Tuesday, August 4, 2009
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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."
The world will end in 2012! ... or not
"The 2012 doomsday prediction is a present-day cultural meme proposing that cataclysmic and apocalyptic events will occur in the year 2012. This idea has been disseminated by numerous books, Internet sites and by TV documentaries."
The best part of this video is the line "even an Internet-based prophetic software program ..." like the I Ching and the Mayan calendar weren't quite enough to sell you on the whole thing. Of course, the gods know the Internet is without flaw. Where else could the Flat Earth Society exist? Cast the first stone, oh, noble hacker.
The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar -- attributed to Mayans or Aztecs, because "Mesoamerican," doesn't doesn't sound as nifty -- which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on Dec. 21 or 23, 2012, along with interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies.
A New Age interpretation of this transition posits that, during this time, the planet and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation rather than an Armageddon, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a newer sociopolitical age for the global community.
I highly doubt the human race will change course in a heartbeat. Living in Sedona for a mere 5 1/2 years, I can definitively state that good will and blind hope hasn't made a whole heck of a lot of difference. Yes, the arts community is more active and we have a few more cool festivals, but there hasn't been any increase in "consciousness," whatever that means. We still have hippies camping in the woods outside of town because they can't afford Sedona's high rent, gas is still just under $3/gallon, and city politics are as petty "me, me, me," as they were when I became a journalist in Sedona 5 years ago.
Baring alien invasion, a visit by angels -- wouldn't that suck if we found out if an extinct religion like Zoroastrianism or the extinct Christian heresies like Arianism or Monothelitism were right -- the only thing that's going to happen by Dec. 23, 2012 is a fire sale on all the "2012 end of the world" merchandise before Christmas Eve.
Yet, Web sites like Survive 2012 are still raking in the dough in the meantime, namely by selling a "Survive 2012" book. God bless capitalism to make a quick buck on Americans' natural fear of being wiped out by prophesies made by "non-Christian foreigners."
If George Bush was still president in 2012, you know he'd be planning a preemptive strike, "against them godless foreigners who hate America back in ... Mayanistan."
On the plus side, it provides great fodder for disaster movies. I do love John Cusack and Oliver Platt. Ever seen "The Ice Harvest?"
Here are some logical postulates why the world won't end in 2012, (or why we won't see it coming via a 1,000-year-old expiration date):
If there is a divine force that guides human events,
And the Mayans had some contact with that divine force 1,000 years ago,
And this divine forces cares enough about human events to give -- at least one population of -- humans an accurate calendar,
This divine force likely won't wipe us out of existence "just because" the calendar says so
Thus, the belief that world will end when the calendar does is false
The world will end in 2012,
which means that there is not a divine force that will prevent it and save us,
which means that there is not a divine force in the universe, which means that the Mesoamericans do not have a calendar derived from divine source,
thus, predictions made 1,000 years ago that the world will end are false,
or at as accurate as saying that Natalie Portman will spontaneous walk through my front door in the next minute and make love to me,
hold on a minute ....
nope, she's not here ... yet.
Or more simply:
If the Mayans had some contact with the divine forces of the universe ...
Why could they not prevent their empire's decline in 900 CE?
or foreseen the Spanish conquest of the 1500s?
My favorite part of the New Age communities' seemingly intentional blissful ignorance of geopolitics, world history, biology or human nature is the blind acceptance that the world will end due to a whole host of fun "kill 'em all let god sort 'em out" fiascoes.
From Survive 2012:
* Flu Pandemic: it might not be swine flu, but flu researchers say a deadly pandemic is not a case of if, but when.
The Black Death wiped out 1/3 of Europe in the 1300s -- at that was when "civilized people" thought leeches were a sane cure and that Jews grew horns and brought the plague on behalf of Lucifer. A pandemic would likely wipe out the Third World, not people who spend their money on nose jobs and the movie "2012."
* Nuclear War / WW3 / Biological War - although the Cold War is over, and less bunkers are being built, the threat is still very real.
No country in its right mind would initiate World War III with nuclear weapons, Mutual Assured Destruction is not a theory but common practice. Even rogue states like North Korea, a coup-led Pakistan or an Islamist-led Iran lack the ballistic capability or power to do anything but launch limited nuclear strikes against their nearest neighbors. And to do so would likely bring a military, perhaps nuclear response by other armed states. North Korea has fewer than 10 nukes and missile technology that can likely not reach halfway across the Pacific. India and Pakistan both have around 60 nukes, but point them at each other while China has more than 250 and a more stable government.
If Iran manages to get one or two nukes by 2012, they would be answered by the 80 nuclear weapons with greater reach the Israel neither confirms nor denies it has. Besides, before Iranians can master missile technology, they have to master PhotoShop (the above photo is what the Iranian press released in 2006 about a cutting edge missile test, the lower photograph was later leaked to French journalists showing the obvious failure of one missile to launch).
* Large Hadron Collider - scientists tinkering with something they think they understand the risks of, but what if there's a 0.000001% chance their black hole calculations are wrong? Is it worth the risk?
If a micro black hole is formed in at CERN, thermodynamic laws of Hawking radiation dictate that they dissipate almost immediately. Even if a large one could be formed that could harm Earth, it would require more power than has ever been produced in the history of mankind to start the process, all at once. But leave it to the Swiss to figure out a way. If CERN could do it, we'd only have minutes to survive anyway before the planet imploded.
* Nanotechnology - while this might have health concerns when used in everyday products (ie sunscreen), the doomsday risk is when self-replicating little thingies are developed. Search for "grey goo."
Not near this level of technology. Maybe if the calendar expired in 2112.
* Religious apocalypse - or rapture, or "judgment day." Most religions predict such a day, but atheists have nothing to worry about.
Sweet. The meek and atheistic shall inherit the Earth. I call dibs on Maui.
* Nuclear Accident - nothing is foolproof. We've had such accidents in the past, and a bigger accident is totally possible.
True, meltdowns are possible, but even a major meltdown and catastrophic explosion would directly affect only a few hundred square miles. Radiation levels would rise globally, but this would not be the end of the world, just the end of a city and maybe a province or state. However, all American nuclear reactors since Three Mile Island in 1979 have been built with a containment core so that if a nuclear meltdown occurred, the radiation would be restricted to the shell. Other nuclear reactors have been retrofitted or use a reduced amount of fissionable material to prevent another meltdown.
* Rise of the Machines - somewhere between Terminator and I Robot is an easy prediction: robots one day will have the capacity to rule the world. Are we stupid enough to allow it to happen?
Before we have the technology to build the first killing machine, we need one that can clean a house. We're still decades from Steve Jobs unveiling the first iDroid.
* Genetic Modification - we blindly take vaccinations, and we might be sheep when it comes to "gene therapy" as well. Our desire to live longer might just be our undoing.
Genetic modification leads to plants that may devastate other plants or cause cancer. This might lead to mutations that destroy us but again, not for a long, long time. Eat an organic apple and shut up.
* Time Travel Error - someone from the future ventures into our past and causes a conflict in the time-space continuum...
1) If someone from our time went back in time, we'd already be living in the universe they changed.
2) If someone from the future comes back to our time, they would already have known about the effect as it would be "history" in their time. To us, however, it would be as though nothing new happened.
From Space
Nearby Supernova - experts say that no supernova candidates are close enough to harm us. But how many supernovas have they observed?
Warning signs from supernovas, i.e., radiation, travel at the speed of light. The dust and debris of supernovas, however, travel much, much slower. If our nearest star, Alpha Centauri went nova, the first warning sign of radiation would take 4 1/2 years to reach us, even traveling at the speed of light. Which means the material would reach us sometime in the next 40 to 400 years. It's a long, long distance and incredibly slow. If a nearby star exploded, it could destroy Earth, yes. But not in the next three years.
* Explosion from the black hole at the center of our galaxy - read about how something similar could have caused the recent tsunami.
The center of the galaxy is roughly 50,000 light years from us. Again, only light and electromagnetic radiation travels at that speed. If a black hole exploded in or near the center of the galaxy, it would take roughly hundreds of thousands of years to reach us, meaning the detonation had to have happened roughly at the same time modern humans began using tools. And this far away on the edge of the Orion Arm, we have little to fear.
* Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) - a 2004 study told us that a GRB from a distance of just one kiloparsec could destroy half of Earth's ozone layer.
Dangerous, yes, but I decided to read that 2004 Princeton study (scroll down to the "Print options" to download the pdf). One happens every 10,000 to 100,000 years. And gamma-ray bursts are not like a typical nova, they eject material from a star at both poles, meaning the pole would have to be aimed right at Earth. So imagine trying to shoot a dime standing on its end on the observation deck of the Empire State Building ... and you're blindfolded and have to spin around and shoot without aiming ... and you only get one shot every 10,000 years ... and you have to do it standing in a parking lot on the island of Guam.
* Asteroid, Meteor or Comet - ancient, advanced civilizations have one distinct advantage over us - they may have observed the skies for longer, and may have spotted an orbit that will culminate in a collision with Earth in 2012.
True, most cultures watched the stars. However, the concept that space is a three-dimensional environment and not just the "painted" interior of a sphere is a relatively new concept. Johannes Kepler was the first European to even conjecture that space might not be so simple in the 1530s, but there is certainly no evidence that any ancient peoples from Stonehenge builders to Aztecs saw the movement of planets and stars as anything. Most earlier peoples thought the skies were like an overturned bowl on a table, with Earth as the table and certainly wouldn't even imagine the collision of a celestial body with the Earth. A large asteroid ("Armageddon") or comet ("Deep Impact") would be an extinction-level event that could roll into the solar system and destroy life on Earth by 2012, I just doubt the Mayans saw it coming.
