"Totally like whatever, you know?" by Taylor Mali

Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali

In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don't think I'm uncool just because I've noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It's like what I've heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I'm just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we've just gotten to the point where it's just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we've become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

© Taylor Mali

I first met Taylor Mali at the 2001 National Poetry Slam in Seattle. I, like many other beginning slam poets, had first seen him in the documentary "Slam Nation." Team Flagstaff had a rented minivan, a Kia Sedona oddly enough, which we had taken to Seattle. I saw Mali on the sidewalk at the hotel getting ready to head to a venue to host a slam. I offered him a lift, along with a few of our poets and we rode down to the venue.

I saw him later during one of the many NPS slam parties at the hotel. I wandered into a hotel room with a dozen or so slam poets drinking, smoking cigarettes and hanging out. That year, I carried a backpack with handles of rum, vodka, tequila and two bottles of wine, refilling poets' glasses whenever needed. I think a number of poets probably fell off the wagon that week thanks to me.

I wandered in, refilled some drinks, poured myself and sat down on a heavily occupied bed filled with chatting poets. On the other bed, I looked up to see Daphne Gottlieb and Mali's then-girlfriend Marty McConnell making out. I then found Mali sitting next to me. He recognized me, passed a bottle of wine to me, looked at the other bed and said, "I love Nationals."

Mali is one of the major figures in poetry slam. His skill on the stage and in strategy is legendary. He is a consummate professional and a polished performer.

Slamming against him or on his team would be awesome, but I rather have a choice team of four slammers face off against four of his and strategize against him toe-to-toe.

Taylor Mali is one of the most well-known poets to have emerged from the poetry slam movement and one of the few people in the world to have no job other than that of poet. Eloquent, accessible, passionate, and often downright hilarious, Mali studied drama in Oxford with members of The Royal Shakespeare Company and puts those skills of presentation to work in all his performances. He was one of the original poets to appear on the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry and was the "Armani-clad villain" of Paul Devlin's 1997 documentary film SlamNation.

Born in New York City into a family some of whose members have lived there since the early 1600s, Taylor Mali is an unapologetic WASP, making him a rare entity in spoken word, which is often considered to be an art form influenced by the inner city and dominated either by poets of color or those otherwise imbued with the spirit of hip-hop.

Mali is a vocal advocate of teachers and the nobility of teaching, having himself spent nine years in the classroom teaching everything from English and history to math and S.A.T. test preparation. He has performed and lectured for teachers all over the world, and his New Teacher Project has a goal of creating 1,000 new teachers through "poetry, persuasion, and perseverance."

He is the author of two books of poetry, The Last Time As We Are (Write Bloody Books 2009) and What Learning Leaves (Hanover 2002), and four CDs of spoken word. He received a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant in 2001 to develop Teacher! Teacher! a one-man show about poetry, teaching, and math which won the jury prize for best solo performance at the 2001 Comedy Arts Festival.

Formerly president of Poetry Slam, Inc., the non-profit organization that oversees all poetry slams in North America, Taylor Mali makes his living entirely as a spoken-word and voiceover artist these days, traveling around the country performing and teaching workshops as well as doing occasional commercial voiceover work. He has narrated several books on tape, including The Great Fire (for which he won the Golden Earphones Award for children's narration).

"Spoons" by Caroline Harvey

I fell in love with Caroline Harvey and her work in Austin in 2005. She still ranks up there with of the strongest female poets I've met on the national poetry slam scene.

Committed to a life's work of cultivating creativity, awareness and vibrant health, Caroline Harvey is an artist, educator and somatic therapist in Boston.

Caroline laughs when recalling that her imaginary friend as a little girl was the moon. One of her other earliest memories is of leading a meditation about "floating on the ocean" for a group of first grade friends at a slumber party, and she still has the feather collection she began in preschool.

A passionate communicator with a natural fascination for words and expression, Caroline began writing and performing plays, poetry and short stories as a child. Also a lover of movement, Caroline enjoyed formal dance classes for many years and continues to dance as often as she can. Her parents remind her that she was never very good at following the rules she didn't agree with; she skipped past both the third grade and her last two years of high school and at 16 she left home to follow the Grateful Dead around the country. Caroline then relocated to England where she studied creative writing, art history and philosophy at Oxford Tutorial College.

In 2002 Caroline was awarded a master’s degree in dance from University of California Los Angeles' Department of World Arts and Cultures where she wrote and performed a thesis about somatic healing, the witnessed and felt embodiment of intuition and a cross-cultural examination of sacred art. She dove into her studies, exploring anatomy, movement therapy, choreography and site-specific performance, the politics of the body, and many movement techniques including the sacred practices of Afro-Cuban dance and drumming. Both the renowned movement artist/choreographer Simone Forti and the celebrated theater revolutionary Peter Sellars sat on her thesis committee. While at UCLA she also studied at the Department of Theater, Film and Television where she served as a choreographer for films and was the Teaching Assistant for many of the "movement for actors" courses.

Additionally, Caroline holds a BFA in theater from Boston University where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and won the Dean's Award for Academic Excellence. Caroline is a devoted student of health and yoga pioneer Ana Forrest and is a graduate of her Foundational, Advanced, and Continuing Educational Forrest Yoga Teacher Trainings.

She feels incredibly lucky and wholeheartedly indebted to the many pilgrims, elders, family members and mentors who have led the way and lit her path.

A dedicated teacher, professional artist and health practitioner for over a decade, Caroline currently works as a yoga, dance and meditation instructor & workshop leader, a doula (birth attendant), and is in private practice as a somatic Therapist in Boston, specializing in Craniosacral Therapy. She is the creator of Sacred Groove, an ecstatic dance practice, Awakening the Yogini: Extraordinary Yoga and Education for Women, and CranioYoga, the artful synthesis of Restorative Yin Yoga and CranioSacral Therapy. Caroline also teaches two voice curricula, Free Your Voice and Embodied Poetics.

Caroline also teaches and performs poetry nationwide. She was featured in two documentaries and appeared on Season 5 of HBO’s Def Poetry. A past member and coach of multiple Poetry Slam Teams and currently the Poetry Mentor at Berklee College of Music, Caroline has been a part of victories on both national and regional stages. She is especially committed to facilitating creative writing classes for at-risk youth, survivors of trauma and those working to get free from drug and alcohol addiction and she recently completed a poetry and visual arts project, in conjunction with The Attleboro Arts Museum, for teens in foster care called "Between The Lines." She is honored to have been featured at schools and organizations such as YouthSpeaks, The Esalen Institute, Bristol Community College, Northeastern University, UC Berkeley and UCLA.

