Knaw on a brain and write some Zombie Haiku

Zombie Haiku
Brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ...
Brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brains ... brai--
Ooo, look, a kitty!

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

When in doubt, zombies make great topics for haiku. They embrace our fear of death, our love of the macabre, and our sense of humor. Zombie haiku have a rich history, as odd as that sounds, by other famous poets:

Back to the buffet
for second helpings-
Care for a rump of infant?

- Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate

Wake up to the sound
Of puppies being eaten
No more chewed slippers

- Gail Simone, author of Wonder Woman and Secret Six

Will this barricade
Keep the walking dead at bay?
Only time will tell...

- Scott Kenemore, author of "Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through The Undead"

If zombies smoked pot
maybe they would skip the brains
and settle for cake.

- Doug Benson, writer and comedian regularly seen on Best Week Ever

Zombie Love Song
You are my desire.
Eating your luscious love thoughts
My Junk Just Dropped Off

- Christopher Moore, author of You Suck: A Love Story

Veins and brains are tough
Stringy bits catch in my teeth
Chew well, then swallow

- Jeff Mariotte, author of River Runs Red

Brain famine. Eat cold
porridge, rotten possum, wet
lint. Wolves. Ashes. Gray things.

- Andrew Hudgins, author of After the Lost War and Shut Up You're Fine: Instructive Poetry for Very Very, Bad Children

The day I died you
tried to put a bullet in
my head. You missed. Lunch!

- David Wellington, author of the Monster Island: A Zombie Novel

Brain-eating monsters
Make disappointing lovers
Because of the fear

- Michael Ian Black, comedian and writer of My Custom Van: And 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays That Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face

After the Zombie Apocalypse
Stroke her oozing face
Our culture defines beauty
Rot is lovely now

- Catherine Cheek, author of a zombie short story "She's Taking Her Tits to the Grave" in The Living Dead anthology

end of everything
death consumes all and walks on
long zombie winter

- Lisa Morton, author of The Halloween Encyclopedia and The Cinema of Tsui Hark

Ryan Mecum's book, "Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry For Your...Brains" is a great collection of zombie haiku, written almost narratively as the protagonist enjoys a normal day, is set upon by zombies, gets turned, and continues to write poetry. A few examples:

A man starts yelling
"When there's no more room in hell..."
but then we eat him.

Always be careful
when you're biting teeth with teeth.
Dead teeth tend to lose.

The two of us take turns.
I chew when he bites and tears.
When I bite, he chews.

The city is dead.
Streets are just filled with people
who aren't quite people.

Biting into heads
is much harder than it looks.
the skull is feisty.

Mecum also wrote a number of zombie haiku as though famous poets had written them:

Zombie Haiku by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle
into that zombie plagued night.
And take the shotgun.

Zombie Haiku by Sylvia Plath
From head to black shoe,
daddy, I had to eat you
because I’m starving.

Zombie Haiku by Robert Frost
Two lobes in the skull.
I eat the bloodier one –
not much difference.

Zombie Haiku by e.e. cummings
if anyone lived
in this wretched how town (they)
would be soon eaten.

Zombie Haiku by Emily Dickinson
I heard a fly buzz
when I became a zombie.
That was one loud bug.

Zombie Haiku by Walt Whitman
Every skin atom
form’d from this soil, this air,
tastes like chicken meat.

Zombie Haiku by William Shakespeare
To bite through the skull
or beat it against the wall?
That is the question.

Zombie Haiku by Edgar Allen Poe
Beside of the sea
I killed my Annabel Lee
because zombies do that.

Zombie Haiku by Theodore Roethke
I knew a woman,
piled up once I ate her,
lovely in her bones.

National Poetry Slam: Nerd Slam & Finals

Being unable to make it to the National Poetry Slam in West Palm Beach, Fla., this year, I ate up all the stories I could find. One of my favorite exhibition slams is the Nerd Slam, which blends "nerd poetry" with pop quizzes about gaming, sci-fi television, movies and books, comic books, geeklit, and other assorted nerdy topics.

Of course, a summary of finals is always a great thing to read, mainly because that's often the eyes I use to how I see NPS.

Being who I am and with my brain and background, I don't think I see certain events other people do. I participate in things, from festivals to lovemaking to fistfights to concerts seeing things the way a poet does or the way a reporter does. I often feel moderately disconnected from things while people who may even have a less vested interest in them, I believe, feel more connected. I'm always looking for how I'll tell the story later, either to myself or through my writing - never specifically to another person. I wonder that when it's all said and done whether I'll believe that I really lived a full life or spent all my time watching it to write about it.

National Poetry Slam: Nerd Slam & Finals

TOD CAVINESS
Published: Aug. 9, 2009
I don't hear the term "slam nerd" being thrown around too much, but it's a fact: slam poets are nerds. So despite the cursing, the drinking and yes, even a seduction poem, the yearly Nerd Slam event at the National Poetry Slam may be the nerdiest place on earth. Reserved for poetry dedicated to geek lore, this is the show that exposes the myth of the shy, soft-spoken nerd - starting with the hosts.

If they weren't already, by now everyone is jealous of Shappy Seasholtz and Robbie Q. Telfer. Between this and the Decathlon Slam, they run the two best parties at Nationals, but they take their work seriously. Well, seriously enough to delegate, anyway.

