deliberately avoided giving out specifics on this post, because while I'd love to use the forum to plug my own shows, it seemed just a little bit icky. PM me if you'd like specifics or you'd just like to see the die-of-cute flier)
113
General Discussion / Re: I want your opinions of humorous spoken word
« on: November 18, 2007, 01:06:03 AM »
My tour bio says "he'd much rather you thought of him as a stand-up comic who just happens to deliver his jokes in cut glass rhyme schemes. Poetry can be fun, it can be accessible, it can even be a pretty good way to spend a Saturday night."
I'm a straight, white, married, healthy, Christian, college-educated male with a steady job and a passable singing voice. For me to get up on a stage and rail about the unyielding cruelty of the world would be disgraceful, in the truest sense of that word. So I tell jokes. I have maybe 10 poems that aren't jokes, and while I'll toss those out on occasion to keep the crowd guessing, the truth is that I enjoy being the comic relief at a poetry slam.
The funny poets are a wonderful on-ramp in terms of introducing "regular people" (take the term however you wish) to spoken word poetry. Even people who snored through AP English will probably have a good time watching Mike McGee perform. Hey, I make no apologies for being an expansive poet.
Also, when I lay down a particularly poignant or "deep" line, it can just vanish into the dim lights of the lounge. Maybe somebody will snap approvingly or compliment me after the show, or maybe not. Silence can indicate failure or unheralded success. But when I finish the limerick about the Headless Horseman in a brothel and the whole crowd reaches for napkins to wipe up the beer they just squirted out of their noses, well, I know I got the reaction I intended.
A good poetry reading should cover a broad spectrum of human experience and emotion. I wouldn't want to frequent a "political" poetry slam any more than I would want to own a DVD player that only plays action movies.
It's also important to note that the boundaries here are permeable. A funny poem without craft or thought behind it is the verbal equivalent of spun sugar. Plenty of poets who take on the Big Issues do so with at least a little humor mixed in. Sugar does help the medicine go down and all that. Taylor Mali, Ryk McIntyre, Jack McCarthy, Sou MacMillan, and Regie Gibson are some examples of poets who use humor in the service of the subject, even when that subject is very serious.
Some of my favorite writers are Abraham Lincoln, Bill Cosby, William Shakespeare, Mohandas Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Hilaire Belloc, Woody Allen, and Ben Franklin. (Yeah, I notice with some disappointment that my list is mostly rich white guys.) Still, those are heavyweight writers and orators who spent their entire lives wrestling with Big Issues. And every one of them was riotously funny.
We all know poets who operate under the belief that their talent and artistry are exclusively a function of the pain and sorrow of their past or present circumstances. Some of these poets are astonishingly good. Some are astonishingly bad. Some are in-between. Most of them are humorless and all of them are wrong. If the world really worked like that, if misery really were the sine qua non of poetry, then I submit to you that not one team from the USA would make it to finals at NPS. Team Sudan and Team North Korea would kick all our butts.
Humor, for me, is a very serious matter and I wish there were more Mike McGees in the slam world.
I'm a straight, white, married, healthy, Christian, college-educated male with a steady job and a passable singing voice. For me to get up on a stage and rail about the unyielding cruelty of the world would be disgraceful, in the truest sense of that word. So I tell jokes. I have maybe 10 poems that aren't jokes, and while I'll toss those out on occasion to keep the crowd guessing, the truth is that I enjoy being the comic relief at a poetry slam.
The funny poets are a wonderful on-ramp in terms of introducing "regular people" (take the term however you wish) to spoken word poetry. Even people who snored through AP English will probably have a good time watching Mike McGee perform. Hey, I make no apologies for being an expansive poet.
Also, when I lay down a particularly poignant or "deep" line, it can just vanish into the dim lights of the lounge. Maybe somebody will snap approvingly or compliment me after the show, or maybe not. Silence can indicate failure or unheralded success. But when I finish the limerick about the Headless Horseman in a brothel and the whole crowd reaches for napkins to wipe up the beer they just squirted out of their noses, well, I know I got the reaction I intended.
A good poetry reading should cover a broad spectrum of human experience and emotion. I wouldn't want to frequent a "political" poetry slam any more than I would want to own a DVD player that only plays action movies.