Caroline's writing, which tracks her belief that even the fiercest traumas contain within them the capacity for profound healing and beauty, has been published in various literary journals and anthologies including the 2005 National Poetry Slam Anthology "High Desert Voices" and the Harvard publication "The Charles River Review." She is currently working on a new collection of poems based on the women Salvador Dali painted and a book about her most recent travels in Asia and Central America.

She continues to collect feathers, to be curious, questioning, pioneering and wild, and she hopes never to stop talking to the moon.

"Arizona Summers" by Buddy Wakefield

I first met Buddy Wakefield in Arizona during his 2003 tour. He's always been a bright spot in the national poetry slam scene, if not for his bright and enjoyable poetry then for his sheer enthusiasm in performing. He's passed through Phoenix and Flagstaff numerous times, but one trip through Sedona brought him to the house of my former roommate Rebekah Crisp. One of the best times I spent with Buddy was shooting the shit in her kitchen for a few hours, talking about life, poetry and Crisp's eclectic collection raw foods and spices.

Seeing him make out with Daphne Gottlieb in the lobby of the National Poetry Slam hotel in St. Louis in 2004 was an odd thing, but totally sweet.

Buddy wrote "Arizona Summers" about his tour through our lovely state, and yes, we are out of our goddamn minds to live in this state.

Buddy Wakefieldis the two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champion featured on NPR, the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, and most recently signed to Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records.

In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear then successfully defended that [arbitrary] title at the International Poetry Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands, against the national champions of seven European countries with works translated into Dutch.

In 2005 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Championship again and has gone on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world in hundreds of venues internationally from The Fillmore in San Francisco and Scotland’s Oran Mor to San Quentin State Penitentiary, House of Blues New Orleans and CBGB’s.

In the spring of 2001 Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, Wash., sold or gave away everything he owned, moved to the small town of Honda Civic and set out to live for a living, touring North American poetry venues through 2003.

He still tours full time and considers annual Revival tours with Derrick Brown and Anis Mojgani, as well as separate tours with Ani DiFranco, to be the highlight of his career thus far.

Oh and the first time he performed with Saul Williams… that was pretty much awesome in the face.

Born in Shreveport, La., mostly raised in Baytown, Texas, now claiming Seattle, WA as home, Buddy has been a busker in Amsterdam, a lumberjack in Norway, a street vendor in Spain, a team leader in Singapore, a re-delivery boy, a candy maker, a street sweeper, a bartender, a maid, a construction worker, manager of a CD store, a bull rider and a booking agent. Wakefield is a growth junkie, elated son of a guitar repair woman, wingman of Giant Saint Everything, and remembers Kirkwood, NY.

Buddy, a Board of Directors member with Youth Speaks Seattle, is honored that his work is published internationally in several books and has been used to win national collegiate debate and forensics competitions. An author of Write Bloody Publishing, Wakefield is known for delivering raw, rounded, high vibration performances of humor and heart.

THERE IS NO ACCLAMATION FOR THIS ARTIST…

…except for the time one of Buddy’s hero’s, Benjamin Morse, called him “Monster of Energy, Keeper of Hope, Friend of My Soul…” That was a good one.

MORE ACCURATE BIO:

In the Fall of 1984 Anchor Bay Entertainment released a movie called Children of the Corn while Buddy lived in front of the corn fields near Niagara Falls, New York.

This traumatic event (coupled with extensive exposure to Kenny Rogers and Lionel Richie) may or may not have led to Buddy becoming a sensitive poet puss who plays marbles in the trees, listens by talking and keeps fingers on pulse.

"The Kurosawa Champagne" by Derrick Brown

Derrick Brown is one of my favorite slam poets. His poetry builds metaphorical constructs that I often find beyond brilliant and he conveys a sincerity in his delivery that is hard for other slam poets to emulate.

I met Derrick Brown when he toured Flagstaff in 2001 and I have seen him on stage a few times since. In 2003, I gave him a sofa on which to crash for three days during a tour through the Phoenix area. He gave one of the best features I have ever seen in Flagstaff around 2005.

Azami has recently discovered his tracks on my iPod and fallen in love with them, specifically "The Kurosawa Champagne" and "A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me."



The Kurosawa Champagne
By Derrick Brown

Tonight
your body shook,
hurling your nightmares
back to Cambodia.

Your nightgown wisped off
into Ursula Minor.

I was left here on earth feeling alone,
paranoid about the Rapture.

Tonight
I think it is safe to say we drank too much.
Must I apologize for the volume in my slobber?
Must I apologize for the best dance moves ever?
No.

Booze is my tuition to clown college.

I swung at your purse.
It was staring at me.

We swerved home on black laughter.
bleeding from forgettable boxing.

I asked you to sleep in the shape of a trench
so that I might know shelter.

I drew the word surrender in the mist of your breath,
waving a white sheet around your body.

‘Dear, in the morning let me put on your make-up for you.
I’ll be loading your gems with mascara
then I’ll tell you the truth…’

I watched black ropes and tears ramble down your face.

Lady war paint.

A squad of tiny men rappels down those snaking lines
and you say;
“Thank you for releasing all those fuckers from my life.”

You have a daily pill case.
There are no pills inside.
It holds the ashes of people who died

…the moment they saw you.

The cinema we built was to play the greats
but we could never afford the power
so in the dark cinema
you painted pictures of Kurosawa.

I just stared at you like Orson Welles,
getting fat off your style.

You are a movie that keeps exploding.
You are Dante’s fireplace.

We were so broke,
I’d pour tap water into your mouth,
burp against your lips
so you could have champagne.

You love champagne.

Sparring in the candlelight.

Listen—
the mathematical equivalent of a woman’s beauty
is directly relational
to the amount or degree
other women hate her.

You, dear, are hated.

Your boots are a soundtrack to adultery.
Thank God your feet fall in the rhythm of loyalty.

If this kills me,
slice me julienne
uncurl my veins
and fashion yourself a noose
so I can hold you
once more.

Derrick Brown, a former paratrooper for the 82nd Airborne, gondolier, magician and fired weatherman, now travels the world and performs his written work. From Nashville, he is dedicated to bringing American poetry into rock and roll status.

And, yes, he was a weatherman in Flagstaff ...


Brown has consistently been the opening act for Indie rock act, Cold War Kids and has been booked with The White Stripes and performed with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. His work has been featured in books with Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, Viggo Mortensen, Jeff Buckley and Jim Carrol.

As one of the most original and well-traveled writer/performers in the country, Brown has gained a cult following for his poetry performances all over the United States. and through Europe. A poetic terrorism group has taken to sticking and tagging his metaphors across the globe.