* Coronal Mass Ejection (CRE) from our Sun - typically expected to merely cause power blackouts and wreck satellites. But do we really know how big they can get?
The hypercharged plasma would cause blackouts and maybe an electromagnetic burst-type disruption. It would wipe out bank records, a la "Fight Club" but not destroy Earth. The sun could eject physical matter, too, but to hit Earth, this has the same weight at the gamma-ray burst hypothesis, but you get to shoot once every 5,500 years with a howitzer while standing in Battery Park. Still blindfolded though.
* Cosmic Rays - a pet favorite of mine. Either an increase striking our atmosphere, or a weakening of our shields. Either way, more cosmic rays would be silent killers.
Cosmic rays cause cancer and genetic defects. A sudden influx would increase cancer risk, but we're not going to suffer a massive influx of cosmic radiation on Dec. 21, 2009, and begin dropping like flies on Dec. 22. Earth's electromagnetic field, rotation, and moist atmosphere block most radiation anyway. It could lead to massive numbers of deaths by cancer, but it would take years to see the effects.
* Alien Invasion - no evidence, but plenty or believers!
They could also bring us the equivalent of space chocolate. Which would be awesome.
* Solar System Falls Apart (butterfly effect) - to the best of our knowledge, everything is OK for a long, long time. But throw a stray comet or Planet X into the mix, and our solar system could turn into a catastrophic pinball machine.
Or turn every human being into purple-skinned versions of Tom Waits. Which would be equally awesome.
From Earth
* Magnetic Pole Shift - this is something that scientists state has happened before. They suggest it takes thousands of years and does no harm. They are wrong - it could just as easily happen overnight. No mechanism is known for the cause of the magnetic poles swapping places.
The magnetic poles migrate but at the rates of 1° per million years or less. There is no evidence or cause as to why they might shift any faster. Dramatic global changes require a tremendous amount of power, mass, electromagnetic disturbance or other celestial bodies passing nearby, none of which happen quickly nor out of the blue. If something like this were to happen by 2012, we'd likely have noticed warning signs for at least a decade.
* Crustal Displacement - a physical pole shift.
Superearthquake? Lots of buildings fall down but even a major quake beyond anything seen before is still a highly localized phenomenon, not the end of the world.
* Supervolcano -these are real, they have caused great catastrophes in the past, and we have no idea when the next eruption will be. Some believe Yellowstone has been exhibiting signs of unrest.
This is actually feasible.
* Ice Age - right now the buzz is about "global warming", yet a mere thirty years ago we were worried about an impending Ice Age.
Takes hundreds if not thousands of years.
* Global Warming - it will only take an increase of a couple of degrees to make life very difficult for most humans
This is a serious concern, but a gradual one. The temperature won't suddenly jump 10°F between Dec. 20 and Dec. 21, 2012.
Other 2012 criticism:
(I'm not the only one critical of the New Age)
* Academic research does not indicate that the Maya attached any apocalyptic significance to the year 2012: the date for the end of their world lay unimaginable aeons of time in the future.
* John Major Jenkins's 'Galactic alignment' theory is based not only on a misleading astronomical claim, but in part on the same false calendrical premise.
* As the Timewave Zero theory has never been published in a peer-reviewed journal and its sources and reasoning are primarily what would be considered numerological rather than mathematical, the theory has failed to gain any scientific credibility or much recognition by professional mathematicians and scientists.
* Professional astronomers ridicule the Nibiru collision theory, which is based on claimed 'channeling' by extraterrestrials.
* More academic research is needed into the claimed Hopi prophecy: it does not appear to mention the year 2012.
* The Bible's Book of Revelation, composed some 1,900 years ago, did indeed offer a dramatic picture of the end of the world—but it also promised that it would happen "very soon," and indirectly mentions Roman Caesars who were persecuting Christians. The Bible says nothing about 2012 or any similar date.
* The prophecy of the Tiburtine Sybil, as reproduced in the 16th century, did indeed likewise present a dramatic picture of the apocalypse, but did not date it, least of all to 2012.
* While the quatrains of Nostradamus are clearly intended to be read in a pre-apocalyptic context, they do not specifically mention (or, consequently, date) the end of the world: the preface states that they are valid until the year 3797.
* The so-called Lost Book of Nostradamus is a version of the anonymous Vaticinia de summis pontificibus — a book of prophetic papal emblems dating from centuries before his time – and does not mention the year 2012.
* The Prophecies of Merlin were a fictional composition by the medieval Geoffrey of Monmouth, amplified in 13th-century Venice, and did not mention the year 2012.
* The original 1641 edition of The Prophecies of Mother Shipton says nothing at all about doomsday or the end of the world or, consequently, any proposed date for either.
* The alarmist claims of imminent doom made by Sony Pictures in their fictional publicity for the forthcoming film 2012 are not supported by reputable independent academic research.
All I know about 2012 is that if the world is going to end, throw your vote away on my 2012 Sedona mayoral campaign.
The best part of this video is the line "even an Internet-based prophetic software program ..." like the I Ching and the Mayan calendar weren't quite enough to sell you on the whole thing. Of course, the gods know the Internet is without flaw. Where else could the Flat Earth Society exist? Cast the first stone, oh, noble hacker.
The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar -- attributed to Mayans or Aztecs, because "Mesoamerican," doesn't doesn't sound as nifty -- which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on Dec. 21 or 23, 2012, along with interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies.A New Age interpretation of this transition posits that, during this time, the planet and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation rather than an Armageddon, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a newer sociopolitical age for the global community.
I highly doubt the human race will change course in a heartbeat. Living in Sedona for a mere 5 1/2 years, I can definitively state that good will and blind hope hasn't made a whole heck of a lot of difference. Yes, the arts community is more active and we have a few more cool festivals, but there hasn't been any increase in "consciousness," whatever that means. We still have hippies camping in the woods outside of town because they can't afford Sedona's high rent, gas is still just under $3/gallon, and city politics are as petty "me, me, me," as they were when I became a journalist in Sedona 5 years ago.
Baring alien invasion, a visit by angels -- wouldn't that suck if we found out if an extinct religion like Zoroastrianism or the extinct Christian heresies like Arianism or Monothelitism were right -- the only thing that's going to happen by Dec. 23, 2012 is a fire sale on all the "2012 end of the world" merchandise before Christmas Eve.Yet, Web sites like Survive 2012 are still raking in the dough in the meantime, namely by selling a "Survive 2012" book. God bless capitalism to make a quick buck on Americans' natural fear of being wiped out by prophesies made by "non-Christian foreigners."
If George Bush was still president in 2012, you know he'd be planning a preemptive strike, "against them godless foreigners who hate America back in ... Mayanistan."
On the plus side, it provides great fodder for disaster movies. I do love John Cusack and Oliver Platt. Ever seen "The Ice Harvest?"
Here are some logical postulates why the world won't end in 2012, (or why we won't see it coming via a 1,000-year-old expiration date):
If there is a divine force that guides human events,
And the Mayans had some contact with that divine force 1,000 years ago,
And this divine forces cares enough about human events to give -- at least one population of -- humans an accurate calendar,
This divine force likely won't wipe us out of existence "just because" the calendar says so
Thus, the belief that world will end when the calendar does is false
or
The world will end in 2012, which means that there is not a divine force that will prevent it and save us,
which means that there is not a divine force in the universe, which means that the Mesoamericans do not have a calendar derived from divine source,
thus, predictions made 1,000 years ago that the world will end are false,
or at as accurate as saying that Natalie Portman will spontaneous walk through my front door in the next minute and make love to me,
hold on a minute ....
nope, she's not here ... yet.
Or more simply:
If the Mayans had some contact with the divine forces of the universe ...
Why could they not prevent their empire's decline in 900 CE?
or foreseen the Spanish conquest of the 1500s?
My favorite part of the New Age communities' seemingly intentional blissful ignorance of geopolitics, world history, biology or human nature is the blind acceptance that the world will end due to a whole host of fun "kill 'em all let god sort 'em out" fiascoes.
From Survive 2012:
* Flu Pandemic: it might not be swine flu, but flu researchers say a deadly pandemic is not a case of if, but when.
The Black Death wiped out 1/3 of Europe in the 1300s -- at that was when "civilized people" thought leeches were a sane cure and that Jews grew horns and brought the plague on behalf of Lucifer. A pandemic would likely wipe out the Third World, not people who spend their money on nose jobs and the movie "2012."
* Nuclear War / WW3 / Biological War - although the Cold War is over, and less bunkers are being built, the threat is still very real.No country in its right mind would initiate World War III with nuclear weapons, Mutual Assured Destruction is not a theory but common practice. Even rogue states like North Korea, a coup-led Pakistan or an Islamist-led Iran lack the ballistic capability or power to do anything but launch limited nuclear strikes against their nearest neighbors. And to do so would likely bring a military, perhaps nuclear response by other armed states. North Korea has fewer than 10 nukes and missile technology that can likely not reach halfway across the Pacific. India and Pakistan both have around 60 nukes, but point them at each other while China has more than 250 and a more stable government.