It's also important to note that the boundaries here are permeable. A funny poem without craft or thought behind it is the verbal equivalent of spun sugar. Plenty of poets who take on the Big Issues do so with at least a little humor mixed in. Sugar does help the medicine go down and all that. Taylor Mali, Ryk McIntyre, Jack McCarthy, Sou MacMillan, and Regie Gibson are some examples of poets who use humor in the service of the subject, even when that subject is very serious.
Some of my favorite writers are Abraham Lincoln, Bill Cosby, William Shakespeare, Mohandas Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Hilaire Belloc, Woody Allen, and Ben Franklin. (Yeah, I notice with some disappointment that my list is mostly rich white guys.) Still, those are heavyweight writers and orators who spent their entire lives wrestling with Big Issues. And every one of them was riotously funny.
We all know poets who operate under the belief that their talent and artistry are exclusively a function of the pain and sorrow of their past or present circumstances. Some of these poets are astonishingly good. Some are astonishingly bad. Some are in-between. Most of them are humorless and all of them are wrong. If the world really worked like that, if misery really were the sine qua non of poetry, then I submit to you that not one team from the USA would make it to finals at NPS. Team Sudan and Team North Korea would kick all our butts.
Humor, for me, is a very serious matter and I wish there were more Mike McGees in the slam world.
114
General Discussion / Re: NPS - Prizes for Poets
« on: October 30, 2007, 11:09:58 AM »
Point taken about W&YI, but I think exempting a wining team from such requirements is going to be a poison apple of a prize. Win-and-You're-In gets poetry slams out on the road, cross-pollinating and seeing what other teams are doing. The kind of poem that wins a slam in Boise might not go anywhere in Boston. A team in Philadelphia can unknowingly fall into a rut, a formula that works well on Walnut St. but won't play in Peoria.
Boston recently hosted an 8-team double-header slam tournament for Win-and-You're-In, drawing teams from six states, and it really showed off how different teams come at you from different directions.
In football, some teams like to run the ball, some teams win with defense, and a few teams get the job done with field goals. (The Pats win games with long camera lenses and a poetic re-interpretation of the rules.) You send a team to the Superbowl that hasn't had to deal with all of those different tactics, and that team is going to get stomped.
You can't be a great poet if you don't read all sorts of books and magazines. You can't be a great rock band if you listen to the same 20 CDs and never go to clubs. An NPS Finalist team that doesn't need to hit the road and <i>earn</i> its stripes every year might be a team that gets caught flat-footed at Nationals.
Of course, it's entirely possible that PSI wishes to discourage repeat winners and dynasties, in which case exempting NPS winners from Win and You're In obligations might be an effective and palatable way to make this happen.
Boston recently hosted an 8-team double-header slam tournament for Win-and-You're-In, drawing teams from six states, and it really showed off how different teams come at you from different directions.
In football, some teams like to run the ball, some teams win with defense, and a few teams get the job done with field goals. (The Pats win games with long camera lenses and a poetic re-interpretation of the rules.) You send a team to the Superbowl that hasn't had to deal with all of those different tactics, and that team is going to get stomped.
You can't be a great poet if you don't read all sorts of books and magazines. You can't be a great rock band if you listen to the same 20 CDs and never go to clubs. An NPS Finalist team that doesn't need to hit the road and <i>earn</i> its stripes every year might be a team that gets caught flat-footed at Nationals.
Of course, it's entirely possible that PSI wishes to discourage repeat winners and dynasties, in which case exempting NPS winners from Win and You're In obligations might be an effective and palatable way to make this happen.
I love the idea of being exempt from W&YI. Partly it's because I don't like that rule anyway, but I think it would shake things up a bit. If the top finishers know they get a "bye," then they aren't out there beating up on smaller teams who are trying to get in. Also, they might be freed to field an unorthodox team without fear of not making the cut. Plus, it's a serious benefit with zero cost attached.
115
General Discussion / Re: NPS - Prizes for Poets
« on: October 29, 2007, 01:59:11 PM »
As a newbie I'll go ahead and ask: What are the current prizes for winning NPS?