To date, Brown has performed at over 1,200 venues and universities internationally including The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, La Sorbonne in Paris and The Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City.

Known for a moving show that incorporates spoken word, minimalist music, and even sound effects, Brown is unique for being an outstanding performer but is foremost a page poet. He has won the California Independent Book Critics' Award in 2004, and his performance poetry has won six first-place poetry slam finishes in Venice Beach, England, and Germany.

"This is a suit " by Joaquín Zihuatanejo

Names are important. Some names have a heritage that can create a powerful poem. Dallas poet Joaquín Zihuatanejo, whom I heard in Austin, Texas, in 2004, wrote this poem about his name, Joaquín, that relates to a Chicano culture figure.

Joaquín Zihuatanejo is a father, a husband, a poet,a spoken word artist and an award-winning teacher. He was born and raised in the barrio of East Dallas where his grandfather, Silas C. Medina, showed him what the novelist, Rudolfo Anaya, describes as the Path of Light.

Through his poetry he strives to capture the duality of his culture, the Chicano culture. His is a mestizo culture that is steeped in duality, and in his poetry he depicts the essence of barrio life, writing about subjects as varied as his grandfather's garden, the experiences of a youth that was plagued by gang violence, a heritage that is steeped in sacrifice and borders.

Zihuatanejo writes of borders that are both actual and metaphorical, borders that plague a people seen as immigrants in their own homeland. Zihuatanejo is a member of the 2004 Dallas Poetry Slam Team and a Grand Slam Spoken Word Poetry Champion of Dallas. Zihuatanejo and Dallas Slam placed third out of 60 competing teams from the United States, Canada, and the United Kingfom at the 2004 National Poetry Slam competition in St. Louis.

Zihuatanejo performs his work at various conferences, poetry recitals, and poetry slams throughout the country. He competed in the Step to the Mic Spoken Word Competition in Stockton, Calif., finishing in the top 10 out of some 100 competing poets. As well as being a featured poet at the Austin International Poetry Festival, Zihuatanejo's work was published in the 2004 Di-verse-City Poetry Anthology. He has been the keynote speaker/performer at several conferences related to issues concerning Mexican-Americans. He has self-published two collections of poetry, "Barrio Songs" and "I of the Storm" and has completed his first spoken word CD, "Barrio Songs, A Spoken Word Collection." He has had the privilege of being selected as the poet to open up for award winning poet and novelists Maya Angelou and E. Lynn Harris at their recent recitals at universities in the North Texas area.

Zihuatanejo currently lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife Aída, his two daughters, Aiyana and Dakota, and their two guinea pigs, Pancho and Cisco.

Slam Tutorial: Having Fun With Sex

Objectifying a body part of the opposite sex can sometimes be a difficult thing to do in poetry. Between lovers, behind closed doors, we all often spend hours discussing anatomy, what they like, what they don't how things feel or how things can feel with the right stimulation.
That aside, Rock Baby's sheer enthusiasm for breasts is what sells this poem. Imagine performing this poem in a cover reading at your local open mic or poetry slam and you can see the inherent difficulty unless you are so over-the-top with the humor to truly sell it.
And yes, in person, Rock Baby is hysterical. I met him at the National Poetry Slam in Chicago in 2003 and I distinctly remember one breakfast morning where he had three tables in stitches talking about the van trip from Texas.

Titty Man
By Roderick "Rock Baby" Goudy

Warning, warning
This poem is not suitable for those who take life too serious
And lack a sense of humor.

Titty man gone wild
Titties, titties, titties!
I love me some titties
Big titties, small titties, skinny titties
Tall titties, titties sagging down
Titties juicy and round.

I love me some titties
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
I like those titties with a dark nipple in the middle
And ohhh! When they jiggle
Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle
Iggle, iggle, iggle, iggle
Iggle, iggle, iggle.

Breasts-ises
B-R-E-A-S-T-S--ISES
Just another name for those titties
You see they come in all shapes and sizes and forms
The average person don't know 'em like I know 'em
This goes for the ladies, too
Who've had titties
All their life.

I can tell the difference between a real titty, a fake titty
A too-young titty
And a titty that's ready and ripe
'Cause I'm a titty man
Hell, I could tell your future
If you just let me hold those titties in my hands.

You see, it does something to me when I see and hear a bra snap
When those titties stand out
It makes a brother like me
Moan and groan and slooooobber at the mouth
Especially when they're naked and pressed up against my chest
It makes it difficult to choose the type of titty that I love the best.

It could be old titties, swoll titties, titties hanging loose
Titties that look like fruits
Titties fully grown
Titties made of silicone
Tittes that make you always wanna hold her
Titties that you can throw over your shoulders.

Titties, difference colors, and I need them
Tittes on people who don't need them
Mean titties, sad titties
Titties that make you wish you had titties
Perfect titties squeezed together
And pushed to the front.

Now if I had a pair of titties
Those would be the type of titties that I'd want
Because I looooove me some titties.

I like 'em on the beach
In the sand
And when it's hot at home
I like to lick those titties in front of a fan
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh..

Whether in a regular, laced or fuzzy bra
I like those tittes that belongs to super stars
And for those ladies with those titties swoll like 2 balloons
I like to stick my face between 'em and go.

Bur-bur-bur-burrrrrrrrr!

Because I loooooove me some titties
LORD!


A native of Hattiesburg, Miss., Roderick Goudy, aka Rock Baby, is a seasoned performance poet, comic and writer. Widely considered a natural performer with an unique, eclectic and clever style, Goudy has delighted, educated and entertained people of various ages and ethnicities across America, quickly making him a crowd favorite within the "chitin circuit" of spoken word.
Appearing twice on HBO’s Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam in 2003 and 2005, Rock Baby offered television explosive performances with his distinct style of comedic poetry.

Slam Tutorial: Rely on Your Grandma

"Grandma's Got it Going On (Rise and Shine)"
By Shane Koyczan


Every day, Grandma would come into my room and I would hear her say-
Rise and shine, the world has a whole 'nother design, there’s
someone
out there
some where
young man.

So I rose and I shone put on my shoes and I was gone.

See, Grandma bought me my first phone, she said Don't bother calling the people who care, call the people who don’t.

Don't bother calling the people who have taken up the fight, call people who won’t.

And I learned at a very young age where my grandma’s rage came from: The entire congregation of God. Never ask grandma about God.

I'd argue with her everyday and all she'd say was, Go down to the store, buy some light bulbs. And when you run out, buy some more.

Because the light at the end of your tunnel needs to be maintained.

You can't let it be stained by "their beliefs are better than your beliefs" and you can't agree to disagree because they're fucking wrong!