If Iran manages to get one or two nukes by 2012, they would be answered by the 80 nuclear weapons with greater reach the Israel neither confirms nor denies it has. Besides, before Iranians can master missile technology, they have to master PhotoShop (the above photo is what the Iranian press released in 2006 about a cutting edge missile test, the lower photograph was later leaked to French journalists showing the obvious failure of one missile to launch).* Large Hadron Collider - scientists tinkering with something they think they understand the risks of, but what if there's a 0.000001% chance their black hole calculations are wrong? Is it worth the risk?
If a micro black hole is formed in at CERN, thermodynamic laws of Hawking radiation dictate that they dissipate almost immediately. Even if a large one could be formed that could harm Earth, it would require more power than has ever been produced in the history of mankind to start the process, all at once. But leave it to the Swiss to figure out a way. If CERN could do it, we'd only have minutes to survive anyway before the planet imploded. * Nanotechnology - while this might have health concerns when used in everyday products (ie sunscreen), the doomsday risk is when self-replicating little thingies are developed. Search for "grey goo."
Not near this level of technology. Maybe if the calendar expired in 2112.
* Religious apocalypse - or rapture, or "judgment day." Most religions predict such a day, but atheists have nothing to worry about.
Sweet. The meek and atheistic shall inherit the Earth. I call dibs on Maui.
* Nuclear Accident - nothing is foolproof. We've had such accidents in the past, and a bigger accident is totally possible.
True, meltdowns are possible, but even a major meltdown and catastrophic explosion would directly affect only a few hundred square miles. Radiation levels would rise globally, but this would not be the end of the world, just the end of a city and maybe a province or state. However, all American nuclear reactors since Three Mile Island in 1979 have been built with a containment core so that if a nuclear meltdown occurred, the radiation would be restricted to the shell. Other nuclear reactors have been retrofitted or use a reduced amount of fissionable material to prevent another meltdown.
* Rise of the Machines - somewhere between Terminator and I Robot is an easy prediction: robots one day will have the capacity to rule the world. Are we stupid enough to allow it to happen?Before we have the technology to build the first killing machine, we need one that can clean a house. We're still decades from Steve Jobs unveiling the first iDroid.
* Genetic Modification - we blindly take vaccinations, and we might be sheep when it comes to "gene therapy" as well. Our desire to live longer might just be our undoing.
Genetic modification leads to plants that may devastate other plants or cause cancer. This might lead to mutations that destroy us but again, not for a long, long time. Eat an organic apple and shut up.
* Time Travel Error - someone from the future ventures into our past and causes a conflict in the time-space continuum...
1) If someone from our time went back in time, we'd already be living in the universe they changed.
2) If someone from the future comes back to our time, they would already have known about the effect as it would be "history" in their time. To us, however, it would be as though nothing new happened.
From Space
Nearby Supernova - experts say that no supernova candidates are close enough to harm us. But how many supernovas have they observed?
Warning signs from supernovas, i.e., radiation, travel at the speed of light. The dust and debris of supernovas, however, travel much, much slower. If our nearest star, Alpha Centauri went nova, the first warning sign of radiation would take 4 1/2 years to reach us, even traveling at the speed of light. Which means the material would reach us sometime in the next 40 to 400 years. It's a long, long distance and incredibly slow. If a nearby star exploded, it could destroy Earth, yes. But not in the next three years.
* Explosion from the black hole at the center of our galaxy - read about how something similar could have caused the recent tsunami.
The center of the galaxy is roughly 50,000 light years from us. Again, only light and electromagnetic radiation travels at that speed. If a black hole exploded in or near the center of the galaxy, it would take roughly hundreds of thousands of years to reach us, meaning the detonation had to have happened roughly at the same time modern humans began using tools. And this far away on the edge of the Orion Arm, we have little to fear.* Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) - a 2004 study told us that a GRB from a distance of just one kiloparsec could destroy half of Earth's ozone layer.
Dangerous, yes, but I decided to read that 2004 Princeton study (scroll down to the "Print options" to download the pdf). One happens every 10,000 to 100,000 years. And gamma-ray bursts are not like a typical nova, they eject material from a star at both poles, meaning the pole would have to be aimed right at Earth. So imagine trying to shoot a dime standing on its end on the observation deck of the Empire State Building ... and you're blindfolded and have to spin around and shoot without aiming ... and you only get one shot every 10,000 years ... and you have to do it standing in a parking lot on the island of Guam.
* Asteroid, Meteor or Comet - ancient, advanced civilizations have one distinct advantage over us - they may have observed the skies for longer, and may have spotted an orbit that will culminate in a collision with Earth in 2012.True, most cultures watched the stars. However, the concept that space is a three-dimensional environment and not just the "painted" interior of a sphere is a relatively new concept. Johannes Kepler was the first European to even conjecture that space might not be so simple in the 1530s, but there is certainly no evidence that any ancient peoples from Stonehenge builders to Aztecs saw the movement of planets and stars as anything. Most earlier peoples thought the skies were like an overturned bowl on a table, with Earth as the table and certainly wouldn't even imagine the collision of a celestial body with the Earth. A large asteroid ("Armageddon") or comet ("Deep Impact") would be an extinction-level event that could roll into the solar system and destroy life on Earth by 2012, I just doubt the Mayans saw it coming.
* Coronal Mass Ejection (CRE) from our Sun - typically expected to merely cause power blackouts and wreck satellites. But do we really know how big they can get?The hypercharged plasma would cause blackouts and maybe an electromagnetic burst-type disruption. It would wipe out bank records, a la "Fight Club" but not destroy Earth. The sun could eject physical matter, too, but to hit Earth, this has the same weight at the gamma-ray burst hypothesis, but you get to shoot once every 5,500 years with a howitzer while standing in Battery Park. Still blindfolded though.
* Cosmic Rays - a pet favorite of mine. Either an increase striking our atmosphere, or a weakening of our shields. Either way, more cosmic rays would be silent killers.Cosmic rays cause cancer and genetic defects. A sudden influx would increase cancer risk, but we're not going to suffer a massive influx of cosmic radiation on Dec. 21, 2009, and begin dropping like flies on Dec. 22. Earth's electromagnetic field, rotation, and moist atmosphere block most radiation anyway. It could lead to massive numbers of deaths by cancer, but it would take years to see the effects.
* Alien Invasion - no evidence, but plenty or believers!
They could also bring us the equivalent of space chocolate. Which would be awesome.
* Solar System Falls Apart (butterfly effect) - to the best of our knowledge, everything is OK for a long, long time. But throw a stray comet or Planet X into the mix, and our solar system could turn into a catastrophic pinball machine.
Or turn every human being into purple-skinned versions of Tom Waits. Which would be equally awesome.
From Earth
* Magnetic Pole Shift - this is something that scientists state has happened before. They suggest it takes thousands of years and does no harm. They are wrong - it could just as easily happen overnight. No mechanism is known for the cause of the magnetic poles swapping places.
The magnetic poles migrate but at the rates of 1° per million years or less. There is no evidence or cause as to why they might shift any faster. Dramatic global changes require a tremendous amount of power, mass, electromagnetic disturbance or other celestial bodies passing nearby, none of which happen quickly nor out of the blue. If something like this were to happen by 2012, we'd likely have noticed warning signs for at least a decade.
* Crustal Displacement - a physical pole shift.
Superearthquake? Lots of buildings fall down but even a major quake beyond anything seen before is still a highly localized phenomenon, not the end of the world.
* Supervolcano -these are real, they have caused great catastrophes in the past, and we have no idea when the next eruption will be. Some believe Yellowstone has been exhibiting signs of unrest.
This is actually feasible.
* Ice Age - right now the buzz is about "global warming", yet a mere thirty years ago we were worried about an impending Ice Age.
Takes hundreds if not thousands of years.
* Global Warming - it will only take an increase of a couple of degrees to make life very difficult for most humans
This is a serious concern, but a gradual one. The temperature won't suddenly jump 10°F between Dec. 20 and Dec. 21, 2012.
Other 2012 criticism:
(I'm not the only one critical of the New Age)
* Academic research does not indicate that the Maya attached any apocalyptic significance to the year 2012: the date for the end of their world lay unimaginable aeons of time in the future.
* John Major Jenkins's 'Galactic alignment' theory is based not only on a misleading astronomical claim, but in part on the same false calendrical premise.
* As the Timewave Zero theory has never been published in a peer-reviewed journal and its sources and reasoning are primarily what would be considered numerological rather than mathematical, the theory has failed to gain any scientific credibility or much recognition by professional mathematicians and scientists.
* Professional astronomers ridicule the Nibiru collision theory, which is based on claimed 'channeling' by extraterrestrials.
* More academic research is needed into the claimed Hopi prophecy: it does not appear to mention the year 2012.
* The Bible's Book of Revelation, composed some 1,900 years ago, did indeed offer a dramatic picture of the end of the world—but it also promised that it would happen "very soon," and indirectly mentions Roman Caesars who were persecuting Christians. The Bible says nothing about 2012 or any similar date.
* The prophecy of the Tiburtine Sybil, as reproduced in the 16th century, did indeed likewise present a dramatic picture of the apocalypse, but did not date it, least of all to 2012.
* While the quatrains of Nostradamus are clearly intended to be read in a pre-apocalyptic context, they do not specifically mention (or, consequently, date) the end of the world: the preface states that they are valid until the year 3797.
* The so-called Lost Book of Nostradamus is a version of the anonymous Vaticinia de summis pontificibus — a book of prophetic papal emblems dating from centuries before his time – and does not mention the year 2012.