Along with fellow Orlando poet J. Bradley, California's Stephen Meads and Phoenix slammer The Klute, I'm one of a select panel of nerd trivia masters.

So many people sign up for the Nerd Slam each year that Shappy and Robbie have them face off in trivia contests for the right to read their poem - a practice that's arguably more entertaining than the poems themselves.

So it is that we nerds become bullies, thinning the herd with stumpers about Harry Potter and The Terminator films (or in my case, comics).

But my people are familiar with both irony and exclusion, and besides, the practice works. The poets are as solid as ever.

There are descriptions of lovemaking using Star Trek cliches, odes to supervillainy, and even a pantoum about robots.

Crowning a top nerd is tough - right up until a girl reads an entire poem in Elvish. Marriage is proposed, the coveted phaser is awarded, and tabs are paid.

Leaving us just enough time to eat and head off to the finals bout at the West Palm Convention Center, packed with thousands. Nerd Slam was likely the last light-hearted moment this year - it's San Francisco, Albuquerque, St. Paul and New York City's venerable Nuyorican team in finals this year, and the bout is likely to be deadly serious both onstage and off.

Luckily, former slam champion Mike McGee is hosting the event, having flown down from Massachusetts days before. An irrepressible wit, McGee even makes the regular rules spiel hilarious by bringing Jersey poet Connor Dooley onstage to serve as the Flavor Flav to his Chuck D.

And then, it's on. Sure enough, St. Paul's 6 is 9 has the judges by the heartstrings early with his character study about an Alzheimer's victim struggling to remember his wife:

"I don't know her name.
It slipped from me
like words tend to do
when she wears those Sunday dresses ..."

From then on, everyone brings out an impressive bag of tricks in an effort to catch up. Nuyorican sends up a group piece about scoring life experiences slam-style. San Francisco's Denise Jolly uses an amazing singing voice to good effect, working a few bars of "Amazing Grace" into a poem about her mother.

All four members of Team Albuquerque turn into restaurant kitchen workers in a tightly-choreographed piece about the service industry grind, but only Christian Drake can match St. Paul's emotion with his poem that recalls the Samson and Delilah story. Hair becomes a record of memories, "a slow film reel of our lives blowing in the wind". Drake is in tears toward the end as the poem twists into an explanation of why he cut his locks after a lover left him.

In the end, St. Paul takes the night, winning every round but the last. All the teams share the stage, and everyone shares stories and favorites in the lobby.

It's been a long week, but everyone's keenly aware how soon the family reunion will be over. Most of the poets and their friends head to 10@2 for the afterparty, and a few reconvene at the hotel. A bottle of wine makes its way around a table. People pair off on patio benches. And back inside, in one of the convention rooms, poets pull up chairs or floor space and the slam continues, with no judges, timekeepers or numbers. It's one last chance for the poets to read their material to each other, and even Mike McGee shows up to do a piece, spurred on by wine and some prodding.

The game of poetry tag goes on late into the morning [A Cypher Circle], and maybe it's just the fuzzy aftermath that takes away my memory of the specifics, but any poet will tell you the same thing: You end up hearing as many great things in these late night impromptu readings as anywhere else. Why then the slam?

The details differ in the history books, but it's a good bet that poetry started with a fire. People huddled around for warmth, telling each other stories to give their breath some meaning besides another sigh. Somewhere along the line, we tamed the cold in other ways, but we still miss the stories.

So every once in awhile, somebody has to start a fire.

It's a theory.

Dreamcatcher Haiku

There are reasons why
I don't own a dreamcatcher
That shit is scary

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

Seth Rogen Haiku

If I were in films,
Seth Rogen would have have my phone
on his speed-dial

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

The New York Times: Is Slam in Danger of Going Soft?

Sally Ryan for The New York Times

Marc Kelly Smith ("So What?"), creator and host of a weekly contest at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in Chicago, said the singer Tom Waits influenced his slam poetry style.

Is Slam in Danger of Going Soft?

LARRY ROHTER
Published: June 2, 2009

CHICAGO — Slam poetry was invited into the White House last month and it is also the focus of the recent HBO documentary series “Brave New Voices.” So you might think that the originator of the poetry slam, a raucous live competition that is more likely to take place in a bar than in a bookstore, would be feeling rather pleased these days.

But from his base here at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, Marc Kelly Smith expresses mixed feelings about the growing popularity and respectability of the art form that he created almost 25 years ago. From the start, he envisioned slam poetry as a subversive, thumb-your-nose-at-authority movement, and he wants to ensure it stays true to those origins.

“At the beginning, this was really a grass-roots thing about people who were writing poetry for years and years and years and had no audience,” Mr. Smith said recently, just before his weekly Sunday night slam at the Green Mill. “Now there’s an audience, and people just want to write what the last guy wrote so they can get their face on TV. Well, O.K., but that’s not what people in this country, from Marc’s point of view, need. We’ve got too much of that. This show wasn’t started to crank out that kind of thing.”