It's not the strong who have gotten lazy, its just your vision is a little hazy- you're not sure what it is you want but what you've got is all you need.

It falls to greed.

For every hypocritical church-goer who won’t walk past beggars because they can't spare a dime, Grandma says fuck them.

I don't speak to God because I think God's a tyrant.

And yeah, it struck me as strange every time I walk past a brother that stops to ask me "Hey, can you spare some change?" because yes I can. You see, I don't carry change around in my back pocket; I don’t wear it around my neck on a chain in some locket.

I keep change on the tip of my tongue so I can climb the rungs of a ladder to a better place; I forgot about saving face, Grandma told me save your grace.

I keep change in the tip of my pen and it seeps out every now and then as bursts of anger that make me think, maybe the writing on the wall could use a little revision.

Grandma told me stop trying to calculate the difference between people, people don't need division. Gotta stick together, gotta love each other, father brother sister mother uncles sons and aunts, forget about the chants the cheers the jokes the tears after two thousand years you'd think we'd know by now!

Grandma said We will only find equality in our number of tears.

And she was right because I don’t know what injustices you've suffered based on size sex race religion or the political pigeon shitting on the shoulders of us versus them like in Bethlehem when a man said Hey, I could be wrong, but why can't we all just get along?

No.

So we nailed him to a tree. See?

Justice isn’t just isn't, it just is.

And I can't change it, you can’t change it, so we just gotta try to rearrange it and if at all this miracle got the chance to work would I see people the way they see me?

Because seeing is believing and if you see what I see you wouldn't want to see anymore. But I’ve got a little surprise in store.

For every man who looks upon me with judgement in his eyes, there’s a woman looks upon me with wetness in her thighs.

I'm the world’s greatest overweight lover.

And you might just laugh and you might just gulp but my bones are big for sticks and stones and names just piss me off and Grandma told me, Young man you cant be concerned with whatever it is that they've got the only reason they think they're beautiful is the same reason they think you're not. And Young man, you have beauty beyond measure you are a treasure entrenched in this earth, you can’t let strangers determine your worth, Rise and shine.

So I rose and I shone, I put on my shoes and I was gone.

See, Grandma bought me my first phone, she said, Young man from time to time I too need to smile, would you do me a favour and keep me on speed dial.

Yes grandma,

I will.

And still to this day I can call her up and can hear her say It’s a game, you play, you win, you play, you lose, you play.

Rise and shine the world has another whole design, there’s someone out there somewhere but young man if you are playing to win the first thing you have to do is apply within.

Slam Tutorial: Confront Your Own Cultural Heritage, Part 2

It's not easy confronting one's history, especially if it has a dark history, like Southern Whites confronting racism.

Greg Nix, my former roommate is proud to be a Georgian (though he was technically born in Albuquerque) and proud of the Southern flag, but he was taught to see it as a political symbol of State's Rights and independence, not racism. Also coming from the "Southern redneck" tradition of Jason Carney, Nix's poem is more a commentary on the non-Southern racist view of the Southern non-racist heritage. It addresses the non-Southerner view of Southern whites as split into two factions: the "enlightened egalitarian" white person - the common stereotype that we non-Southerners attribute to more-or-less racial equality in the South - and the "ignorant redneck" who seemingly hates gays, minorities, always votes Republican and would rather return to Jim Crow segregation if not outright slavery.

Of course, growing up in the 1980s, I will always equate the Confederate flag with "The Dukes of Hazzard" (let's ignore that abortion of a remake in 2005.) I had several toy General Lee cars as a child.

The unnamed roommate (not me, by the way) in Nix's poem misunderstands the political implications of the Confederate flag perhaps out of racism or simply thinking the flag is cool or rebellious.

Most of the (invariably white) people I've met who display the Confederate flag on their vehicle display the flag for provincialism not out of ideology:

like the Texans' Lone Star

or the Arizonans' sunburst and copper star.

I don't know Delawareans who do the same, for obvious reasons.

Both non-Southern and Southern blacks might have different interpretations of the Confederate flag, but as Nix points out, these are not due to the political use of the flag during and after the Civil War but due to the cultural and racial use of it. If the Texas flag had been used instead or another symbol had been used, we might have a far different feeling on the banner.

"Southern Angst"
By Greg Nix

he hung the flag in our stairwell
because, "its cool - you're a Southerner"
I'd heard that line from him so many times
just wanting to plant into his soul
what that means to me
memories of school days when us Boy Scouts would
salute the flag and pledge allegiance to Georgia
studying our state history
lost in marvelment at the sacrifices our Forefathers made in
"The War"

weekends spent at Stone Mountain recalling with pride
Stonewall Jackson, General E. Lee, Nathan Bradford and our esteemable
President Jeff Davis

looking back with wonder at the way our great great granddaddys
went off and fought for us, on behalf of us
in defense of home and hearth because
rich noble men floated in the air such words as
State's Rights. Self-Determination. Freedom.
but it all changed following Defeat and Occupation

a band of disgruntled officers mounted up beneath
the battle colors
rode off to begin our glorious history
whites hats, nooses, crosses burning in the night
the flag my forefathers fought under
fighting for no other reason then why young men always fight
pride.

i was raised to honor that flag in memory of
others who died not for slavery
but in defense of their homes
my ancestor's homes
the homes where my great great great grandmama's
passed forth the next generation in morning cries and tears.
until one day my father explained it better to me
clearing away the cobwebs of yesterday's glorious triumphs

"we never had the battle colors on the state flag
when i was growing up, son,
they put it there when Brown beat the Board of Ed
it was a reminder to 'them.'"

them.
them.
always us 'n' them.
still to this day

my father taught me that being
Southern
means to honor your parents,
love God in devotion
always bear yourself with respect.

i wasn't raised to hate
and yet, being a Southerner i must inherently be
racist, homophobic, and misogynist

this is the expectation

why don't i just go ahead and pop another Pabst
blast the Skynyrd a lil' louder?
fry me up some chicken and
let's go burn us a cross!
praise jay'sus too!

and here that poor damn fool goes hangin' that flag in my home
nevermind that i once believed it stood for something noble
stood as symbol for ideals or homes or in honor of my ancestors
nevermind that that flag stood as stone edifice to the
members of my state
hung and torched, mobbed for being a different color
killed because some asshole officers couldn't take defeat
couldn't accept that their way of life
was changed
because sometimes it must just be easier to hate
than to learn to love

i told my roommate
"lets put it out front!
wave it proud for all the neighbors to see!

we'll stand together and say, 'its
History, not Hate.' its
'Rebellion against Unlawful Authority.' 'its
about Freedom.'"

he never saluted that flag
unknowing what it really meant
how deeply it cut across the grain
my father impressed upon me
or how sick and tired i am of
attempting to explain to others
what mixed feelings i have toward
the Confederate Flag
realizing how others judge me by the
blood soaked into that fabric
turning it from a sentiment once noble
into a symbol of all that
ain't
Southern

and that flag doesn't stand for me
doesn't answer a single question anymore
i won't stand to have it in my presence
won't stand to see the battered and tarnished image
it has become
at the hands of assholes like my old roommate

who think hate is funny
call it hysterical and wonder why i grind my teeth
uncaring of what lies beneath the colors

but i do

i'm Southern
i took it down
i threw it out
he didn't understand.

