Author Archives: Oscar Bermeo

i am still listening to the synonymus tape. in about two hours i’ll be doing it live. luckily, the hangover is almost all but gone.

the winning formula- 1/2 tumbler of manhattan, 3 coronas, 1/2 glass of white wine. (thank god i wasnt asked to participate in the round of blue ox shots!)

let me point out that eliel lucero had a break through night and his work is growing at a pretty good pace. i will also note that eliel needs to chill with the drinks a bit and realize that his six foot four frame can be a bit cumbersome when it hovers over me. just sayin.

mr (em-are) is another cat whose work just gets stronger and stronger. 2004 is shaping up nicely.

i heard myself on 5_past_13 the other day. holee sheet… do i have to slow down or what? i sound like if i am trying to spit out a car lease commercial. and ot think, after i did that version i was saying to myself- ;the piece is almost home’ almost got farther away with the versions i busted out at semi finals and nats and i am practicing a more pissed off version for the show on monday. when bon did ‘creed of the graffiti writer’ yesterday i was looking at a whole bunch of fresh faces that never had heard the piece and more than once i jumping in myself- ‘but only in self defense’ ‘pronounce you hip-hop-ly dead’

the love/hate with ‘MotB’ isnt over but it still has a ways to go.

the set list is set but i started two new poems today and i hope i can add them to the repertiore by monday.

fish- i think ima do “Capicu” for the Pelo Bueno party. i think its the piece that goes best with the night and rich will of course right something twelve minutes before and still be the star of the night. i also have it almost 100% memorized and i want to see if i can really lose my fool mind in front of what promises to be a VERY rican audience.

by the time most of y’all read this the Econium show ill be history and, methinks, it will make a lil history…

i am soooooo hung over. two consecutive- three hour sleep nights is not good for the soul.

i am pretty harsh when it comes to some other poets and some ther events and it feels almost hypocritical talking about how good acentos is. mucho thanks to the rest of the blogger.tribe for backing up our claims of community & poetry in the bx.

the crowd showed up on latino.time so when i got to the blue ox (early!) i had that oh.shit.i.know.everybody.who.is.heres.last.name feeling but the ox filled up quite nicley by the end. i am still in that mindset whre i would prefer for the ox to be 3/4 full with all ears on as opposed to having it standing room only and people not really paying attention. just having typed that out, i realized that the ox is so tight that it makes randon conversations during a poem almost impossible. at the bowery you can hang all the way in the back and hear the poet clear as day and still be able to have a running commentary without fucking up the show too much. ditto for 13. the nuyo not so much- you have to hit the ‘steve cannon’ corner to be able to talk through somebody’s piece.

i reverted back to the potty mouth host (sorry, fish) for way too much of the open mic and i gotta kepp on top of that. 19 person open mic… again. that speaks volumes for the work that we are doing but i am going to have to get stricter with people. if you show up on time- you got a spot. if you show up late- you’re taking a chance. the one dude i had to turn away was really cool about it so i promised him a slot for the next go around- not everyone is that nice and sometimes you get an asshole that insists on being put on.

many new voices- many appreciative voices- two dudes went out of their way to thank us for making it happen in the bronx. thanks right back, y’all, for coming out. duffy, mr and chris white all returned.

sad note- the ladies on the mic is still slim. thanks to nina, jess and maria for being our core voice and manning the front lines to keep the testosterone in check. shay came by and dropped a piece for her birthday (gracias!) and rain leon made my night by showing up- putting her name on the open list and then telling me ‘ok, i’ll go right a poem for it now’ and the poem was hella-dope. raina may give rich a run for his money as the ‘poem machine’

bonafide is an incredible mix of 12 yr old rock child, 67 yr old griot in training and 26 yr old steven. his set was bookended by the performance/slam pieces that he knows tell great stories and maintain the casual ears attention. stick in the middle his newer work and his more introspective pieces and you have the recipe for a great set that was all smudged up with his jibaro fingerprints all over it.

an impromptu acentos crew meeting followed. the meeting was great in that we all got to be honest in the cold and things were said without malice. ears were open and i listened when i had to and shut my self up at the right times. i was cold as hell when it was over but it helped make the night that much better.

the afterparty was almost as good but rich’s car got vandalized- again! this is when you have to question mad shit- rich goes out of his way to give back to poetry. some mutahfuckas love to show up- drop the knowledge- then break out. rich always tries to give as much back as possible and his reward is this shit.

moments like this really undress me and my ‘i’ll let you talk as i listen’ demeanor gets put to the test when not really much can be said. so we didnt say anything for a while, shared a glass of wine, then i said some shit that i didnt think i was going to say out loud that night. it involved heart break and how i can let go but too many times i wonder if i let go too fast.

