First SLAM of Season 2.0!
On September 22 we gathered for Season 2.0 of VerseWorks slam, fresh from Southern Fried where we defended our title of Not-Last-Place. There was a buzz in the air as the lights came up in the world-famous Art Bar.
However, by 9:15, yours truly was getting nervous. Where were our slam stalwarts? Where were Kendal, Jon Poets, Joye, Melo, BlackMadonna, Jason? There were only five poets signed up, and the room was looking scant-y for certain. Come to think of it, the last few weeks had been strangely quiet – was this going to be a lackluster beginning to our second slam season?
Do not fear, gentle reader, by 9:30, we had a full slate of eight slammers. The room filled out too – not full, but full enough. There were some new people in the audience, uncertain of what was about to transpire.
And then the slam kicked our teeth in.
The eight poets competing (in performing order) were – Malachi, Mallory, Petrarca, Mr. Fantastic, Food for Thought, Nomad Joe (Odom’s name of the evening), Omari, and Kevin. After a single round, we had four poets standing – Nomad Joe in first place (on the back of a blistering rendition of “Grown Ass Man,” sure to become his signature piece), followed by Mallory, Food for Thought (nice!), and Mr. Fantastic.
Our small-ish cowd was eating it up, especially my friend Risa, who was seeing her first slam, and exclaimed “How have I lived my whole life without this?” By the time we signed the scoresheet – Mr. Fantastic has pulled himself up by the bootstraps and jumped from last to FIRST.
Along with Mallory.
That’s right, folks – our first ever TIE in a VW slam. It was awesome. The crowd loved it, and we ended the night on a high.
In fact, if I recall, we were treated to an erotic open mic reading to close us out.
Hmm….. Erotic open mic, you say?
See you tomorrow night for an erotic open mic (our first ever!) and features CUBAN and HENZBO!
You gotta quit missing these epic nights at VerseWorks. Seriously.
Posted: Sep 28, 10:15 PM by Chris McCormick Category: Shows
Tags for this article: slam
Al Black · Feb 4, 10:09 AM
Hi Chris,
I was the older guy Tuesday night at the slam. I wrote about it in my blog early this morning. Al Bee
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I am sitting at my computer doing work for my job at 3 AM – can’t sleep and I can get things done while the world sleeps.
I am thinking about writing and poetry and what it means today. I like the way a poem feels when you see and read it on the page. This is how I grew up experiencing words.
To the outside world I was and am an extrovert, but what was real for me was this isolated interior world of books – black ink scratched on white pages. My solace – my comfort – my fortress – my hermitage was the world of words & symbols. I don’t think anyone ever knew me or my loneliness in a crowded world and for a long time I didn’t care. It took years to begin developing empathy – empathy implies that other people mattered. I often watched this exterior world – bemused – superior – lonely – I thought life an interesting story or book – I could watch the world from a place that no one else knew existed. Reading Hermann Hesse & later finding the Baha’i Faith changed all that.
I cannot recite exact quotes, but I know where it is in a book, right or left page and where on that page; I know how it made me feel or what it related to in my mind. Strange, how we remember and imprint our brains.
I have went to a slam poetry event here in the ‘Land of Cotton.’ I have gone to similar things in Indianapolis. Carol may go sometimes, but it is not a passion for her to understand. I will be attending many alone.
It is interesting how others relate to poetry. At a slam it is how it sounds; how it moves the room; how it excites the audience. Often the presentation or presenter may be as important as the written words. The slam crowd also seems less critical then a written audience – academics haven’t enjoyed a subject until they tear it down and rip the writer apart.
This is not bad, but in a generation or two or three – will it be remembered and honored? I believe it is important how it looks and feels on a page. Videos and recordings will exist, but only those that are most treasured will be accessible and re-recorded in a usable format. Technology formats will change. In 200 hundred years, we may not know how to listen to or access an artist in the format it was recorded in, but we can see the abstraction of their thoughts in letters etched on pages in books.
Well, so much for my musings. It is interesting and exciting to experience a slam – I don’t know if I will read my stuff, but it expands me to hear the poems of my fellow psychic wanderers of our mind’s interior labyrinths and pathways.
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