This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
Showing posts with label Big Poppa E. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Poppa E. Show all posts

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Slam Tutorial: "Found" Poems


A "found poem" is ostensibly a poem that the poet does not write, but instead finds.

"Found poetry" is a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases, and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as poetry by making changes in spacing and/or lines (and consequently meaning), or by altering the text by additions and/or deletions. The resulting poem can be defined as either treated: changed in a profound and systematic manner; or untreated: virtually unchanged from the order, syntax and meaning of the original.

Found poems take a great deal of effort to locate and rewrite. One of slam poetry's greats is Big Poppa E's "Receipt Found In The Parking Lot Of The Super WalMart," which he readily admits isn't actually a "found poem" but easily could have been.

If you can, try "finding" a poem from an everyday source.

Big Poppa E is one of poetry slam's greats. He was among the first slam poets I ever saw, way back at Mesa's Essenza Coffeehouse in 2000, when most of my fans were still in elementary school. If you enjoy slam, there are a number of books to have on your shelf, not the least of which is Big Poppa E's Greatest Hits: Poems To Read Out Loud "A special collection of dynamic performance poetry by Big Poppa E, perfect for high school and college speech students to use in competition or anyone who mistakenly thinks they hate poetry! BPE is a spoken word artist and three-time HBO Def Poet who melds rhythmic verse, stand-up comedy, and dramatic monologue into explosive works that skewer pop culture, politics, and the pain and beauty of relationships. His musings have led to appearances on BET's The Way We Do It sketch comedy series, National Public Radio, and CBS's 60 Minutes (although, truth be told, he was only on for about three seconds... but still...)."

Slate.com had a bit of fun in 2003 with found poetry, essentially targeting then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Whether this we an attempt as emasculation or just poking fun at his irritating speaking style, Slate.com wrote: "Rumsfeld's poetry is paradoxical: It uses playful language to address the most somber subjects: war, terrorism, mortality. Much of it is about indirection and evasion: He never faces his subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and repetitions confuse and beguile. His work, with its dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams'. Some readers may find that Rumsfeld's gift for offhand, quotidian pronouncements is as entrancing as Frank O'Hara's."

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Happenings
You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.

It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

The Digital Revolution
Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!

A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!

—June 9, 2001, following European trip

The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

—Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Clarity
I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Haiku videos


Note that one's delivery contributes to the haiku, as in Shane Koyczan's insertion of the seemingly unimportant "yes, yes, yes" which adds three syllables to the haiku to make 17.


Big Poppa E (Eirik Ott)'s brilliance in his haiku are not just the haiku themselves, but the titles such as "Bitter Ex-Girlfriend Haiku #75" and "Bitter Ex-Girlfriend Haiku #99." Consider buying Big Poppa E's Greatest Hits: Poems To Read Out Loud if you enjoy good slam poetry from one of its biggest promoters.

Haiku Death Match at Sedona's GumptionFest IV on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Slam Tutorial: Embrace Your Inner Nerd - Specifically

Your secret shame, be it Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potty, audiences love it when you Embrace Your Inner Nerd. If you secretly love a nerdy topic, your audience likely does, too. Embrace it, milk it and push the limits.
If you can liken your nerd-love to real-world topics, either dramatic or humorous, you can greatly win over an audience. Half the fun is indulging in your nerdy passion, the other half is making it relevant to an audience who may only have a tangential relationship to the topic.

There are several subspecies, the less common of which is: Specific Nerd

Big Poppa E is known for his humor poems and his "Wussy Boy" Manifesto. This poem ostensibly tries to merge the two although the "wussy boy" on Harry Potter is a bit of a stretch, though it serves as vehicle for this poem.
It permitted BPE to embrace his knowledge of his specific topic, in this case the Harry Potter mythos.
The difficulty with specific nerd poems is going too deep. Unless the audience is steeped in nerd culture such as at the Nerd Slam at the National Poetry Slam - yes, there is one, I won at Gul Dukat action figure at the 2006 NPS - delve only deep enough that someone who has read the books, seen the movie, skimmed the comic book, or visited the Web site briefly will be able to grasp the concepts. Remember that your audience may be well versed, your judges, however, may not be.

This poem was performed at the 2005 Southwest Shootout in Albuquerque, N.M. The intro section is the way it is because BPE was in the midst of another signature poem of his and completely dropped the poem, forgetting it midway. He tried to recover, but after the second failure, and realizing that due to his eventual scores and time penalty, through the poem into the wind and performed this. If memory serves, I was standing with a few members of the Flagstaff Poetry Team about four feet to the left and about six feet behind the camera during BPE's collapse. Although he lost the round to other teams, this performance was worth remembering.

"Harry Potter Emo Love Song"
By Big Poppa E (aka Eirik Ott)
www.bigpoppae.com

i see you sitting there in the library
with your nose pressed into a book
and I'm sitting across from you crossing my fingers
hoping you'll stop and give me a look

when i hear your voice my face goes full flush
as red as Ron Weasley's hair
i want with all of my being to reach out
and take your hand, but i do not dare

i thought for a while that Cho Chang was the one
who was the object of my desire
but i was wrong, my dear, because you're the witch
who turns my heart into a Goblet of Fire

(CHORUS)
oh, Hermione Granger, my darling,
i can't keep you off of my mind
come climb on the back of my Nimbus 2000
and we'll leave Hogwarts far behind
far behind

sometimes i hide under my invisibility cloak
just so i can watch you from afar
and i don't care if your parents are Muggles
the lights in your eyes shine like stars

if i had a chance to go back to first year
i'll tell you just what i would do
i wouldn't take the sorting hat from the top my head
until it said i belonged to you

and sure i know you-know-who is out there somewhere
looking to kill me with his wicked dark art
but the mark he left on my forehead is nothing compared
to the lightening bolt shaped scar on my heart

(CHORUS)
oh, Hermione Granger, my darling,
I can't keep you off of my mind
come climb on the back of my nimbus 2000
and we'll leave Hogwarts far behind
far behind

I've written a note on a scroll, my dear,
and tied it to my owl Hedwig's leg
and I'm hoping my words will convince you to love me
so i don't have to fall to my knees and beg.

my note says, "if you love me half as much as i love you,
meet me at midnight behind Hagrid's shack,
and if you fail to show up I'll know that you don't
and I'll try very hard to go back...

to being your best friend

(CHORUS)
oh, Hermione Granger, my darling,
i can't keep you off of my mind
come climb on the back of my nimbus 2000
and we'll leave Hogwarts far behind
far behind