* The Prophecies of Merlin were a fictional composition by the medieval Geoffrey of Monmouth, amplified in 13th-century Venice, and did not mention the year 2012.
* The original 1641 edition of The Prophecies of Mother Shipton says nothing at all about doomsday or the end of the world or, consequently, any proposed date for either.
* The alarmist claims of imminent doom made by Sony Pictures in their fictional publicity for the forthcoming film 2012 are not supported by reputable independent academic research.
All I know about 2012 is that if the world is going to end, throw your vote away on my 2012 Sedona mayoral campaign.
GumptionFest IV Haiku Death Match Haiku
Writing haiku late
Death Match comes soon, so count quick
One, two ... seventeen
Death Match comes soon, so count quick
One, two ... seventeen
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
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
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Slam Tutorial: Embrace Your Inner Nerd - Generally
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 most common of which is: Stereotypical Nerd
Shappy Seasholtz's "I Am That Nerd" is not just a celebration of all that is nerdy - alluding to Star Wars, real world scientists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, E.T. and A.L.F. - but also great slam poems.
The poem touches on these topics to give reference but doesn't delve into them so deeply that the audience might get lost, for instance, "Han Solo hit / on Boba Fett that caused him to fall into the / Sarlac pit?" is perhaps the most obscure science fiction reference and even it isn't all that deep. He easily could have explored the metaphor into generally known Star Wars canon and even obscurely known fanon, yet keeps the poem flowing on the surface level so that those who have only seen the original Star Wars trilogy once can keep in touch.
On the poetic side, "I Am That Nerd" mimics Saul Williams' manifesto "Sha Clack Clack," one of the best-known poems in the national poetry slam scene, Williams' spiritualistic poem "Ohm," and Kayo's "Who Am I?"
Shappy's title "I Am That Nerd" is a direct allusion to Williams' hook line "I am that nigga," from "Sha Clack Clack."
"I Am That Nerd"
By Shappy Seasholtz
I am that nerd
I am that eternal nerd of spoken word
What can I say?
Spent all my rent money buying action figures on eBay!
I didn't come over to chit-chat
I came here to role-play!
I will smite thee with my 12-sided die
You better watch out
Cuz I'm coming atcha with my nerd eye!
I'm rocking you like Geddy Lee
I'd talk to more girls if they didn't make me
want to pee
myself
I'm a magical elf
Keep your hands off my Star Wars shelf
That's right bitch -- that's a Jawa with its
original plastic cape
Don't that flip your switch?
Like the switch Han Solo hit
on Boba Fett that caused him to fall into the
Sarlac pit?
Lest we forget!
I'm coming at you in 3-D
Keepin' it reel with two EE's, y'see?
And there's nothing you can do
Cuz I'm so much nerdier and smarter than you!
I had Stephen Hawking -- gawking and gasping
for air
Blew his mind with my knowledge and he fell
out of his chair!
I beat Matthew Broderick at war games with my Atari
I dug up Einstein's bones and made them say I'm sorry
for that weak-ass theory of relativity
Cuz MC Squared=Me, see?
I'm the plastic baby Jesus in your mind's nativity
I'll deprogram your mind with my Commodore 64
I'm so rich with nerd power
I make Bill Gates feel poor!
I will kidnap George Lucas from Skywalker ranch
and lock him in my basement until he removes
Jar-Jar Binks from every frame of Phantom Menace
and Attack of the Clones and replaces him with me!
For I am an ancient Jedi Knight; only Yoda could be older
I knocked Mork's space egg out of orbit and made it crash in Boulder
I'm the one who gave Darth Vader asthma
I liquefied Alf and E.T. and drank their plasma
Only I can unravel the mystery of the Sith
Cuz I knocked over the Black Monolith
with my boner!
Bet you didn't see that one cumming!
I'm a mystical nerd shaman who never stops
drumming on your stupid, stupid mind!
I'm the Original Star Trek and you are
Deep Space Nine!
I spin webs round your soul like Spidey on acid
Because my nerd rocket is taking off
And your shit be flaccid -- OHM!
Shappy attended Eastern Michigan University on a speech scholarship and went on to win two National Forensics titles in After Dinner speaking and Dramatic Duo. He also acted and directed several plays including Pop Manifesto (a one-act play Shappy wrote in which all of the dialogue was commercial jingles) which won Shappy an undergraduate Symposium Award.
After college, Shappy joined The Great Theatre Migration of 91 to Chicago. He formed several theatre companies with his college buddies and wrote and performed his own material. One show was a throwback to the Living Newspaper of the Great Depression era in which current events were acted out on stage called Every Speck Of Dust That Falls To Earth. Shappy also worked with members of the Neo-futurists for a musical about quantum physics.
Shappy eventually discovered the Poetry Slam at The Green Mill and wound up being taped (and bleeped twice) for CNN. He won a slam and ended up touring with Lollapalooza 1994, spreading the word of Nerd Power and making lots of friends along the way. The next year he "Shappy-roned" the first ever Austin slam team to the Nationals and has been an honorary Austin poet ever since, performing at nearly every South by Southwest the last 8 years.
Shappy then tried his schtick in the Chicago comedy scene. He hosted his own live talk show (Nite Cap with Shap) and appeared in the Chicago Comedy Festival 4 times including the Neil Hamburger Show. He also appeared regularly at Midnight Bible School at the legendary Second City.
Shappy has competed at a National Poetry Slam only once so far for the Mad Bar team in 2000. He made it as far as the Individual Semis and was asked to perform in Denmark with Beau Sia and Shayne Koyczan.
Shappy has had 2 books published by Kapow! Press including Little Book Of Ass which won a Firecracker Award for best poetry in 2000. He also has a CD called Poet/Comedian/Asshole available.
He now resides in NYC pursuing all things fun and poetic. In the 6 months he has been in New York he has performed at several colleges, slammed Soundheim lyrics at Joe's Pub, improved with the Upright Citizen's Brigade, auditioned for Mad TV and can be found bartending at Bob Holman's latest venture, The Bowery Poetry Club.
In his spare time Shappy plays Scrabble with his super-hot girlfriend Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, reads lots of comic books and dreams of one day owning a crime-solving wiener dog named Wallingford.
"Sha Clack Clack"
By Saul Williams
If I could find the spot where truth echoes
I would stand there and whisper memories of my children's future
I would let their future dwell in my past
so that I might live a brighter now
Now is the essence of my domain and it contains
all that was and will be
And I am as I was and will be because I am and always will be
that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that timeless nigga that swings on pendulums like vines
through mines of booby trapped minds that are enslaved by time
I am the life that supersedes lifetimes, I am
It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless stare
that with immortal glare turned mortal fear into stone time capsules
They still exist as the walking dead, as I do
The original sulphurhead, symbol of life and matriarchy
severed head Medusa, I am
I am that nigga
I am that nigga!
I am that nigga!!
I am a negro! Yes negro, negro from "necro" meaning death
I overcame it so they named me after it
And I be spitting at death from behind
and putting "Kick Me" signs on it's back
because I am not the son of Sha-Clack-Clack
I am before that,
I am before
I am before before
Before death is eternity,
after death is eternity
There is no death there's only eternity
And I be riding on the wings of eternity
like HYAH! HYAH! HYAH!
Sha-Clack-Clack
but my flight doesn't go undisturbed
Because time makes dreams defer
And all of my time fears are turning my days into daymares
And I live daymares reliving nightmares
of what taunted my past
Sha-Clack-Clack, time is beatin' my ass
And I be havin' dreams of chocolate covered watermelons
Filled with fried chickens like pinatas
With little pickaninny sons and daughters
standing up under them with big sticks and aluminum foil
Hittin' em, tryin' to catch pieces of fallin' fried chicken wings
And Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are standing in the corners
with rifles pointed at the heads of the little children
"Don't shoot the children," I shout, "don't shoot the children!"
but they say it's too late
They've already been infected by time
But that shit is before my time
I need more time
I need more time
But it's too late
They start shooting at children and killing them!
One by one,
two by two,
three by three,
four by four
Five by five,
six by six, but
my spirit is growing seven by seven
Faster than the speed of light
Cause light only penetrates the darkness that's already there
and I'm already there
I'm here at the end of the road
which is the beginning of the road beyond time, but
where my niggaz at?
Oh shit, don't tell me my niggaz got lost in time
My niggaz are dying before their time
My niggaz are serving unjust time
My niggaz are dying because of.. time
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 most common of which is: Stereotypical Nerd
Shappy Seasholtz's "I Am That Nerd" is not just a celebration of all that is nerdy - alluding to Star Wars, real world scientists Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, E.T. and A.L.F. - but also great slam poems.
The poem touches on these topics to give reference but doesn't delve into them so deeply that the audience might get lost, for instance, "Han Solo hit / on Boba Fett that caused him to fall into the / Sarlac pit?" is perhaps the most obscure science fiction reference and even it isn't all that deep. He easily could have explored the metaphor into generally known Star Wars canon and even obscurely known fanon, yet keeps the poem flowing on the surface level so that those who have only seen the original Star Wars trilogy once can keep in touch.
On the poetic side, "I Am That Nerd" mimics Saul Williams' manifesto "Sha Clack Clack," one of the best-known poems in the national poetry slam scene, Williams' spiritualistic poem "Ohm," and Kayo's "Who Am I?"