Like it or not, Mr. Smith’s concept has become a global phenomenon, especially among young people, who, helped by exposure to hip-hop, seem more comfortable with the idea that poetry belongs both “on the stage and on the page.” Slam poetry has been incorporated into school curriculums across the country; more than 80 cities now compete in the annual national championship; and similar contests are springing up in the most unlikely places, most recently on Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

“I think that perhaps Marc sees this as snowballing out of control,” said Susan B. A. Somers-Willett, author of “The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry” and a slam poet herself. “This is something that started in Chicago as a group of oddballs who wanted to do some pretty avant-garde things, but over the years, as it entered the commercial sphere, it has gotten more and more homogenous and started catering to a demographic mainstream.”

The poetry event that President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, hosted at the White House on May 12 was a “jam” rather than a slam, perhaps to distance it from the sometimes boisterous atmosphere that Mr. Smith promotes. The evening included performances by two college-age slammers who have appeared on “Brave New Voices” and by Mayda del Valle, a slam poet from Chicago who won the national slam competition in 2001.

The Chicago connection is not coincidental. As Ms. Somers-Willett put it, “Chicago is America’s poetry city, with a rich, rich tradition of orality and performance-oriented poetry that goes way back,” at the very least to Carl Sandburg and Kenneth Rexroth in the first decades of the 20th century.

The Poetry Foundation, which publishes Poetry magazine, also has its headquarters here, and in April set up a Chicago Poetry Tour that includes 22 sites around the city. (An online version of the tour can be downloaded at poetryfoundation.org.) One of the stops is the Green Mill, Mr. Smith’s artistic home since 1986.

“What Marc Smith has achieved here and around the world is remarkable,” said Stephen Young, program director of the Poetry Foundation. “The slam movement summons a lot of energy and has taught some traditional poets a thing or two about how to read their poems in public.”

Yet Mr. Smith and his disciples still raise the hackles of what he refers to as “the academic poets,” on both sides of the cultural wars. Amiri Baraka, a Marxist who is known for his politically provocative poetry, has said, “I don’t have much use for them because they make the poetry a carnival” and “elevate it to commercial showiness, emphasizing the most backward elements.”

On the other side of the divide, Jonathan Galassi, now the honorary chairman of the Academy of American Poets, once described slam poetry as a “kind of karaoke of the written word,” while the critic Harold Bloom has called it “the death of art” and complained of “various young men and women in various late-night spots” who “are declaiming rant and nonsense at each other.” George Bowering, a former poet laureate of Canada, condemns slams as “abominations” that are “crude and extremely revolting.”

Mr. Smith seems to relish such attacks. The initial impulse for slam poetry, he acknowledged, came from his disdain for the conventional poetry readings he attended when he first began to study the craft.

“I went to them, and they were stupid and horrible, with nobody in the audience, and somebody up there onstage throwing all these allusions around, acting as if it’s a crowded room and he’s communicating,” he said. “So I started looking at these poetry readings like, ‘These people don’t know what they are doing.’ And they didn’t, which gave me the confidence to say, ‘Well, I can do that.’ ”

A college dropout, Mr. Smith, born in 1949, worked for more than a decade as a surveyor and construction worker. At the same time he was also writing and reading poetry, verse from Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens and Robert Frost, all of whom he admires, to Ezra Pound, “who I hated, because, what is he saying, you know?” But when asked about influences on the slam style, he mentions the singer-songwriter Tom Waits first. On hearing songs by Mr. Waits, like “Putnam County,” he said, “it was like: ‘What was that? Wow.’ ”

To spread his version of the slam poetry gospel, Mr. Smith has recently released two books, “Take the Mic” and “Stage a Poetry Slam,” which he wrote with Joe Kraynak. In addition, the Sunday sessions he leads at the Green Mill are broadcast nationally on Sirius XM satellite radio.

He also continues to refine the show here, which consists of an initial open-microphone set, followed by a performance by an invited artist and finally the competition. But since “the competition from my point of view is meant not to be serious, but a mockery,” the first prize is $10, which is an improvement over the Twinkie he used to offer.

“The gimmick here has always been to entertain you and then pow, put it right in you,” he said. “Slam is a serious art form that seems like it’s just a big, goofy thing. But it’s deadly serious. Why do it? Why do any art if you’re not going to bring out of yourself the thing that is most vulnerable and most precious, that has to be said? Why do something unless you’re really trying to get at what it’s really about? And that’s what this show is.”

Read more about slam poetry.
Mayda del Valle at the White House Poetry Jam

Haiku from Beer Haiku Daily

Need a topic for your Haiku Death Match haiku? Anything can make a great haiku, all you need is the desire and the ability to count. GumptionFest IV takes place in Sedona from Friday to Sunday, Sept. 4, 5 & 6.

From Beer Haiku Daily
A simple poem each day to celebrate one of life’s simple pleasures.