Slam Tutorial: Confront Your Own Cultural Heritage, Part 1

It's not easy confronting one's history, especially if it has a dark history, like Southern Whites confronting racism.

Jason Carney, who I first met on when I was on tour in Dallas in 2002, has a poem that carries particular resonance for me. In "Southern Heritage," Carney addresses racism from the perspective a white Southerner. As a non-Southerner I was guilty along with many others of splitting white Southerners into two factions: the "enlightened egalitarian" white person - the common stereotype that we non-Southerners attribute to more-or-less racial equality in the South - and the "ignorant redneck" who seemingly hates gays, minorities, always votes Republican and would rather return to Jim Crow segregation if not outright slavery.

Of course, I learned in my later teens that racial issues in the South were far more gray.

This knowledge, however, did not alleviate my own fear of my family's potential history: my grandmother and mother are both from Atlanta, thus, my young mind used to theorize, they must be racist, thus, am I?

I wanted to ignore this "unfortunate" aspect of my history growing up lest I begin to think of myself as someone from a racist bloodline, based perhaps incorrectly on my grandfather's word choices, which I now attribute more to cultural and generational nuances than racist attitudes (in my early 20s I came to the realization that my grandfather's attraction to beautiful women 40 to 50 years younger than him was 100% colorblind, which put me at ease with him in the years before his death).

However, in September 2008, I asked my grandmother about her feelings and history following a speech I wrote for a seminar analyzing Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as a poem. At the time, it wasn't a question of race but rather politics I was asking for. I learned that my great-grandfather was something of a civil rights leader in his own way, though he probably wouldn't have thought so. Aside from chastising people who used racial epithets in his home, he helped black plumbers get their plumbing licenses, which I found rather cool at the time. I would assume that his choice wasn't one necessarily of self-righteous social equality but more of simple efficient rationality that seems to be the hallmark of my Redfield bloodline: "These guys can do the work, but they can't get licenses because of how they look? That's just stupid. I will help them."

My friend Lee Sullivan told me recently that that was an even more important step toward social equality that I had first suspected.

In the end, I think this sort of Redfield rational thought rather than overt idealism is what helped bring down Jim Crow and end other social inequalities: "This is how it is? This is inefficient and does not get work accomplished. It must change. If no one else does it, I will."

There's a poem in all this, but I haven't found the angle as yet.

"Southern Heritage"
By Jason Carney
Knowledge cures ignorance; if you're in the know, be fucking contagious.
This is for my Mamaw and my daughter, Olivia, the beginning and end of who I am.

My southern heritage lies in the smell of June.
It was my Mamaw.
She was half Choctaw, half snuff, half crazed by the spirit of the wind given her accent.

She called it "a touch" . . . she could . . . see things.

She'd catch a firefly with her tongue.

Rub the swollen fluorescence of their bellies to my forehead, a good vision on my birthday.

And she always told me I would grow to be a man who would always know life by the way it felt.

Alone I walked in the wandering reflection of dreams.
I should stand strong and tall as Papaw cause he was a man who knew life by the way it felt.

And his heart was in my eyes, his soul was in my breath.

My southern heritage lies in their simplicity; poverty and faith, baseball games on an old AM radio and the closeness of my family sharing a Sunday supper.

My southern heritage was Sundays.

Baptist Revivals . . . deacons passing the altar plates, deep voices from the choir urging me to go tell it on the mountain because Jesus Christ is Lord.

And I do love that old hymn . . . but I cant think about those fond memories of childhood anymore without seeing them through the pessimism of these eyes which are of a man, and I have to ask myself what kind of truth those old white baptists found on them mountain tops.

Why couldn't they hear the voices dangling from the branches of the elms when death could have been peeled away into the forgotten generation after generation woven into our skin, into our bones?
All because they were silent.
Practiced at turning their heads.

Their heritage lies in the shades of my skin, it's twisted and scarred, worn by their words "colored", "negro" . . . and "nigger."

So why don't we go find the truth on the mountain that says my southern heritage came clothed in white sheets and allows a rebel flag to hang this very day over the capitol of Mississippi?

My southern heritage spent centuries of time where people are silent . . . and practiced at turning their heads.

So we're the threads of rope that pulled James Byrd to his death along the back roads of Jasper, Texas.
Less than two hundred miles from where I live, ignorance reigns.

My southern heritage spans centuries of time, where people are silent and practiced at turning their heads.

It boils under my skin when my eyes don't have heart, when my soul is not in my breath, see . . . if I'm gonna grow to be that man who knows life by how it feels then these lessons gotta be mine to see the truth of and find the responsibility to teach my little girl.

Cause I don't want her southern heritage to lie in the shades of the skin. She's half Thai . . . half Irish, Choctaw, and snuff.

And I'm gonna catch fireflies with my tongue, rub the swollen fluorescence of their bellies to her forehead, a good vision on her birthday, where she will travel amongst the dead, and learn the lessons of their lives, spill the dust of stars and planets, exist in the deepest reaches of the mind.
She will tell the truth on that mountaintop, she will not succumb to the wounds of her bones.
She will not be silent.
And she will not ever be practiced at turning her head.

Jason Carney is a former skinhead who now uses poetry to continue to reform himself and heal others.

As a young man, Carney was sent to a juvenile detention center after several violent incidents involving gay bashing and racial intolerance. While in the detention center, Carney was roomed with a young gay male who was HIV-positive. A friendship formed from what could have been a volatile situation. The experience changed the way Carney saw people that were different from him. After Carney was released, he tried to look up his new friend only to find that he had lost his battle with the disease.

Carney has made it his life work to heal and help eliminate intolerance.

Slam Tutorial: A Stereotype Hijack

One of the 12 Olympians of Slam, Beau Sia is known for identity poems. He has said that moving to New York at 19 made him conscious of his identity as an Asian-American (he is of Chinese Filipino descent), something that he denied often in his childhood home of Oklahoma City.