Also, I'd suggest
1. Free dinner or round of drinks at the hotel where everybody's staying in Madison. PSI is bringing hundreds of paying guests to the hotel at Madison next year; asking for a little something in return wouldn't be at all out of line. Plus the SlamMaster(s) would be sure to say nice things about the hotel as they announce the winners.
2. Give the winning team the star-treatment on the www.poetryslam.com Website for a week or two after the event. Specifically, the Website should run headlines with the winners' names (and team photo?) as soon as the Webmasters can possibly manage. Then flesh out the headlines with an interview/profile of the winners, maybe the text or audio of the finals-night poems, etc. The trick is to get this up on the Web while people are still buzzing about NPS. I realize the NPS Webmaster(s) wear(s) a bunch of hats and there were plenty of projects requiring follow-up in the days and weeks after NPS, but how great would it be for the winning team to fly home and proudly show off their big news?
This "prize" costs nothing except the additional wear-and-tear on the beleaguered Webmaster and other NPS volunteers. It's also a nice way to ride out the wave of publicity a big event such as NPS can bring. There's a reason they give out the World Series MVP award just 30 minutes after the final strikeout; they want to celebrate while the whole world is already watching.
3. I'd wager that PSI needn't do much in terms of "guaranteeing" feature slots to the winning team; my understanding is that any team member who makes it to the final round of NPS gets plenty of offers (poetic and otherwise) as soon as the curtain comes down. Of course, more can always be done in terms of coordinating features in nearby areas, and Nationals is a great time to gather all the slammasters in a given tri-state area so they can say "We'll all book an NPS finalist the week of ______."
4. See who's talented and generous. I'm a decent portrait photographer. Maybe somebody out there can draw carricatures, or is a licensed massage therapist, or somebody would compose on-the-fly haiku about the winners. Congratulations on winning Nationals! Smile for the camera! David is going to give you folks a backrub while Patti here draws a team carricature. Who knows?
-Ransacked
Also, I'd suggest
1. Free dinner or round of drinks at the hotel where everybody's staying in Madison. PSI is bringing hundreds of paying guests to the hotel at Madison next year; asking for a little something in return wouldn't be at all out of line. Plus the SlamMaster(s) would be sure to say nice things about the hotel as they announce the winners.
2. Give the winning team the star-treatment on the www.poetryslam.com Website for a week or two after the event. Specifically, the Website should run headlines with the winners' names (and team photo?) as soon as the Webmasters can possibly manage. Then flesh out the headlines with an interview/profile of the winners, maybe the text or audio of the finals-night poems, etc. The trick is to get this up on the Web while people are still buzzing about NPS. I realize the NPS Webmaster(s) wear(s) a bunch of hats and there were plenty of projects requiring follow-up in the days and weeks after NPS, but how great would it be for the winning team to fly home and proudly show off their big news?
This "prize" costs nothing except the additional wear-and-tear on the beleaguered Webmaster and other NPS volunteers. It's also a nice way to ride out the wave of publicity a big event such as NPS can bring. There's a reason they give out the World Series MVP award just 30 minutes after the final strikeout; they want to celebrate while the whole world is already watching.
3. I'd wager that PSI needn't do much in terms of "guaranteeing" feature slots to the winning team; my understanding is that any team member who makes it to the final round of NPS gets plenty of offers (poetic and otherwise) as soon as the curtain comes down. Of course, more can always be done in terms of coordinating features in nearby areas, and Nationals is a great time to gather all the slammasters in a given tri-state area so they can say "We'll all book an NPS finalist the week of ______."
4. See who's talented and generous. I'm a decent portrait photographer. Maybe somebody out there can draw carricatures, or is a licensed massage therapist, or somebody would compose on-the-fly haiku about the winners. Congratulations on winning Nationals! Smile for the camera! David is going to give you folks a backrub while Patti here draws a team carricature. Who knows?
-Ransacked
116
General Discussion / Re: When Did You 'Fall In Love' With Spoken Word/Slam
« on: October 18, 2007, 02:57:09 PM »
I don't know that I've fallen in love with Spoken Word/Slam just yet; call it a strong professional admiration. I used to attend a lot of wine-and-cheese poetry readings, the kind where everybody under thirty wears black jeans and everyone over thirty wears leather elbow patches. If that's not your scene, I hear you; I'm not entirely sure it was ever my scene, either. Everything and everyone was a little too polished and perfect. Had someone brought forth a poem and announced: "I just finished writing this this afternoon, so it's a bit rough" somebody might have fainted from the impropriety of it. I'm exagerating, but only a little.