Dripping With Humor Haiku
Right in the middle
Of downing my second beer
He told the punchline

RIP John Hughes Haiku
Our words, our soundtracks
Our lives on the silver screen
A toast to John Hughes

Thursday Morning Haiku
after a night out
a black eye and a lost shoe
but things are just fine

God-like Haiku
An ancient treasure
Sparkling in my goblet
Makes me feel god-like

Worth It Haiku
A leisurely walk
Down to the local beer store
A grueling slog home

Too Hot Haiku
it’s too hot for golf
today, but it’s not too hot
to drink a few beers

Showtime Haiku
Just before showtime
The bar by the theatre
Suddenly quiet

Empty Haiku
A buoyant bevy
Diverts the young bartender
My glass sits empty

Mount Hood Haiku
High atop Mount Hood
My personal beer summit
Far from politics

Storyteller Haiku
The sounds of laughter
Are an excellent soundtrack
To my beer-soaked yarns

Nervous Haiku
next to her bottle
a thousand little pieces
once a beer label

Extreme Croquet Haiku
With beers and mallets
They attempt to run the hoops
Through bushes and streams

Seeking Solutions Haiku
With no solution
After sober discussion
They ordered some beers

Date Night Haiku
Date night with hubby
The kids are at the sitter
She’s pleasantly buzzed

Consequences Haiku
How could he not know?
There’s always consequences.
Karaoke Night

Time to Think Haiku
Despite convention
He went to his local pub
Seeking clarity

Zen Haiku
Settling down with
Some beer, hot-and-sour soup ...
... and kung-fu movies

Saving the World Haiku
His super power
Is matching people to beer.
That’s super indeed!

Ouch Haiku
"It’s a damn good thing
That you can’t fall off the floor,"
He said groggily

Faux Pas Haiku
That joke from last night
Is even less funny now
Than when you told it

Daydream Haiku
Treasured solitude
An ocean breeze and a beer
Bring pirate daydreams

Fury Haiku
On such a rare day
Even a beer can’t mellow
This seething fury

Prepared Haiku
Arriving early
He grabbed a quick beer before
The confrontation

Hot Haiku
Sweating profusely
Cold beer from the tap hydrates
Sticky southern day

A Frickin' Miracle Haiku
He left for the bar
At exactly 5 o’clock
Against all the odds

Deliverance Haiku
Sipping Sweetwater
Blessed deliverance from
The hot southern sun

Domestic Brewing Haiku
Memories brewing
Of that very first porter
I named for my wife

Baseball Haiku
by the ninth inning
many beer bottles linger
under seat M5

That’s Good Eatin’ Haiku
She brought me a beer
and a Maryland crab cake
the size of my face

Musings Over a Pint Haiku
Surely his role as
Husband, father, patriot
Earns him a craft beer

Big Foamy Head Haiku
Just some good ole boys
Talking beer, blues, barbecue
And living the dream

Slam Tutorial: A Stereotype Hijack

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

St. Paul wins 2009 National Poetry Slam

Host: The Mighty Mike McGee, one of the funniest poets in slam and one of the best people on the planet (he spent a week with me when he was touring around Northern Arizona about four years ago.)

Tavis Brunson sacrifice poet, 28.2

- - - Round 1 - - -

San Franciso: Matt, 27.4
St. Paul: Six is Nine, 28.4
Nuyorican: Faloo, 27.9
ABQ: Damien Flores, 28.0

St. Paul leads 28.4 at the end of the first round
(2) ABQ, 28.0
(3) Nuyorican, 27.9
(4) San Fran, 27.4

- - - Round 2 - - -

Nuyorican: group, 27.4
San Francisco: Denise, 28.3
ABQ: group, 27.9
St. Paul: Guante, 29.2

St. Paul leads 57.6 at the end of the second round
(2) ABQ, 55.9
(3) San Fran, 55.7
(4) Nuyorican, 55.3

- - - Round 3 - - -

ABQ: Christian Drake, 28.2 (after 0.5 penalty)
Nuyorican: group, 27.7
St. Paul: Sierra DeMulder, 29.7
San Francisco: D'Dra, 28.2

(1) St. Paul, 87.3
(2) ABQ, 84.1
(3) San Fran, 83.9
(4) Nuyorican, 83.0

- - - Round 4 - - -

St. Paul: Michael Mlekoday, 28.2
ABQ: group, 29.6
San Francisco: Chaz, 29.6
Nuyorican: Ion, 29.4

(1) St. Paul, 115.5
(2) ABQ, 113.7
(3) San Fran, 113.5
(4) Nuyorican 112.4

St. Paul wins with 115.5 | (2) ABQ 113.7 | (3) San Fran 113.5 | (4) Nuyorican 112.4

The championship team of Soap Boxing, St. Paul's Poetry Slam:
Khary J. (aka "6 is 9") likes bubbles, strawberry covered pancakes, and his future puppy. Oh yeah, he does poems too. You knew that.

Kyle “Guante” Myhre is an emcee, poet, activist and writer based in Minneapolis. He's shared the stage with Talib Kweli, Brother Ali, Sage Francis, Zion I and many others, and signed to Tru Ruts/Speakeasy Records in 2008. A three-time National Poetry Slam competitor, Guante has won Grand Slams in Madison, Minneapolis and St. Paul. He's currently working with the Minnesota Spoken-Word Association facilitating spoken-word and hip hop workshops for youth. For more information, see www.myspace.com/elguante or El Guante's blog.

Sierra DeMulder is a member of the Intangibles Spoken Word Collective out of upstate New York and competed with Oneonta at the 2007 National Poetry Slam in Austin, Texas, where her team proudly won the Spirit of the Slam award (what’s up, knoxeonta). She moved to Minneapolis on a whim because she thought it would be cool to freeze to death. Sierra has been trying not to trip since 1986.