Shappy's title "I Am That Nerd" is a direct allusion to Williams' hook line "I am that nigga," from "Sha Clack Clack."
"I Am That Nerd"
By Shappy Seasholtz
I am that nerd
I am that eternal nerd of spoken word
What can I say?
Spent all my rent money buying action figures on eBay!
I didn't come over to chit-chat
I came here to role-play!
I will smite thee with my 12-sided die
You better watch out
Cuz I'm coming atcha with my nerd eye!
I'm rocking you like Geddy Lee
I'd talk to more girls if they didn't make me
want to pee
myself
I'm a magical elf
Keep your hands off my Star Wars shelf
That's right bitch -- that's a Jawa with its
original plastic cape
Don't that flip your switch?
Like the switch Han Solo hit
on Boba Fett that caused him to fall into the
Sarlac pit?
Lest we forget!
I'm coming at you in 3-D
Keepin' it reel with two EE's, y'see?
And there's nothing you can do
Cuz I'm so much nerdier and smarter than you!
I had Stephen Hawking -- gawking and gasping
for air
Blew his mind with my knowledge and he fell
out of his chair!
I beat Matthew Broderick at war games with my Atari
I dug up Einstein's bones and made them say I'm sorry
for that weak-ass theory of relativity
Cuz MC Squared=Me, see?
I'm the plastic baby Jesus in your mind's nativity
I'll deprogram your mind with my Commodore 64
I'm so rich with nerd power
I make Bill Gates feel poor!
I will kidnap George Lucas from Skywalker ranch
and lock him in my basement until he removes
Jar-Jar Binks from every frame of Phantom Menace
and Attack of the Clones and replaces him with me!
For I am an ancient Jedi Knight; only Yoda could be older
I knocked Mork's space egg out of orbit and made it crash in Boulder
I'm the one who gave Darth Vader asthma
I liquefied Alf and E.T. and drank their plasma
Only I can unravel the mystery of the Sith
Cuz I knocked over the Black Monolith
with my boner!
Bet you didn't see that one cumming!
I'm a mystical nerd shaman who never stops
drumming on your stupid, stupid mind!
I'm the Original Star Trek and you are
Deep Space Nine!
I spin webs round your soul like Spidey on acid
Because my nerd rocket is taking off
And your shit be flaccid -- OHM!
Shappy attended Eastern Michigan University on a speech scholarship and went on to win two National Forensics titles in After Dinner speaking and Dramatic Duo. He also acted and directed several plays including Pop Manifesto (a one-act play Shappy wrote in which all of the dialogue was commercial jingles) which won Shappy an undergraduate Symposium Award.
After college, Shappy joined The Great Theatre Migration of 91 to Chicago. He formed several theatre companies with his college buddies and wrote and performed his own material. One show was a throwback to the Living Newspaper of the Great Depression era in which current events were acted out on stage called Every Speck Of Dust That Falls To Earth. Shappy also worked with members of the Neo-futurists for a musical about quantum physics.
Shappy eventually discovered the Poetry Slam at The Green Mill and wound up being taped (and bleeped twice) for CNN. He won a slam and ended up touring with Lollapalooza 1994, spreading the word of Nerd Power and making lots of friends along the way. The next year he "Shappy-roned" the first ever Austin slam team to the Nationals and has been an honorary Austin poet ever since, performing at nearly every South by Southwest the last 8 years.
Shappy then tried his schtick in the Chicago comedy scene. He hosted his own live talk show (Nite Cap with Shap) and appeared in the Chicago Comedy Festival 4 times including the Neil Hamburger Show. He also appeared regularly at Midnight Bible School at the legendary Second City.
Shappy has competed at a National Poetry Slam only once so far for the Mad Bar team in 2000. He made it as far as the Individual Semis and was asked to perform in Denmark with Beau Sia and Shayne Koyczan.
Shappy has had 2 books published by Kapow! Press including Little Book Of Ass which won a Firecracker Award for best poetry in 2000. He also has a CD called Poet/Comedian/Asshole available.
He now resides in NYC pursuing all things fun and poetic. In the 6 months he has been in New York he has performed at several colleges, slammed Soundheim lyrics at Joe's Pub, improved with the Upright Citizen's Brigade, auditioned for Mad TV and can be found bartending at Bob Holman's latest venture, The Bowery Poetry Club.
In his spare time Shappy plays Scrabble with his super-hot girlfriend Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, reads lots of comic books and dreams of one day owning a crime-solving wiener dog named Wallingford.
"Sha Clack Clack"
By Saul Williams
If I could find the spot where truth echoes
I would stand there and whisper memories of my children's future
I would let their future dwell in my past
so that I might live a brighter now
Now is the essence of my domain and it contains
all that was and will be
And I am as I was and will be because I am and always will be
that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that nigga
I am that timeless nigga that swings on pendulums like vines
through mines of booby trapped minds that are enslaved by time
I am the life that supersedes lifetimes, I am
It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless stare
that with immortal glare turned mortal fear into stone time capsules
They still exist as the walking dead, as I do
The original sulphurhead, symbol of life and matriarchy
severed head Medusa, I am
I am that nigga
I am that nigga!
I am that nigga!!
I am a negro! Yes negro, negro from "necro" meaning death
I overcame it so they named me after it
And I be spitting at death from behind
and putting "Kick Me" signs on it's back
because I am not the son of Sha-Clack-Clack
I am before that,
I am before
I am before before
Before death is eternity,
after death is eternity
There is no death there's only eternity
And I be riding on the wings of eternity
like HYAH! HYAH! HYAH!
Sha-Clack-Clack
but my flight doesn't go undisturbed
Because time makes dreams defer
And all of my time fears are turning my days into daymares
And I live daymares reliving nightmares
of what taunted my past
Sha-Clack-Clack, time is beatin' my ass
And I be havin' dreams of chocolate covered watermelons
Filled with fried chickens like pinatas
With little pickaninny sons and daughters
standing up under them with big sticks and aluminum foil
Hittin' em, tryin' to catch pieces of fallin' fried chicken wings
And Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben are standing in the corners
with rifles pointed at the heads of the little children
"Don't shoot the children," I shout, "don't shoot the children!"
but they say it's too late
They've already been infected by time
But that shit is before my time
I need more time
I need more time
But it's too late
They start shooting at children and killing them!
One by one,
two by two,
three by three,
four by four
Five by five,
six by six, but
my spirit is growing seven by seven
Faster than the speed of light
Cause light only penetrates the darkness that's already there
and I'm already there
I'm here at the end of the road
which is the beginning of the road beyond time, but
where my niggaz at?
Oh shit, don't tell me my niggaz got lost in time
My niggaz are dying before their time
My niggaz are serving unjust time
My niggaz are dying because of.. time
Friday, July 31, 2009
GumptionFest Needs Haikusters!
If you write haiku, your name should wind up on the bracket before the GumptionFest IV Haiku Death Match begins on Saturday, Sept. 5
GumptionFest IV will have a Haiku Death Match
GumptionFest IV's Haiku Death Match, aka GF4HDM
A Haiku Death Match is a competitive poetry duel that is a subgenre of poetry slam. The Haiku Death Match is a prominent feature at the annual National Poetry Slam, replete with full costume for the host, Jim Navé from Taos, N.M. or Daniel Ferri.
At GumptionFest IV, we will attempt to hold a Haiku Death Match as similar to the NPS version as possible.
What is haiku?
Haiku (俳句) is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of 17 syllables in three metrical phrases of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.
Japanese haiku typically contain a kigo, or seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal caesura. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines, to parallel the three metrical phrases of Japanese haiku.
What is slam haiku?
Slam haiku used in a Haiku Death Match is far simpler: Use of three or fewer lines of 17 syllables. Slam haiku can be anything from a single 17-syllable line or simply 17 words. Two of mine:
A standard Haiku Death Match is conducted thus:
The host randomly draws the names of two poets, known as haikusters, from the pool of competitors.
The haikusters adorn headbands of two colors: Red and Not-Red (white).
Red Haikuster and Host bow to each other.
Not-Red Haikuster and Host bow to each other.
Red Haikuster and Not-Red Haikuster bow to each other.
Red Haikuster goes first.
The Red Haikuster reads his or her haiku twice. The audience does not clap or make noise (usually, though, they laugh or vocalize, but, of course, we must pretend that this is completely unacceptable).
The Not-Red Haikuster reads his or her haiku twice. Again, the audience does not clap or make noise.
The host waits for the three judges to make their choice for winner, then signals them to hold aloft their Red or Not-Red flag.
Simple majority (3-0 or 2-1) determines the winner.
The host asks the audience to demonstrate “the sound of one hand clapping,” i.e., silence, then “the sound of two hands clapping,” at which point they can finally applaud. The mock ceremony involving the audience is half the fun.
The winning haikuster then goes first.
Depending on the round, the winner will be best 3 of 5, 4 of 7, best 5 of 9, etc., of a number determined beforehand for each round.
After the duel, Red Haikuster and Not-Red Haikuster bow to each other and shake hands. The next duel begins.
Rules for the GumptionFest IV Haiku Death Match:
Still Scared of Haiku?
Don't be, they're easy to write. Haiku Death Match haiku are not likely to be remembered centuries from now, so don't stress out. Write short poems that you find entertaining and enjoyable.