A stereotype hijack poem is a subgenre of identity poems, but takes the opposite tack. While many identity poems aim to confront and reverse stereotypes (all of "us" aren't really like what you think of "us"), hijacking a stereotype gives the poet a certain freedom to make light of sillier or absurd aspects while still pointing out that malicious stereotyping destructive. The poet can poke fun at stereotypes that members outside the group can't do in public or mixed company and do so with more weight, yet the poet can still act as an advocate for the identity.

Despite the assumption that this style can only work for ethnic, cultural, religious or sexual minorities if the poet is instead in the majority group but performing for a minority audience (a white poet before a mostly black audience, a straight poet before a mostly gay audience, etc.), the poet can use this poetic style to their advantage with the caveat that they don't make light of the majority's dominance, subjugation or oppression of the minority in question.

Whether the identity in question is an ethnicity, religion, subculture or clique, the stereotype hijack is ripe for a humorous poem because it can take the more outrageous aspects of a stereotype and push them beyond ridiculous.

"Give Me A Chance"
By Beau Sia
www.beausia.com

if there is anyone
in the audience
in the entertainment industry
watching me perform,
I want you to keep in mind
that if you are casting any films
and need a Korean grocery store owner,
a computer expert or the random thug
of a yakuza gang,
i’m your man.
if you’re making Jackie Chan
knock-off films
and need a stunt double,
that stunt double is me.
if you need a Chinese jay-z,
a Japanese eminem,
or a Vietnamese backstreet boy,
please consider me,
because I am all those things and more.
i come from the house that
step n’ fetchit built
and i will broken English my way
to sidekick status
if that’s what’s expected of me
make an Asian different strokes.
i’ll walk around on my knees yelling,
ahso, what you talk about wirris?!
because it’s been 23 months and 14 days
since my art has done anything for me,
and i would be noble and toil on,
i swear i would.
live for the art and the art alone,
and all that crapass.
but college loans are monthly up my ass,
my salmon teriyaki habit is getting way out of control,
and i want some
motherfucking cable!
so you can understand where i’m coming from.
when tight verse
exhibiting dynamics
within the text
falls by the wayside
rejoice in its
pretty, packaged, boygroup,
talentless twats
sent from florida
to make me puke
but i'm not preaching. none siree, boss.
i cannot stress how ready i am
to sell out,
wear jiggy clothes,
and yell from the top of my lungs
any hook i am told to sing.
if you want the caricature
of a caricature,
then i am that caricature.
if you want an exotic dragon lady
like lucy liu,
who fucks like a kama sutra
come to life,
just tell my ass where ya want it,
and i will bend over.
if you need a voice-over artist,
just tell me
where you want the,
hi-ya's! to go
and i will be there,
because i am all that more,
i am a pop culture whore,
i an a co-sponsored world tour,
an i am
an appropriated culture at my core.
i've been noticed, acclaimed, and funny
and now all i want
is a beach front house to paint in
and a range rover
to listen to my music in,
cuz struggling fucking sucks hard
after the ninth package of ramen noodle soup.
i'm beau sia.
give me a chance,
and i'll
change the world.

Beau Sia began performing at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, eventually earning himself a place on the 1996 Nuyorican National Poetry Slam team. That same year, he would be filmed for the documentary SlamNation. The film followed Sia and his Nuyorican teammates (Saul Williams, Jessica Care Moore and Mums da Schemer) as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam. The team would go on to place third in the nation, and have a lasting impact on how people would view slam poetry.
Sia earned two National Poetry Slam Championships in 1997 and 2000 while competing on the NYC-Urbana national poetry slam team. He would also reach second place in the Individual Poetry Slam competition in 2001.
He wrote a parody of Jewel's work, A Night Without Armor, within four hours and published it as A Night Without Armor II: the Revenge in 1998. He wrote different poems with Jewel's original titles, lampooning her earnest lines. It is painfully detailed in its satire, changing the delicate paintings printed in Jewel's book to rough, humorous pencil drawings by Sia. The front and back cover were also painstakingly mirrored.

Slam Tutorial: Favorite Vices: Drinking, Smoking, & Screwing

William “Billy” Collins (born 22 March 1941) is an American poet. He served two terms as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. In his home state, Collins has been recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004. He was recently appointed Claire Berman Artist in Residence at The Roxbury Latin School, in West Roxbury, MA. He is a distinguished professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

Human beings are nothing if not lead by their vices. The world would be a much better place, more efficient, more productive if were weren't constantly pursuing our favorite vices, such as : drinking, smoking, & screwing.

However, life would be way too dull to even imagine.

And how productive would it really be in the long run? Half the reason we do anything is to afford the time and means to indulge in our habits in the first place, the other half reason is to assuage the guilt for having done them. Remove them both as we'd wind up dying in weeks, like kicked-over houseplants.

Asceticism has its place in the world, but the reason monks, nuns, hermits and priests can afford the time to renounce the world is because those who didn't built the monasteries, nunneries , temples and cloisters while the wealthy and worldly give the food and financial donations to keep them operational.

The anthology "Drinking, Smoking & Screwing: Great Writers on Good Times," assembles excepts by authors including Dorothy Parker, Erica Jong, Mary McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, J.P. Donleavy and Henry Miller on our most cherished triumvirate sins.

If you plan to write about your vices keep in mind that the audience can identifying with it. Illicit drug use, binge drinking, chain smoking and attempts to screw anything on two legs (male, female, straight, bi or gay, we all have sex drives) have always had their place in poetry. I guarantee the first poem ever written was by Og writing to Gort about trying to screw Thag after he looked really hot at the mammoth roast.

The Best Cigarette
By Billy Collins

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.

Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.

Slam Tutorial: Using Sign Language

I saw Rives perform this at the 2004 National Poetry Slam in St. Louis.

Poems specifically about body language or sign language offer the poet another tongue with which to speak. I've been told that my use of my arms greatly enhances my performances. Rives uses sign language overtly in this poem to convey his poem.

The play on words between "deaf poetry" "Def Poetry" (a la Russell Simmons, Mos Def and HBO) is also super-nifty.

Sign Language
By Rives

I work sometimes at a high school for deaf kids.
We put on poetry readings and poetry slams.
We call 'em
deaf poetry jams.

One poets poem goes ...

The night we met,
so many moons, were shining down on us so brightly
I thought
"Hey, maybe those moons have mistaken us for their Gods."

Another poet's poem goes ...

I, I, I, me, me, me, my, my, my
Doesn't anybody tell a story anymore?

And another poet's poem goes ...

Last night I dreamt I was little again.
And i could hear back then,
but the silence in my house
was deafening.

See some of the kids only write about being deaf.
Others make a joke.
Some make a mention.
Some ignore the topic altogether.