I once saw my favorite poet, a man with impeccable New Yorker/ Ploughshares credentials, totally rock the mic at one of those buttoned-up readings. He had a long, humorous, 15-minute narrative poem memorized, and he paced the room rasping it at the slightly scandalized crowd and I thought: "Yeah. Like that. Poetry needs more of that."
I went to my first poetry slam in June of 2006. A few days before, I'd attended a very dull open-mic poetry reading at a public library. It was a waste of time except that I met a slam poet there who told me she red regularly at Cantab Lounge in Cambridge Massachusetts. She told me I should go there, "It's the only place somebody like you is going to make sense." I dragged my feet for no good reason, but eventually I went. I felt like a ballroom dancer at his first all-night rave. It was much more fun and exciting than what I'd been used to. There is a vitality to slam which (I hope) informs my writing these days. There is a raw emotionality which many slammers can tap seemingly on cue, effortlessly, and when they channel that emotion in service to the story it is a profoundly moving experience. Sure, sometimes that emotion jumps the tracks and I think we've all seen a few 3-minute train wrecks. Big deal.
I'm still a page poet at heart (if I am a poet at all, and I think the jury's still out on that one), but I'm immensely grateful to the woman who told me about the Cantab Lounge. There are some astoundingly talented writers/performers there who have challenged me to raise my game and who have pushed me into directions and writing styles I'd not have had the courage to attempt unbidden.
It's easy to be poet laureate of my living room, tempting to "be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space," and my dog will always think I'm a genius because, heck, I understand doorknobs and he doesn't...but every once in a while it's crucial to get out in the world and seek exterior judgment. It's painful but healthy to see all the books you've read and all the phrases you've written and re-written get distilled into a brutally harsh slam score by judges who are not the least bit impressed.
Slam plays hard to get. I don't know if love is the right word, but I go back to the same bar week after week, hoping one of these nights I'll get the digits I'm after.
I once saw my favorite poet, a man with impeccable New Yorker/ Ploughshares credentials, totally rock the mic at one of those buttoned-up readings. He had a long, humorous, 15-minute narrative poem memorized, and he paced the room rasping it at the slightly scandalized crowd and I thought: "Yeah. Like that. Poetry needs more of that."
I went to my first poetry slam in June of 2006. A few days before, I'd attended a very dull open-mic poetry reading at a public library. It was a waste of time except that I met a slam poet there who told me she red regularly at Cantab Lounge in Cambridge Massachusetts. She told me I should go there, "It's the only place somebody like you is going to make sense." I dragged my feet for no good reason, but eventually I went. I felt like a ballroom dancer at his first all-night rave. It was much more fun and exciting than what I'd been used to. There is a vitality to slam which (I hope) informs my writing these days. There is a raw emotionality which many slammers can tap seemingly on cue, effortlessly, and when they channel that emotion in service to the story it is a profoundly moving experience. Sure, sometimes that emotion jumps the tracks and I think we've all seen a few 3-minute train wrecks. Big deal.
I'm still a page poet at heart (if I am a poet at all, and I think the jury's still out on that one), but I'm immensely grateful to the woman who told me about the Cantab Lounge. There are some astoundingly talented writers/performers there who have challenged me to raise my game and who have pushed me into directions and writing styles I'd not have had the courage to attempt unbidden.
It's easy to be poet laureate of my living room, tempting to "be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space," and my dog will always think I'm a genius because, heck, I understand doorknobs and he doesn't...but every once in a while it's crucial to get out in the world and seek exterior judgment. It's painful but healthy to see all the books you've read and all the phrases you've written and re-written get distilled into a brutally harsh slam score by judges who are not the least bit impressed.
Slam plays hard to get. I don't know if love is the right word, but I go back to the same bar week after week, hoping one of these nights I'll get the digits I'm after.
117
General Discussion / Re: Member request archive
« on: September 22, 2007, 07:13:44 PM »
Hi. I'm Arthur Moffa and I joined on September 17, 2007.