Take these examples and see how easy haiku can be. Anonymous haiku:
A Haiku Death Match is a competitive poetry duel that is a subgenre of poetry slam. The Haiku Death Match is a prominent feature at the annual National Poetry Slam, replete with full costume for the host, Jim Navé from Taos, N.M. or Daniel Ferri.At GumptionFest IV, we will attempt to hold a Haiku Death Match as similar to the NPS version as possible.
What is haiku?
Haiku (俳句) is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of 17 syllables in three metrical phrases of 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.
Japanese haiku typically contain a kigo, or seasonal reference, and a kireji or verbal caesura. In Japanese, haiku are traditionally printed in a single vertical line, while haiku in English usually appear in three lines, to parallel the three metrical phrases of Japanese haiku.What is slam haiku?
Slam haiku used in a Haiku Death Match is far simpler: Use of three or fewer lines of 17 syllables. Slam haiku can be anything from a single 17-syllable line or simply 17 words. Two of mine:
Traditional 5-7-5 haiku
Serial Killer Haiku
Funny you should ask
my trunk can fit two Boy Scouts
and a grandmother
Serial Killer Haiku
Funny you should ask
my trunk can fit two Boy Scouts
and a grandmother
American 17-syllable haiku
Grammar Haiku:
Why isn't "phonetic" spelled phonetically?
While you think, let's make out
Grammar Haiku:
Why isn't "phonetic" spelled phonetically?
While you think, let's make out
A standard Haiku Death Match is conducted thus:
The host randomly draws the names of two poets, known as haikusters, from the pool of competitors.
The haikusters adorn headbands of two colors: Red and Not-Red (white).
Red Haikuster and Host bow to each other.
Not-Red Haikuster and Host bow to each other.
Red Haikuster and Not-Red Haikuster bow to each other.
Red Haikuster goes first.
The Red Haikuster reads his or her haiku twice. The audience does not clap or make noise (usually, though, they laugh or vocalize, but, of course, we must pretend that this is completely unacceptable).
The Not-Red Haikuster reads his or her haiku twice. Again, the audience does not clap or make noise.
The host waits for the three judges to make their choice for winner, then signals them to hold aloft their Red or Not-Red flag.
Simple majority (3-0 or 2-1) determines the winner.
The host asks the audience to demonstrate “the sound of one hand clapping,” i.e., silence, then “the sound of two hands clapping,” at which point they can finally applaud. The mock ceremony involving the audience is half the fun.
The winning haikuster then goes first.
Depending on the round, the winner will be best 3 of 5, 4 of 7, best 5 of 9, etc., of a number determined beforehand for each round.
After the duel, Red Haikuster and Not-Red Haikuster bow to each other and shake hands. The next duel begins.
Rules for the GumptionFest IV Haiku Death Match:- Titles: Haikusters can read their haiku titles before they read the haiku. (This gives the haikusters technically more syllables to put the haiku in context, but the haiku itself must still be only 17 syllables. While this is not “pure” Haiku Death Match rules, it’s much more fun for the audience.
- Originality: Poets must be the sole authors of the haiku they use in competition. Plagiarized haiku are grounds for disqualification. We all love Matsuo Bashō, but he’s 300 years too dead to compete.
- On-page or memorized?: Poets can read from the page, book, journal, notepad, etc.
- Preparation: Poets can have haiku written beforehand or write them in their head while at the mic. As long as the haiku are 17 syllables, we don’t care how, when or from where the haiku originates.
- Rounds: Will be determined by the number of haikusters who sign up to compete.
- Quantity of haiku needed: Depends on the number of rounds. 30 haiku will likely be enough for poets who push rounds to the last haiku needed and go all the rounds, but 50 to 100 gives haikusters enough material to be flexible in competition. Most veteran haikusters have several hundred to compete with.
- Censorship: Adult themes and language are acceptable. There may be children present so you may have to deal with their parents afterward, but that’s your call.
- Register: E-mail me at foxthepoet@yahoo.com or GumptionFest at GumptionFest@gmail.com.
- A winning haikuster is flexible.
- If your opponent reads a serious or deep haiku, read one that is more serious or more profound, or go on the opposite tack and read something funny.
- If your opponent reads a funny haiku, read one that is funnier, or go on the opposite tack and read something serious or deep.
- If your opponent makes fun of you, make fun of yourself even bigger or make fun of them. A good head-to-head haiku can work wonders and often wins a Haiku duel. For instance, my “Damien Flores Haiku,” “Easy way to win: / Damien is 20, Officer, / and he's drunk."
- If you’re on stage and you get an idea for a haiku, feel free to write it down immediately. That might be the next round’s haiku that wins you the duel.
- Have a good time. Even if don't get past the first round, it's still a great time for all.
Still Scared of Haiku?Don't be, they're easy to write. Haiku Death Match haiku are not likely to be remembered centuries from now, so don't stress out. Write short poems that you find entertaining and enjoyable.
Take these examples and see how easy haiku can be. Anonymous haiku:
Haiku are easy
but sometimes they don't make sense ...
refrigerator
she dances lithely
seduction under the moon
I ... hey, a nickel!
My life is Jello
Sitting, waiting in the bowl
Patiently to gel
"Doom" Haiku:
Frag demons for hours
Stare at the screen with red eyes
it's time for class
Cat haiku:
You never feed me.
Perhaps I'll sleep on your face.
That will sure show you.
Cat haiku:
The rule for today
Touch my tail, I shred your hand
New rule tomorrow
Dog haiku:
You must scratch me there!
Yes, above my tail! Behold,
"Elevator butt."
And some of my haiku:
Traditional 5-7-5 haiku
Jedi Haiku
We are Jedi Knights
our words are our lightsabers
our Force is the Word
Mother's Day Haiku
I blacked out last night
no, this isn't my blood but
happy Mother's Day
Nicholas is in the Will; I'm a Footnote Haiku
I thought my mother
loved both her sons equally ...
until I saw the will
Heavy Pause Haiku
Then, years afterward,
I realized the problem was ...
...
...
...
... I hesitated
American 17-syllable haiku
Dirty Old Man Haiku
And old man told me
the way to stay young
is sleep with 18-year-olds
Ella Garrett Haiku
We copy editors judge you,
reporters,
when you use bad grammar
Crucifixion Haiku (stolen from a joke by Dan Seaman)
Why did Jesus Christ
die on the cross?
Because he forgot the safe word
Bruce Haiku
Fathers should suffer
labor like mothers so they
don't bolt on their sons
Why I Act Like a Child Haiku
The older you get
the younger you feel.
At 40, I'll be fetal
Pudenda Haiku
My hand rests on your cleft:
the moist doorway from where
poems and poets are born
Theory of Relativity Haiku
The illusion of light
traps believers in the past
must move faster
Emigration Haiku
America is taxing my dreams
so I'm moving
to Canada
Arboreal Haiku
A tree falls in the woods
and no one is around.
Termites have no crowd
Insurance Haiku
"Drop your pants
and give me $100."
I hate my HMO.
Call Center Haiku
Work is so boring today.
I'll liven it up
with a homicide
Lisa Haiku
Somehow you can make
the words, "fuck me"
the most romantic phrase I know
Atheist Haiku
You ask why I am an atheist?
Fathers are our models
for God
Punk Rock Chick Haiku
Punk band patches
tats, pink hair, pierced attitude ...
I want her to break me
Nearsidedness Haiku
I should have seen
fucking you was dumb;
my testicles need spectacles
Thanksgiving Haiku
Before we start, I
want to say I hate you all.
Pass the salt, aunt Beth
Was it True Love Haiku
Loving you was
endless disappointment
with moments of denial
Head to Head Haikus
Damien Flores Haiku #1
Damien is cocky
about his haiku
but he still can't buy beer
Why it's Hard to Kill Aaron Johnson With My Car Haiku
God damn lefties!
Aaron Johnson hitchhikes
facing oncoming traffic
but sometimes they don't make sense ...
refrigerator
she dances lithely
seduction under the moon
I ... hey, a nickel!
My life is Jello
Sitting, waiting in the bowl
Patiently to gel
"Doom" Haiku:
Frag demons for hours
Stare at the screen with red eyes
it's time for class
Cat haiku:
You never feed me.
Perhaps I'll sleep on your face.
That will sure show you.
Cat haiku:
The rule for today
Touch my tail, I shred your hand
New rule tomorrow
Dog haiku:
You must scratch me there!
Yes, above my tail! Behold,
"Elevator butt."
And some of my haiku:
Traditional 5-7-5 haiku
Jedi Haiku
We are Jedi Knights
our words are our lightsabers
our Force is the Word
Mother's Day Haiku
I blacked out last night
no, this isn't my blood but
happy Mother's Day
Nicholas is in the Will; I'm a Footnote Haiku
I thought my mother
loved both her sons equally ...
until I saw the will
Heavy Pause Haiku
Then, years afterward,
I realized the problem was ...
...
...
...
... I hesitated
American 17-syllable haiku
Dirty Old Man Haiku
And old man told me
the way to stay young
is sleep with 18-year-olds
Ella Garrett Haiku
We copy editors judge you,
reporters,
when you use bad grammar
Crucifixion Haiku (stolen from a joke by Dan Seaman)
Why did Jesus Christ
die on the cross?
Because he forgot the safe word
Bruce Haiku
Fathers should suffer
labor like mothers so they
don't bolt on their sons
Why I Act Like a Child Haiku
The older you get
the younger you feel.