confessionals was the order of the night. i had a few folks tell me some things that always seem to be the domain of late night bars and a few drinks to warm up the throat. i was happy to be who i was and feeling lucky to be in the right places at the right time.

i am listening to a tape of last sunday’s synonymus rehersal for tonight’s nuyo event. ray just yelled out ‘what is thsi, broadway?’ as abena is adding her musical inisght and i am about to start the third take on my piece. these jams arent always fun but they always produce good work and i cant wait to see how its going to come out.

jayne pierce, bronxite-poet-librarian-13_semi-regular, put out a general call a few months back for poets to come visit her school and present their poetry to the students of junior high school 56.

between teaching at rikers island and being in a jhs doing my work- i would rather be at rikers. no joke. the kids were brutal.

after a short intro from jayne, i start my first piece and as soon as i open my mouth KNOCK-BANG-KNOCK-BANG a group of kides that came late were banging on the door to get in and wouldnt stop until *I* opened the door for them. i did two pieces then tried to talk about poetry. no go. did another piece (a PG version of ‘ceviche’) and had all 80 of them in the palm of my hand only to lose them during the next round of q&a. RING!!! goes the sixth period bell and half the kids are out of here. ok, smaller group may equal better attention span– psyche!

this concentrated group was even worse with a bunch walking out on me… one right in fornt of me! i was like, ‘whre ya goin?’ “out”

with about 10 minutes left, i just sat down with the three most attentive kids and one teacher and just shot the shit till the seventh period bell rang.

suffice to say- i felt dejected and just wanted to apologize to all of 56 for dropping the ball. “oh my gawd, you did great! i havent seen them that still in forever! you really had them for a lil bit.” well, that was only like maybe 15 minutes or so. “are you kidding? we had a cop come here in full uniform and audio visual aids- they ran him out in twenty minutes. he just up and quit the talk!”

ok, i wasnt a total failure and then three other teachers chimed in with similair repsonses.

thats great- when do you want me to come back? “you WANT to come back? for real?”

this is when i started explaining how 13 and acentos is a great safe place to do your work but it may be too safe and coming to a spot like this lets you REALLY test your work. having a crowd that is under NO obligation to listen to you adds an edge to your work that ol’ timers talk about ALL the time (way too much but thats a different rant)

reporting live from junior high school 56 in the loisaida-

since nina doesnt have a response section (hint-hint) i’ll have to post here…

for half a second, i had a poet name- “de la palabra” (and here come the jokes…)

not content with the uniqueness of oscar bermeo, my young poet self had to come up with an alter-ego. i think it was born from the fact that i was getting slaughtered in slams and i was going to attribute the defeats to the “new” poet as opposed to oscar.

why de la palabra? there is a long list of famous oscar_de las- de la hoya, de la renta and de leon (not a de_la but close enough) and i was going to add one more to the line. oscar_de_la_palabra.

after a slam at 13 (where i was just treated like a red headed stepchild), george mckibbens comes up to me and asks if i would be on a team of slammers he was putting together for a tournament kool breeze was organizing. i said sure and joined george, brother earl and evert eden (and that line-up is worthy of a blog entry all by itself) in a slam going down at sean (whatever his name is today) combs restaurant- justin’s. justin’s was about the worst place ever for a slam cuz people were having dinner only inches away from the quote.stage.unquote. with an audience more interested in steak and fries than verse and metaphor, we competed against the nuyorican squad and some other group from i_dont_remember_where. host nathan p comes up to me and briefly recollects me from this spot in the bx called kays cafe. “oscar, right?” yeah “but how do you say your last name?” i tried to go over it with him a few times and each incarnation was worst than the one before. nathan p was stabbing my language with a rusty spoon and i was helping him. finally it comes time for me to go up….

“next on the mic- oscar duh ler pay lab… uh… oscar dee lez pah… oscar” and i just rush the stage after that and do my thing. i took it as a sign from above that poet names were evil and i should stick with what i had.

for the record- i still like the flow of nina parrilla and it was fun coming up with it. i think jess should call herself whatever she wants to and that she will eventually stick with jess but the only way she’s gonna know for sure is by going through the whole process. google’ing people is fun and was my main source of info on poets in the pre-blog days.

and if you call me de la palabra, you’d better have a drink in your hand ready to pass to me so that when we can toast the past and have a laugh together the right way.

coming to you from clinton and henry street,

this is oscar bermeo

10 reasons why you should see me feature on february 16th at johnny o’s in the bronx

on the real- i would love to see all you mofos there or here (all depends on your prespective of things) i havent done a full feature in almost a year so i am equal parts excited/nervous and all that good junk. in regard to #6- ‘el coqui- lechonera’ is the spot that me and rich have been wined, dined and pantomimed many a time by the staff.

one mo time- heres the skinny

ps- feel free to rsvp below in the comments section… thanks!