Not too different from the choices poets make anywhere else
with gender of skin color.
So you get goofy haiku like:

Homework is bullshit.
And inspires out of me
nothing but vomit.

And poems like

I saw on T.V.
that scientists have taught
a gorilla to speak sign language.
Outstanding!
Why don't they
teach the gorilla
how to wipe
it's ass, assholes?

And the words, the signs themselves
are as wonderful for me to watch
as if they were hummingbirds or butterflies.
Words like goosebumps.
Daydream. Giraffe. Sticky-icky-icky.

These are high school students
who never pass notes in class.
They just sign their shit
behind your back.

And they greet each other
in the hallways lately, going ...

Can you hear me now?
No, well I guess-- that's good! That's all.

And they pester me for the
lyrics to hip-hop songs
which they prefer
because they can
feel the music
throbbing through
the speakers we use for speech therapy
And I tell them
Well, that says
"Everybody put your hands in the air."
And they do
Every month, at our little poetry slams,
where the audience never spreads out,
it spreads back so that everyone can
hear those hands.

And it's damn near silent,
and there's never a microphone.

But sometimes the poets do rock their poems,
and when a deaf poet rocks a poem,
it echoes off the walls for these ears alone, like

i was born as deaf and as quiet as a starfish.
But if I had been born a man,
I would pray to the lord above every night
at the top of my fucking lungs,
just to thank him
for giving me
voice.

My memory my be fuzzy, but remember another ending with a bit more theatrics as right after his last line, Rives actually tipped the mic over.

i was born as deaf and as quiet as a starfish.
But if I had been born a man,
I would pray to the lord above every night
at the top of my fucking lungs,
just to thank him
for giving me
voice.

And when deaf poets don't just rock the mic
they knock it the fuck over

Slam Tutorial: Who's Your Hero?

Poets idolize other artists, be it Ludwig von Beethoven, Frida Kahlo, Jimmy Hendrix, Jackson Pollock or Stephen King. A hero poem is a rather simple construction: tell us who your hero is and why. The art is in the telling.

Beethoven
By Shane Koyczan

Listen
his father made a habit out of hitting him
see
some men drink
some men yell
some men hit their children
this man did it all
because I guess all men
want their boys
to be geniuses
Beethoven
little boy
living in a house
where a name meant nothing
living in a house
where mercy had to be earned
through each perfect note
tumbling up through the roof
to tickle the toes of angels
whose harps
couldn’t hold half the passion
that was held in the hands
of a young boy
who was hard of hearing
Beethoven
who heard
his father’s anthem
every time he put finger to ivory
it was not good enough
so he played slowly
not good enough
so he played softly
not good enough
so he played strongly
not good enough
and when he could play no more
when his fingers cramped up
into the gnarled roots of tree trunks
it was
not good enough
Beethoven
a musician
without his most precious tool
his eardrums
could no longer pound out rhythms
for the symphonies playing in his mind
he couldn’t hear the audiences clapping
couldn’t hear the people loving him
couldn’t hear the women in the front row whispering
"Beethoven"
as they let the music
invade their nervous system
like an armada marching through
firing cannonballs
detonating every molecule in their bodies
into explosions of heavenly sensation
each note
leaving track marks
over every inch of their bodies
making them ache
for one more hit
he was an addiction
and kings, queens
it didn’t matter
the man got down on his knees
for no one
but amputated the legs of his piano
so he could feel the vibrations
through the floor
the man got down on his knees
... for music
and when the orchestra played his symphonies
it was the echoes of his father’s anthem
repeating itself
like a brok-broken recor-brok-broken record
it was
not good enough
so they played slowly
not good enough
so they played softly
not good enough
so they played strongly
not good enough
so they tried to mock the man
make fun of the madness
by mimicking the movements
holding their bows
a quarter of an inch above the strings
not making a sound
it was
perfect
see
the deaf have an intimacy with silence
it’s there in their dreams
and the musicians turned to one another
not knowing what to make of the man
trying to calculate
the distance between madness and genius
realizing that Beethoven’s musical measurements
could take you to distances
reaching past the towers of Babylon
turning solar systems into symbols
that crashed together
causing comets to collide
creating crescendos that were so loud
they shook the constellations
until the stars began to fall from the sky
and it looked like the entire universe
had begun to cry
distance must be an illusion
the man must be
a genius
Beethoven
his thoughts moving at the speed of sound
transforming emotion into music

.......

and for a moment
it was like joy
was a tangible thing
like you could touch it
like for the first time
we could watch love and hate dance together
in a waltz of such precision and beauty
that we finally understood
the history wasn’t important
to know the man
all we ever had to do was
listen

Slam Tutorial: The List Poem

The list poem is one of the simplest poetic forms. Essentially, the poet takes a simple theme and pens a list of extended metaphors, similes, narratives, punchlines, twists on cliches and turns of phrase. The art form is not simply listing things, but leading to audience to assume what's coming next, then flipping the expectation on its head.

Shihan's "This Type Love" is a prime example of a list poem. It runs with a number of stereotypical young love themes, but done with colloquial understanding of human nuance:
"I wanted to see how far I could get without calling you, / and I barely made it out of my garage"
"I want to celebrate one of those month anniversaries even though they ain't really anniversaries, but doin' it just cause it makes her happy"

Yet still incorporates a degree of somewhat rational self-interest:
"I want a love that makes me want to cut off all my hair / Well, maybe not all of the hair / maybe just cut the split ends and trim my mustache"

If you choose to incorporate this style of poem into your repertoire, the art is in doing the unexpected, playing with the audience's intentions and expectations, and writing outside the box.

This Type Love
By Shihan

I want a love like me
thinking of you
thinking of me
thinking of you type love,
or me telling my friends more than I've ever admitted to myself about how I feel about you type love,
or hating how jealous you are, but loving how much you want me all to your self type love,
or seeing how your first name just sounds so good next to my last name,
and shit, I wanted to see how far I could get without calling you,
and I barely made it out of my garage.

See, I want a love that makes me wait until she falls asleep then wonder if she dreaming about us being in love type love,
or who loves the other more,
or what she's doing at this exact moment,
or slow dancing in the middle of our apartment to the music of our hearts, closing my eyes and imagining how a love so good could just hurt so much when she not there.
Shit, I love not knowing where this love is headed type love.

And check this, I want to place those little post-it notes all around the house so she never forgets how much I love her type love then not have enough ink in my pen to write all there is to love about her type love.
Hope that I make her feel as good as she makes me feel,
and I want to deal with my friends making fun of me the way I made fun of them when they went through the same kind of love type love.