Michael Mlekoday is the reincarnation of the first record DJ Jazzy Jeff ever used as scratch fodder. He is a pair of broken headphones and a pair of lungs being attacked by a freshly mowed lawn. In a simpler world, his hobbies might include fencing, playing harmonica, and using an abacus. For now, he makes poem-shaped objects. He will see you at the crossroads (so you won't be lonely). www.myspace.com/mlekoday

Photos from MinnesotaMicrophone.com
Bios from www.Soap-Boxing.com

Yes, Twitter is a silly thing. Yet it's great for poetry for one simple reason: Haiku can be completely twittered.

Bless Christin James for posting haiku from the National Poetry Slam's Haiku Death Match on Friday, Aug. 7, which segues perfectly into my real point: I will host an NPS-style Haiku Death Match at GumptionFest IV on Sept. 4, 5 & 6.The haiku from NPS that James posted include:

I'd give you the shirt on my back
but it keeps getting caught on your knife

Drunk sex is awkward
when you try to use vomit
as lubricant

Am I not sensitive enough to your needs?
Does your mangina hurt?

Maybe the Wolf had asthma
& the Three Little Pigs
were being dicks

People have given me so much shit,
that when you shake my hand
I flush

If Jesus returned
America would be Rome
just without the art

When you cut yourself it's emo,
but when fish cut themselves
it's sushi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Best Cigarette
By Billy Collins

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

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

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

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

Phoenix Takes 3rd, FlagSlam Pulls 4th at NPS semis

Flagstaff took fourth in their semi-final bout, losing to 18th seed San Francisco, Denver's first-seed Mercury Café and eighth-seed Cafe Nuba, but beating eighth-seed Killeen, Texas. (Cafe Nuba and Killeen both tied at eighth-place going into semi-finals).

The results I was able to track down are:
1st Round:
Cafe Nuba 26.2
Flagstaff 26.7
Denver 28.1
Kileen tx 27.4
San Francisco 28.6

2nd Round:
San Francisco 57.6
Denver Mercury 57.1
Cafe Nuba 56.1
Killeen 53.5
Flagstaff 52.8

In Arizona's other semi-final bout, the 16th-seed Phoenix Downtown Slam Team took third, losing to Albuquerque's seventh-seed ABQ Slam
The other teams in the bout were Oklahoma City's second-seed IAO Wayward Slam, Atlanta's 10th seed Java Monkey and Philadelphia's 19th seed The Fuze.

San Francisco, Albuquerque, the Nuyorican (NYC), and St. Paul are the finals teams.

Postage

i will mail myself to you
place a postage stamp
just above my heart
that beats your name in your absence
throbbing in the ache
to remind my fingertips
through the transit of veins
that they once shared the same intent
to graze the goose bumps on your skin
lose sight of the sun
as they sunk beneath the waves of hair
and share the flavor of your pores

I'll crouch low in the baggage compartment
between boxes of old papers and used shoes
shipped between lovers who parted in sighs
whispering, "i promise to return for you"
transfigured into "i promise to return to visit"
and settling on "i promise to return for my stuff"
de-evolved into the hollow conveyance of property
as "i still miss you" wrapped in red tissue paper
hardened into a cardboard shell
and the point with rounded arches
grew upright into a cube with an overlapped lid
duct taped and sealed against prying ears
who could hear the way sorrow echoes
at 30,000 feet above Iowa

i'll shiver in the high-altitude chill
write my initials in the frost
with yours beneath
CFG+XX
encircled that still-throbbing heart
so that if the cold kills me
at least these boxes will understand why
remember their pre-cubic shape
the sound of tissue paper crinkling
convey to the contents inside,
the abandoned orphans betwixt guardians
who will recall that they were once packed
by loving hands dampened by wiped-away tears
and the soft stammering
of "i will return, i will return"
spoken with macarthur's hope
but bonnie prince charlie's acquiesce

after touchdown,
i'll walk in perfect step with the baggage handlers
stand upright as they cancel the postage
leaving a wavy tattoo
emblazed onto my chest
patiently sit in the back of the van to your town
and climb inside your mailbox
to nap until you bring me inside
then rest eagerly between the unopened bills
and soon-to-be castaway junk mail
waiting for you to find the time to open me,
perhaps while on the phone
or waiting for the pasta to boil
or watching the cat lap up cream
before you retire to bed

you'll bring me to your room
half-opened but as yet unread
perch me precariously on the nightstand
above postcards from foreign cities
with hard-to-pronounce names
and beneath the torn-cover paperback novel
that lulls you to sleep
and some morning a day or two later
you'll pull me to you while sipping coffee
open me wide to your sunrise
trace your fingertips along the stamp's ragged edge
and my worn exterior
read me with the intensity of your books
wonder privately what path I took to reach you
press your palm to my chest
raise the goose bumps on both our skins
and restart my heart
back to the throbbing pulse it once remembered
with a rhythm that makes us both imagine
relearning how to ride a bicycle
like we did once when we were children

Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Team's Semi-Final Bout at NPS

The Flagstaff National Poetry Slam Team will compete in the semi-final bout at Monarchy in West Palm Beach, Fla., at 8 p.m., Eastern Time.

The slam will open with the Rookie Showcase featuring Jamila Woods, from Young Chicago Authors, Jaco, from Paris, Adam Gottlieb, from Hampshire College, and Jude Fageas, from Slam Nuatl.

Flagstaff National Poetry Slam team includes Frank O'Brien, left, Ryan Brown, Antranormus, John Cartier and Jessica Guadarrama. Break a leg.

