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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!

tree jobs

to quote living color. just finished interviewing for another teaching gig. i wont lay out any more details as to not ruin the thing but just keep your fingers crossed for me as this gig would be SO in line with my personal mission and artistic statements to the point where it is almost clairvoyant.

super bowl at fish’s was a blast. this particular tradition has evolved into quite the fiesta in the last decade. starting with the 18′ tv to rams-titans with only me, fish, my bro and sis, eric and 6 week old noel to last night’s all_you_can_eat_from_all_over_the _planet poet/friends/family blowout. noel is now four and almost tackled me down in the third quarter when he grabbed my ankle and generally left me out of breath for most of the second quarter. that was most of my super bowl, trying to keep a four year old happy- yeah, i had an awesome time.

the other highlight of this weekend involves my inner.nerd getting the spotlight and going all hours at guy’s for d&d. cool in that we have a lot more fun than you amy think because we are naturally dumb that way and un-cool in that i missed what sounded like a dope bash out in brooklyn.

life is hectic when i want it to be but i still have enough control to be able to dissapear when the mood hits me and it’s still hittin from time to time.

over at jobs uno y dos i am getting into serious beef with an elderly coworker. at first i thought it was just my natural oscar.at.work.can.be.a.real.bastard personality shining through but said co-worker has been able to piss off about half the working staff and alliances are forming. bad news- coworker and big boss are really cool and if it boils down to a choice- i think i’m ass out. and so are the days of our motherfuckin’ lives!

edwin torres will be at 13 tonight which makes this a cant.miss show (feels good to have one of those happenin at 13). the last cant.miss was tony brown @ urbana and that was worth all the trouble of getting out of work early.

monday, monday, monday…. if all goes well then i will be kissing these free afternoons away but i am so used to working six days a week that i really dont care. though i should start planning a real vacation soon. havent had one since 96 when i hit puerto rico with wanda.

i am audi 5000…

putting the rican and poetry back…

Feb 11th @ the Nuyorican Poets Cafe

Acentos presents Nuyorican Encomium:

A synonymUS Tribute to Nuyorican Poetry

Hosted by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez

Open Mic Sign-up@7sharp.

$6 ($5 w/ student id)

…Poets & musicians gather at the mecca of the Nuyorican movement to pay tribute to the poet laureates of Loisaida.