At 40, I'll be fetal
Pudenda Haiku
My hand rests on your cleft:
the moist doorway from where
poems and poets are born
Theory of Relativity Haiku
The illusion of light
traps believers in the past
must move faster
Emigration Haiku
America is taxing my dreams
so I'm moving
to Canada
Arboreal Haiku
A tree falls in the woods
and no one is around.
Termites have no crowd
Insurance Haiku
"Drop your pants
and give me $100."
I hate my HMO.
Call Center Haiku
Work is so boring today.
I'll liven it up
with a homicide
Lisa Haiku
Somehow you can make
the words, "fuck me"
the most romantic phrase I know
Atheist Haiku
You ask why I am an atheist?
Fathers are our models
for God
Punk Rock Chick Haiku
Punk band patches
tats, pink hair, pierced attitude ...
I want her to break me
Nearsidedness Haiku
I should have seen
fucking you was dumb;
my testicles need spectacles
Thanksgiving Haiku
Before we start, I
want to say I hate you all.
Pass the salt, aunt Beth
Was it True Love Haiku
Loving you was
endless disappointment
with moments of denial
Head to Head Haikus
Damien Flores Haiku #1
Damien is cocky
about his haiku
but he still can't buy beer
Why it's Hard to Kill Aaron Johnson With My Car Haiku
God damn lefties!
Aaron Johnson hitchhikes
facing oncoming traffic
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Slam Tutorial: What's Worth Dying For?
One of the 12 Olympians of Slam, Marty McConnell is one of the best female voices in the national poetry slam scene.I first saw her at the 2001 National Poetry Slam in Seattle, Wash., and had a odd, but fun moment at a party in one of the hotel rooms with Marty, Daphne Gottlieb and Taylor Mali -- a story I like to tell newbie slammers when they make their first slam team and are heading off to nationals ....
... In any case, I have a lifelong crush and we coincidentally share the same tattoo."Give Me One Good Reason to Die" asks "what would you die for?
The question in a simple one, and one that easily lends itself to the particulars of a political poem. I have seen variations of this poem range from leftist topics like equality, human rights, social revolution, rightist concepts like gods and countries and more mundane topics like love, world peace or one's art. Used humorously, this concept can extend to emo music, a good cup of coffee. I have also seen the idea used as an anti-conceit for ironic effect.
In this poem, Marty McConnell uses the conceit not to discuss what she in particular would die for but that our generation is so lackadaisical on creature comforts and devoid of purpose that we have little to fight for. Yet, at the crux of the poem, she points to the social injustices that would seemingly be worth dying for if members of our generation chose to fight for them.
Thus, the concept works both ways in eviscerating the conceit then criticizing those who accept her argument by reversing course.
"Give Me One Good Reason to Die"
By Marty McConnell
www.martyoutloud.com
at the millennial rolling-over point
baby boomer one-time-hippies
turned parents across these United States groan,
"when we said
'you can be anything' we meant
'you can be a brain surgeon or
district attorney or
genetic engineer' -- we
didn't mean you should become
a... poet."
But it was Dad who taught me that the call
of my wild heart rings as valid
as any voice of reason
And Mom who showed me that raging terror of where you're headed
is the surest sign you're traveling
in the right direction
This is a generation
beyond definition, unconvinced
the American dream isn't a fiction
of REM sleep; certain
gender matters less than love; determined
the apocalypse won't catch us napping.
Breast-fed on "how many roads must a man walk down,"
we watched our creators sacrifice their sharp edges
to stay within the lines; small wonder we race
to rant about wrongs or
find the edge of the planet
and lean at the lip of the void
We are the change generation,
fitted with the inconsistencies
of a millennium in flux; vagabond lot, we
skitter one city to the next
in seek of a home not in need of so much repair;
see, our inherited tools they fit fit like a Phillips-head
in a slot-top screw; we know that sit-ins
end in tear gas and tanks,
picket lines in promises
and compromises, lobbying
in backrooms and bullshit
I might believe in this Revolution
if one person proved he knew
what he was fighting for
and how
because the KKK still erects a cross in Cincinnati's Fountain Square every Christmas and
teenage girls have to weigh back alleys versus daddy's fists to secure
abortions and
Promise Keepers fill stadiums while poets play coffeehouses and
if I fucked a woman in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia or Utah
I could get anywhere from 30 days to 20 years in jail
I don't own
enough rage for it all -- I am
ninety-five miles per hour on I-81, sprinting
to track the tirade vibrating
on the next stage
is Anybody Listening?
I live
in search of a cause worth dying for
We are a generation of screamers
silenced by the conspiracy of comfort
that cradles us voiceless
in our PC cities, where only the drunk
and the dangerous spill what seethes
in so many
I trade crusades like cards,
flip issues like channels
give me a god
give me a rallying cry
give me one
good reason to die
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Slam Tutorial: Before I Start this Poem ... I'll Read You a Political Poem
Before I Start this Poem, I'll Read You the Poem
This "sneaky" tactic takes advantage of the sometimes irritating habit of reading a disclaimer before reading a poem. However, the disclaimer winds up being the poem itself. This is sometimes used very briefly as a hook, as in "Before I start this poem / I'll like to say that the first three lines / you won't think are the poem / but by line four you know I've started"
This strategy has several species:
Before I Start this Poem ... I'll Read You a Political Poem
"A Moment of Silence Before I Start This Poem"
The beauty of this poem is built around the hook of a moment of silence. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, moments of silence became more commonplace than normal and found their places everywhere.
The concept of hijacking a moment of silence disclaimer is not a new one, but Ortiz' version ranks as one of the most politically edgy given the environment following the Sept. 11 attacks.
"A Moment of Silence Before I Start This Poem"
By Emmanuel Ortiz
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last Sept. 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US
And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.
Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where "homeland security" made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh....
Say nothing ...
we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented,
have piled up and slipped off our tongues.
Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas
25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...
100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...
So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.
Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.
Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written. And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.
If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.
You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all... Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.
But we, tonight we will keep right on singing...
For our dead.
Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano, Puerto Rican, Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet in Minneapolis, Minn.
Ortiz is the author of a chapbook of poems, "The Word is a Machete," and his poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including two books published in Australia: "Open Boat - Barbed Wire Sky" an anthology of poems to aid refugees and asylum-seekers, and "Passion for Peace: Exercising Power Creatively."
Ortiz currently serves on the board of directors for the Minnesota Spoken Word Association, and is the coordinator of Guerrilla Wordfare, a Twin Cities-based grassroots project bringing together artists of color to address sociopolitical issues and raise funds for progressive organizing in communities of color through art as a tool of social change.
This "sneaky" tactic takes advantage of the sometimes irritating habit of reading a disclaimer before reading a poem. However, the disclaimer winds up being the poem itself. This is sometimes used very briefly as a hook, as in "Before I start this poem / I'll like to say that the first three lines / you won't think are the poem / but by line four you know I've started"
This strategy has several species:
Before I Start this Poem ... I'll Read You a Political Poem
"A Moment of Silence Before I Start This Poem"
The beauty of this poem is built around the hook of a moment of silence. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, moments of silence became more commonplace than normal and found their places everywhere.
The concept of hijacking a moment of silence disclaimer is not a new one, but Ortiz' version ranks as one of the most politically edgy given the environment following the Sept. 11 attacks.
"A Moment of Silence Before I Start This Poem"
By Emmanuel Ortiz
Before I start this poem, I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last Sept. 11th.
I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned, disappeared,
tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes,
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the US
And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the hands of US-backed Israeli forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people, mostly children, who have died of malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year US embargo against the country.
Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where "homeland security" made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of concrete, steel, earth and skinAnd the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people, not a war - for those who know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of a secret war .... ssssshhhhh....
Say nothing ...
we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented,
have piled up and slipped off our tongues.
Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...
100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of indigenous peoples from this half of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the refrigerator of our consciousness ...
So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.
Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has been.
Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.
This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written. And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York, 1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.
And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.
If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.
If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the Penthouses and the Playboys.
If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.
You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence.
Take it.
But take it all... Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.
But we, tonight we will keep right on singing...
For our dead.
Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano, Puerto Rican, Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet in Minneapolis, Minn.Ortiz is the author of a chapbook of poems, "The Word is a Machete," and his poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including two books published in Australia: "Open Boat - Barbed Wire Sky" an anthology of poems to aid refugees and asylum-seekers, and "Passion for Peace: Exercising Power Creatively."
Ortiz currently serves on the board of directors for the Minnesota Spoken Word Association, and is the coordinator of Guerrilla Wordfare, a Twin Cities-based grassroots project bringing together artists of color to address sociopolitical issues and raise funds for progressive organizing in communities of color through art as a tool of social change.
Slam Tutorial: Before I Start this Poem ... I'll Read You the Title
Before I Start this Poem, I'll Read You the Poem
This "sneaky" tactic takes advantage of the sometimes irritating habit of reading a disclaimer before reading a poem. However, the disclaimer winds up being the poem itself. This is sometimes used very briefly as a hook, as in "Before I start this poem / I'll like to say that the first three lines / you won't think are the poem / but by line four you know I've started"
This strategy has several species:
Before I Start this Poem ... I'll Read You the Title
This poem, inspired by one by former Arizona poet Scott Huntington Gamble, essentially has a romantic and fanciful disclaimer, although masked, which pivots on the hook "that was just the title / this is the poem."