The Bout:
Flagstaff's Flagslam (17th)
Denver's Mercury Café (1st)
Killeen (8th)
Denver's Slam Nuba (8th)
San Francisco (18th)

The bout will be hosted by Robbie Q and bout managed by Corpus Cristi's Stefan Senserz and One Truth.

Phoenix National Poetry Slam Team's Semi-Final Bout at NPS

The Phoenix National Poetry Slam Team will compete in the semi-final bout at The Lounge in West Palm Beach, Fla., at 8 p.m., Eastern Time.

The slam will open with the WoWPS Showcase, featuring four poets:
Ocean, from SlamCharlotte, T. Miller, from Detroit, Queen Sheba, from SlamCharlotte, and Jude Fageas, from Slam Nuatl.

The Phoenix National Poetry Slam Team includes NORAZ Poets alumnus Aaron Johnson, left, The Klute, Ed Mabrey and Myrlin Hepworth. Break a leg.

The Bout:
Phoenix Downtown (16th)
Oklahoma City's IAO Wayward Slam (2nd)
Albuquerque's ABQ Slam (7th)
Atlanta's Java Monkey (10th)
Philadelphia's The Fuze (19th)

The bout will be hosted by Seth Walker and bout managed by Sean McGarrigle and one of my favorite Texas poets, Bob "Whoopeecat" Stephenson (on his motorcycle at the 2005 National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, N.M.)

Two Arizona Poetry Slam Teams Make Semis

Two of Arizona's four teams are going to the National Poetry Slam's semi-finals.

The Phoenix National Poetry Slam Team (NORAZ Poets alumnus Aaron Johnson, left, The Klute, Ed Mabrey and Myrlin Hepworth) came in at 16th place after winning their first bout Wednesday night and taking second place in their second bout on Thursday night.

In similar fashion, the Flagstaff National Poetry Slam team of Frank O'Brien (left), Brown, Antranormus, John Cartier and Jessica Guadarrama came in at 17th place after winning their first bout Tuesday night and taking second place in their second bout on Wednesday night (Thursday was a bye-day).

Flagstaff came in 0.9 points behind Phoenix in the competition in terms of total points scored.
Mathematically, while two teams from the same state often make semi-finals but the chance of them coming in so close is a statistical improbably.

As both three of the FlagSlam kids and Phoenix's Ed Mabrey competed in the last Sedona Slam on Friday, July 17, I would like to take complete credit for this highly unusual mathematical anomaly and dub it the "CFG Effect." Again, this is for no good reason whatsoever.

In my previous blog post on 8/5/09, I stated: "I predict that by the end of tonight, FlagSlam will be between 12th and 18th place, but no lower and perhaps a little higher."

In any case, the top 20 teams, which include both Phoenix and Flagstaff, are now headed to semi-finals. *This is the first time since 2005 that an Arizona team has made semi-finals (Mesa in 2000 and 2005, Tempe made it in 2007 but was disqualified before reaching the stage) and the first time ever that two Arizona teams have gone.*

Arizona now has a 20% chance of seeing one of its teams on the finals stage and a 4% chance of seeing them both.

Congratulations, good luck and break a leg to both teams. I want to see one of you on that stage on Saturday night.

Place, Slam Team, First Bout, Second Bout, Final Score
Rank 2 Teams:
1st Denver's Mercury Café: 115.5 (1), 116.5 (1), 232.0
2nd IAO Wayward Slam: 112.6 (1), 114.7 (1), 227.3
3rd Minneapolis' Soapboxing: 115.1 (1), 111.5 (1), 226.6
4th NYC's Nuyorican Poets Cafe: 107.8 (1), 116.2 (1), 224.0
5th Hawaii Slam: 114.4 (1), 108.5 (1), 222.9
6th Oakland Poetry Slam: 113.1 (1), 106.0 (1), 219.1

Rank 3 Teams:
7th Albuquerque's ABQ Slams: 114.9 (2), 115.8 (1), 230.7
8th Killeen Poetry Slam: 113.7 (1), 115.0 (2), 228.7
8th Slam Nuba: 111.1 (2), 117.6 (1), 228.7
10th Java Monkey: 116.3 (1), 112.1 (2), 228.4
11th Urbana: 114.8 (2), 110.8 (1), 225.6
12th Austin Poetry Slam: 118.3 (1), 107.2 (2), 225.5
13th LionLike MIndState Slam: 107.9 (2), 116.9 (1), 224.8
14th Orlando Poetry Slam: 112.7 (1), 109.5 (2), 222.2
15th New Jersey's Loser Slam: 113.1 (1), 107.8 (2), 220.9 (withdrew from semi-finals so they could compete in the Group Slam)
16th Phoenix Downtown: 104.8 (1), 113.6 (2), 218.4
17th Flagslam: 106.5 (1), 111.0 (2), 217.5

Rank 4 Teams going onto semi-finals:
18th San Francisco's The City Slam: 117.8 (1), 112.4 (3), 230.2
19th The Fuze: 112.4 (2), 115.6 (2), 228.0
20th Neo Soul: 116.4 (3), 111.3 (1), 227.7
21st Milwaukee Poetry Slam: 107.3 (1), 116.0 (3), 223.3