Only difference is this is one of those real love type loves.
and just like in high school, I want to spend hours on the phone with her not saying shit,
and then fall asleep and then wake up with HER right next to me,
and smell her all up in my covers type love

I want to try to counting the ways I love her, and then lose count in the middle just so that I have to start all over again.
I want to celebrate one of those month anniversaries even though they ain't really anniversaries, but doin' it just cause it makes her happy type love.

And check this, I want fall in love with the melody the phone plays when her number is dialed in to her type loves and then talk to you til I lose my breathe, she leaves me breathless, so with the expanding of my lungs I inhale all of her back into me

I want a love that makes me need to change my cell phone calling plan to something that allows me to talk to her longer because, in all honesty, I want to avoid one of them high cell phone bill type loves.

I want a love that makes me regret how small my hands are I mean the lines on my palms don't give me enough time to love as long as I'd like to type loves,
and I want a love that makes me st-st-st-st-stutter just thinking about how strong this love is type love.

I want a love that makes me want to cut off all my hair ...
Well, maybe not all of the hair
maybe just cut the split ends and trim my mustache, but it will still be a symbol of how strong my love is for her.

And check this, I kinda feel comfortable now, so I can tell y'all this:

I even be fantasizing about walking out on a green light just dying to get hit by a car just so I could lose my memory get transported to some third world country

just to get treated

then somehow meet up again with you so that I could fall in love with you in a different language just to see if it still feels the same type love.

I want a love that's as unexplainable as she is, but I'm married, so she is going to be the one that I share this love with.

Don't forget Billy Collins

William “Billy” Collins (born 22 March 1941) is an American poet. He served two terms as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. In his home state, Collins has been recognized as a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library (1992) and selected as the New York State Poet for 2004. He was recently appointed Claire Berman Artist in Residence at The Roxbury Latin School, in West Roxbury, MA. He is a distinguished professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

One of my favorite poets is former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. He is not a slam poet, just one of the most brilliant writers I've come across. He pisses me off in that he could write a poem about dog's toes or knackwurst and it would be more brilliant than half the poems out there. To me, he sounds like Kevin Spacey. I own a great recording of "Billy Collins Live: A Performance at the Peter Norton Symphony Space April 20, 2005" where he is introduced by actor Bill Murray.
If you enjoy reading really great poetry that doesn't take a lifetime to decipher but still knocks you on your ass with its brilliance, pick up one of his poetry books. I own copies of the highlighted titles and often pull a poem or two out of them when I'm hosting the Sedona Poetry Open Mic.
* Pokerface (1977)
* Video Poems (1980)
* The Apple That Astonished Paris (1988)
* Questions About Angels (1991)
* The Art of Drowning (1995)
* Picnic, Lightning (1998)
* Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (2001)
* Nine Horses (2002)
* The Trouble with Poetry (2005)
* She Was Just Seventeen (2006)
* Ballistics (2008)

Forgetfulness
Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

Slam Tutorial: Stand-up Comic Poetry

Nothing says poetry needs to be rhymed meter and perfect symmetry. Some great slam poetry is essentially a scripted stand-up comedy routine with great punchlines, poetic turns of phrase, and a standard narrative structure. If you think you can't write poetry, try writing down a story that teaches a lesson, entertains, or concludes with a great punchline. Embellish the language with metaphors, rhetorical devices, turns of phrase, and
Most poems of this narrative style are essentially 5 to 10 second hooks, meaning each line or two has a natural rise, climax and fall involving a metaphoric image, a turn, a dash of humor, self-reflection, social commentary, etc., that all culminate in a grand finale by the time the poet reaches the end of the poem. For instance:
The rest of the class is made up of
seventh-grade celebrity impersonators.
Perfect examples to the power of product placement.
Decked out in rhinestone jeans and velour sweat suits
that cost more then I'm paid to teach their poetry workshop.
Jason is easily the most interesting one out 40
and if I could,
I would kick the rest of them out to watch "Elimidate" in the library.


"Ode To My Bathroom"
By Geoff Trenchard

Jason is white sneakers and black socks pulled up to his knees.
Jean shorts and a Hawaiian shirt
he can't for the life of him buttoned straight.
He is multiple decks of "Magic the Gathering" collectible playing cards
and a hair-to-gel ratio still in its experimental phase.

The rest of the class is made up of
seventh-grade celebrity impersonators.
Perfect examples to the power of product placement.
Decked out in rhinestone jeans and velour sweat suits
that cost more then I'm paid to teach their poetry workshop.
Jason is easily the most interesting one out 40
and if I could,
I would kick the rest of them out to watch "Elimidate"
in the library.
No one likes to admit it, but white trash does not grow on trees.
You can look at a 12-year-old
and sometimes see the obnoxious idiot they could one day become.
They aren't bad in that 'grow up
and sell crack to preschoolers' kind of way.
More of the type to drive a Hummer with a
'Save the Planet' bumper sticker.
I don't blame them completely.
Jeffrey McDaniel says
some people are doomed
just because their parents had boring sex.

But Jason is different,
a ball of nervous ticks and endless Monty Python quotes
that tell me
mom and dad got freaky.

He knows more about They Might Be Giants than any human needs to.
Has read Lord of the Rings so many times he speaks Elvish.
But not one of the assignments he has turned in had anything to do with
who Brittney kissed or who Ja Rule's got beef with.

So he's standing at the front of the room about to
read his poem.
Clenching his paper like it was god's autograph.
he says
"AHEM, Ode to my bathroom.
I am a roll of toilet paper
and my life is shitty."

Now, to the kids at Union Middle School,
"shit"
is not just second banana to "fuck."
It's own atomic bomb of profanity
that sends electromagnetic spasms of laughter rippling
through the room.

The 12-year-old J Lo in the front row
laughs so hard she snorts
like a vacuum with a mouse stuck in it.
Every day I watch him stare at her
with the unrequited longing you only have
when you're still a virgin.

He continues,
"I was born in a factory
and grew up in a plastic bag.
Now I hang next to the magazines and plunger
in the constant fear of ass."

In the back,
Eminem's biggest fan flaps his arm like palm leave
welcoming comic Jesus.
Last week, he spent the whole period flicking bits of eraser
and calling him a homo
'til he was about to cry.

Now, Jason's smiling so wide he can barley speak to
finish the poem.
"but today" he says "I am relieved,
because I can smell the three-bean chili the family I live with is cooking
and I know the end is near.
Thank you."

He sits down to a standing ovation.
I shake my head in an awe shucks pendulum.

Later, he asks me if I was pissed
I said,
"Jason don't let anyone tell you any different:
poetry exists
to give the socially awkward
a way to be finally applauded by their peers."

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