"The Cost of Dynamite"
By Christopher Fox Graham
magic lurks in her shrouded shoulders
that only her few lovers have tasted
although scores claim her lips hold her enchantments
I've been touched by neither,
though her temptations keep me up at night
in the half-conscious imaginings
of our skin dances
her limbs have teased her proximity
and her anticipatory warmth
enlivens our thighs
caged horses feel this way
when they see open fields beyond the fences
but words like these
hungrily dripping ink on untouched pages
are best hidden on the unread bookshelves
lest they betray the thousand sins
we would visit on each other
should the skies ever see them
and to Dante,
who cataloged all our predecessors,
Virgil neglected to reveal the 10th level of Dis
reserved solely for the lustful un-inhibitions
destined to be enumerated in epic detail
by some future poet,
about the nights when she and I
unlock the inevitable collision of hips and skins
evangelical preachers will base sermons on our rhythms
to terrify parishioners toward good behavior
expect presidential campaigns to stump legislation
to combat the passions we would release
and slam poets to spit verses
in pale comparison to the erotic hip-hop hips
of our beat-box breathing
sinners have their new saints
and Screwtape has new letters
to write to Our Father Below
when our moment comes,
expect the fire department
and the local police
to secure the scene
while Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt
thumb wrestle to the death
to secure the rights
prognosticators and prophets will claim
they saw the end coming in our coming
in poetry critics will cite this poem
claiming it a talentless rehash
of all slam poem to have come before
while my reply is simply
that those who must rely on these words
have yet to hear the earthquakes
when she lets loose her inhibitions
to her anticipations
and takes me along for the ride
rocking her hips to the stories
held between her shoulders
dreamers, you have heard us
in all your aimless wanderings
wondering how you could've lived your lives
before you knew of the chemistry
between skins locked
in the exasperated expression
of all that is holy
we are dying, but in our echo
the pageantries of our passions
will spill forth into the divine archetypes
to rebuild a new civilization as yet unimagined
in the lonely nights like these,
I wait for a lover I've never kissed
imagining that all these years of waiting for a meaningful lover
aren't in vain
my fear is to look back in old age
knowing that when the time was right
I'd let her slip away into the history and memory
too fearful of giving into the game we played:
always aiming for a checkmate
and afraid to lose I’ll play too harsh
she'll step back from the board
leaving my pieces in forever-stalemate with the absence,
seeking someone less serious and self-absorbed
if one of us can’t win the teasing test
of how far we can push the bounds
then these days and calculations
aren't worth the weight of numbers we measure
and lofty words aside,
I want to drift to sleep alongside her
in awake unashamedly unalone,
the way all great poets seem to do
but I'm too old to write about longing anymore
my poems of unrequited lovers
could kill passersby if dropped from high stories
yearning has its limits
and the ones that should plague my pages
would be best concluded with
“she's come again”
my words and would be better spilled
recounting ways to enumerate nuances
so that thousands could learn them
but so that they wouldn't forget the value of lonely moments
and if some student should find them in years hence
know that longing pains only focus so far
in the prophetic knowledge
that there is a light beaconing the end
I’d rather spend my days penning trivial sonnets at her side
then scribbling the epic of the ages in a studio apartment
made for one
illiteracy is inevitable and in time
all our silly words will become old,
understandable only in classes where academics
teach the ancient tongues of Aristotle and Chaucer
no poem retains its immediacy
when the poet is ash
but descendents can carry the fire
in their blood through the ages
long after the poem is obsolete
and its author is a grad school essay question
in her embrace its locks on
as if to a sinking ship’s life raft,
pen and paper yards away
the greatest poems of my fingers
will dance in her skin
and those that may find their way
through the sheets
to the floor
to the pages
they’ll merely echo those moments
when we erased our knowledge
of spelling and consonants
instead relying on vowels and the language of skins
to speak for us
these verses would I rather have annotate my days
in the press of her breath
and our secret words
would publish the best of me
while all the rest
can take the place when the moment suits
and the critics push aside their trivial jealousies
of not being born poetic
to pencil in a few pages
of their doctoral thesis
for them but me insert bits of profanity
a wayward curse
a gratuitous “fuck”
so they don't choose this piece
for its nonoffensive cleanliness
a well-placed “ass” can ruin a safe poem from publication
pun intended
these poems aren't for them anyway
they're just the thoughts of a boy
close enough to touch her
yet far enough away
to measure her distance from him
in multiples of the length of her shadow
and the geography of heartbeats and unspoken words
erects mountains between us
and the cost of dynamite
is bleeding my pockets dry
This "sneaky" tactic takes advantage of the sometimes irritating habit of reading a disclaimer before reading a poem. However, the disclaimer winds up being the poem itself. This is sometimes used very briefly as a hook, as in "Before I start this poem / I'll like to say that the first three lines / you won't think are the poem / but by line four you know I've started"
This strategy has several species:
Before I Start this Poem ... I'll Read You the Title
This poem, inspired by one by former Arizona poet Scott Huntington Gamble, essentially has a romantic and fanciful disclaimer, although masked, which pivots on the hook "that was just the title / this is the poem."
"The Cost of Dynamite"By Christopher Fox Graham
magic lurks in her shrouded shoulders
that only her few lovers have tasted
although scores claim her lips hold her enchantments
I've been touched by neither,
though her temptations keep me up at night
in the half-conscious imaginings
of our skin dances
her limbs have teased her proximity
and her anticipatory warmth
enlivens our thighs
caged horses feel this way
when they see open fields beyond the fences
but words like these
hungrily dripping ink on untouched pages
are best hidden on the unread bookshelves
lest they betray the thousand sins
we would visit on each other
should the skies ever see them
and to Dante,
who cataloged all our predecessors,
Virgil neglected to reveal the 10th level of Dis
reserved solely for the lustful un-inhibitions
destined to be enumerated in epic detail
by some future poet,
about the nights when she and I
unlock the inevitable collision of hips and skins
evangelical preachers will base sermons on our rhythmsto terrify parishioners toward good behavior
expect presidential campaigns to stump legislation
to combat the passions we would release
and slam poets to spit verses
in pale comparison to the erotic hip-hop hips
of our beat-box breathing
sinners have their new saints
and Screwtape has new letters
to write to Our Father Below
when our moment comes,
expect the fire department
and the local police
to secure the scene
while Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt
thumb wrestle to the death
to secure the rights
prognosticators and prophets will claim
they saw the end coming in our coming
in poetry critics will cite this poem
claiming it a talentless rehash
of all slam poem to have come before
while my reply is simplythat those who must rely on these words
have yet to hear the earthquakes
when she lets loose her inhibitions
to her anticipations
and takes me along for the ride
rocking her hips to the stories
held between her shoulders
dreamers, you have heard us
in all your aimless wanderings
wondering how you could've lived your lives
before you knew of the chemistry
between skins locked
in the exasperated expression
of all that is holy
we are dying, but in our echo
the pageantries of our passions
will spill forth into the divine archetypes
to rebuild a new civilization as yet unimagined
that was just the title,
this is the poem:
this is the poem:
in the lonely nights like these,I wait for a lover I've never kissed
imagining that all these years of waiting for a meaningful lover
aren't in vain
my fear is to look back in old age
knowing that when the time was right
I'd let her slip away into the history and memory
too fearful of giving into the game we played:
always aiming for a checkmate
and afraid to lose I’ll play too harsh
she'll step back from the board
leaving my pieces in forever-stalemate with the absence,
seeking someone less serious and self-absorbed
if one of us can’t win the teasing test
of how far we can push the bounds
then these days and calculations
aren't worth the weight of numbers we measure
and lofty words aside,
I want to drift to sleep alongside her
in awake unashamedly unalone,
the way all great poets seem to do
but I'm too old to write about longing anymore
my poems of unrequited lovers
could kill passersby if dropped from high stories
yearning has its limits
and the ones that should plague my pages
would be best concluded with
“she's come again”
my words and would be better spilled
recounting ways to enumerate nuances
so that thousands could learn them
but so that they wouldn't forget the value of lonely moments
and if some student should find them in years hence
know that longing pains only focus so far
in the prophetic knowledge
that there is a light beaconing the end
I’d rather spend my days penning trivial sonnets at her side
then scribbling the epic of the ages in a studio apartment
made for one
illiteracy is inevitable and in time
all our silly words will become old,
understandable only in classes where academics
teach the ancient tongues of Aristotle and Chaucer
no poem retains its immediacy
when the poet is ash
but descendents can carry the fire
in their blood through the ages
long after the poem is obsolete
and its author is a grad school essay question
in her embrace its locks on
as if to a sinking ship’s life raft,
pen and paper yards away
the greatest poems of my fingers
will dance in her skin
and those that may find their way
through the sheets
to the floor
to the pages
they’ll merely echo those moments
when we erased our knowledge
of spelling and consonants
instead relying on vowels and the language of skins
to speak for us
these verses would I rather have annotate my days
in the press of her breath
and our secret words
would publish the best of me
while all the rest
can take the place when the moment suits
and the critics push aside their trivial jealousies
of not being born poetic
to pencil in a few pages
of their doctoral thesis
for them but me insert bits of profanity
a wayward curse
a gratuitous “fuck”
so they don't choose this piece
for its nonoffensive cleanliness
a well-placed “ass” can ruin a safe poem from publication
pun intended
these poems aren't for them anyway
they're just the thoughts of a boy
close enough to touch her
yet far enough away
to measure her distance from him
in multiples of the length of her shadow
and the geography of heartbeats and unspoken words
erects mountains between us
and the cost of dynamite
is bleeding my pockets dry
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