- - - - -

Rank 4 Teams not going onto semi-finals:
22nd Cantab: 105.1 (2), 116.5 (2), 221.6
23rd SlamRichmond: 113.6 (1), 107.9 (3), 221.5
24th Seattle Poetry Slam: 107.4 (2), 113.3 (2), 220.7
25th San Diego Poetry Slam: 105.4 (3), 114.0 (1), 219.4
26th Echoverse Poetry Slam: 106.3 (2), 110.7 (2), 217.0
27th Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam: 105.0 (3), 108.0 (1), 213.0
28th Lizzard Lounge Poetry Slam: 102.5 (2), 109.8 (2), 212.3
29th Hampshire Co Slam Collective: 109.5 (1), 99.2 (3), 208.7

Rank 5 Teams
30th Forth Worth Poetry Slam: 111.4 (2), 117.2 (3), 228.6
31st Berkeley: 111.4 (4), 116.3 (1), 227.7
32nd SlamCharlotte: 112.8 (2), 112.5 (3), 225.3
33rd Dallas Poetry Grind: 105.0 (3), 118.0 (2), 223.0
34th Dallas Poetry Slam: 106.1 (2), 115.2 (3), 221.3
35th Slam Free or Die: 107.6 (3), 112.0 (2), 219.6
36th Life Sentence Slam: 111.3 (3), 107.0 (2), 218.3
37th Providence: 106.0 (2), 110.4 (3), 216.4
38th DCSlam: 111.6 (2), 104.5 (3), 216.1
39th The Stage: 97.0 (4), 116.6 (1), 213.6
40th Toronto Poetry Slam: 101.6 (4), 111.7 (1), 213.3
41st Slam Nahuatl: 105.7 (3), 104.3 (2), 210.0
42nd Young Chicago Authors: 109.5 (1), 91.1 (4), Disqualified

Rank 6 Teams
43rd Art Amok: 113.5 (2), 115.1 (4), 228.6 44th Writers Block: 110.9 (3), 114.5 (3), 225.4 45th Eclectic Truth Poetry SLam: 104.5 (4), 116.3 (2), 220.8 46th Mental Graffiti: 111.3 (2), 109.0 (4), 220.3 47th Durham-Bull City Slam: 105.3 (4), 113.1 (2), 218.4 48th Boise Poetry Slam: 108.9 (3), 109.1 (3), 218.0 49th Worcester Poets Asylum: 109.0 (3), 108.1 (3), 217.1 50th Omaha Healing Arts Poetry Slam: 105.4 (3), 110.9 (3), 216.3

Rank 7 Teams
51st Respect Da Mic: 109.1 (4), 110.0 (3), 219.1
52nd Vancouver Poetry SLam: 109.5 (3), 108.6 (4), 218.1
53rd Tucson's Ocotillo Poetry Slam: 110.8 (3), 107.1 (4), 217.9
54th Paris: 107.1 (4), 109.8 (3), 216.9
55th Salt City Slam: 109.5 (4), 105.3 (3), 214.8
56th Slamarillo: 106.7 (3), 104.8 (4), 211.5
57th Second Tuesday Slam: 104.6 (4), 106.3 (3), 210.9
58th Houston Poetry Slam: 101.6 (3), 108.6 (4), 210.2
59th Lincoln: 98.6 (3), 108.1 (4), 206.7
60th Montevallo: 102.0 (4), 101.3 (3), 203.3

Rank 8 Teams
61st SlamMN: 116.7 (4), 106.0 (4), 222.7
62nd San Jose Poetry Slam: 107.6 (4), 112.9 (4), 220.5
63rd Puro Slam: 114.8 (4), 102.0 (4), 216.8
64th Ozark Poetry SLam: 108.8 (4), 104.0 (4), 212.8
65th St. Louis Poetry Slam: 106.6 (4), 103.1 (4), 209.7
66th Mesa Slam: 101.9 (4), 100.1 (4), 202.0
67th Madison Poetry Slam: 96.2 (4), 100.4 (4), 196.6
68th Kalamazoo: 85.2 (4), 98.2 (4), 183.4

*Correction as advised by The Klute. Thanks.

Slam Tutorial: Using Sign Language

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

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

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

Sign Language
By Rives

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

One poets poem goes ...

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

Another poet's poem goes ...

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

And another poet's poem goes ...

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

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

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

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

And poems like

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Billy Collins postulates the Prometheus of Rodents

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.

The Country
By Billy Collins

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house because the mice

might get into them and start a fire.
But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of one unlikely mouse
padding along a cold water pipe

behind the floral wallpaper
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?
Who could not see him rounding a corner,

the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time-

now a fire-starter, now a torchbearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.
Who could fail to notice,

lit up in the blazing insulation
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, onetime inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?

Is FlagSlam Headed to NPS finals?

I just got off the phone with Ryan Brown, a member of the FlagSlam National Poetry Slam Team, who told me that the team took second in their second bout, Bout #17, held at O'Shea's in West Palm Beach, Fla.
FlagSlam is Frank O'Brien (left), Brown, Antranormus, John Cartier and Jessica Guadarrama.

Going into the bout, FlagSlam was a Rank 1 team, out of 4 ranks. After the second bout, they are a Rank 3 team out of 7 ranks.

What does that mean?
Every team at NPS competes twice. Teams that win both their bouts have a rank of 2 (1+1=2). Teams that win their first bout and take second in their second are ranked 3 (1+2=3). Teams that take fourth their first bouth and second in the second bout are ranked 6 (4+2=6), etc.

FlagSlam faced Toronto (Rank 4), St. Louis (Rank 4) and Boise (Rank 3). FlagSlam, now Rank 3, lost to Toronto (Rank 5) by 0.7 points but beat St. Louis and Boise (now both Rank 7s), so statistically still placed higher.

Mathematically, the lowest position FlagSlam could fall two wouth be 24th place only if all 16 Rank 1 teams take second place
and
all 17 Rank 2 teams win first place
and
20 of the 33 of these teams place mathematically higher than FlagSlam

Of course, slam is a fickle beast and many of the Rank 1 and 2 teams will score 3s and 4s tonight. Also, several of those Rank 1 and 2 teams face each other, mathematically making it impossible for them both to win their respective bouts.

I predict that by the end of tonight, FlagSlam will be between 12th and 18th place, but no lower and perhaps a little higher. To make semi-finals FlagSlam just needs to be in the top 20. If they do, they'll be the first Arizona team to make semi-finals since the late 1990s.

FlagSlam wins its first bout at the National Poetry Slam

Flagstaff won its first bout at the National Poetry Slam last night, held at at 9 p.m. at Respectables, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Bout 4, hosted by GNO and bout managed by Joaquin Z:
Flagstaff's FlagSlam 106.5
Detroit's Echoverse Poetry Slam 106.3
San Diego Poetry Slam 105.4
Kalamazoo's PAKZOO 85.2

Mathematically, this places FlagSlam in a great position to make it to the semi-finals. The team is Frank O'Brien (left), Ryan Brown, Antranormus, John Cartier and Jessica Guadarrama.

First-place teams (teams that won their bouts):
Decatur, Ga.'s Java Monkey 116.3
Denver's Mercury Cafe 115.5
Denver is historically a highly polished team with tight, imaginative group pieces and a tremendous support structure. Alumni include legendary Andrea Gibson, the perennial Paulie Lipman, Ken Arkind and (my heartbreaker) Katie Wirsing.
Minneapolis' Soapboxing 115.1
Due to its proximity to Chicago, Minneapolis has been a major player in the National Poetry Slam community since the early 1990s.
Hawaii Slam 114.4
Despite what one would think would be bad geographic conditions for performance poetry, Hawaii hosts one of the largest poetry slams in the United States. Their team consistently ranks highly, especially with their political poetry. At the 2005 National Poetry Slam, the team intentionally violated the "no-repeat" rule by performing the same anti-war group poem twice in both their first and second bouts, effectively disqualifying them from semi-finals. Their justification: "the audienced needed to hear it." Cojones. Loser Slam 113.1
Oakland Poetry Slam 113.1
Oakland is the most "urban" of the San Francisco Bay Area slam teams. Unlike radical Berkeley or artsy San Franciso, Oakland is nitty-gritty and draws in poets from both scenes as well as their own local crowd.
Orlando Poetry Slam 112.7
The home-town favorite.
Hampshire County Slam Collective 109.5
Based at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., the Hampshire County team comes from a long line of Massachusetts area slam scenes.
Young Chicago Authors 109.5
Chicago is a longtime, stalwart slam scene. Slam was born in Chicago, after all.
Nuyorican Poets Cafe 107.8
One of the other largest poetry slams in the country, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe has been a Lower East Side Manhattan poetry icon in the early 1980s, before slam was born. After its birth, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe became the New York City hub. It was featured in the 1996 documentary "SlamNation." It was also the home of Saul Williams, star of the 1998 dramatic film "Slam" (which was shot in Washington, D.C.). The Nuyorican Poets Cafe routinely makes semi-finals at the National Poetry Slam.
Milwaukee Poetry Slam 107.3
Flagslam 106.5
Arizona's highest ranked team this year and my favorite, obviously.

Second-place teams
ABQ Slams 114.9
Urbana 114.8
SlamCharlotte 112.8
Forth Worth Poetry Slam 111.4
Mental Graffiti 111.3
Slam Nuba 111.1
LionLike MIndState Slam 107.9
Seattle Poetry Slam 107.4
Echoverse Poetry Slam 106.3
Dallas Poetry Slam 106.1
Providence 106
Cantab 105.1

Third-place teams:
Writers Block 110.9
Ocotillo Poetry Slam 110.8
Worcester Poets Asylum 109
Boise Poetry Slam 108.9
Slam Free or Die 107.6
Slamarillo 106.7
Slam Nahuatl 105.7
Omaha Healing Arts Poetry Slam 105.4
San Diego Poetry Slam 105.4
Dallas Poetry Grind 105
Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam 105
Houston Poetry Slam 101.6

Fourth-place teams:
Respect Da MIc 109.1
Ozark Poetry Slam 108.8
San Jose Poetry Slam 107.6
Paris 107.1
St. Louis Poetry Slam 106.6
Second Tuesday Slam 104.6
Eclectic Truth Poetry Slam 104.5
Montevallo 102
Mesa Slam 101.9
Toronto Poetry Slam 101.6
Madison Poetry Slam 96.2
Kalamazoo 85.2

Slam Tutorial: Who's Your Hero?

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

Beethoven
By Shane Koyczan

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

.......

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