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National Poetry Slam Report (Mon & Tues)

nationals week– we start with louderJAM and ray-dan once again putting

the magic to music and blowing the doors off of 13. going with my

philosophy of show (dont tell), ray sets it off with an amazing duet with abena. the rest of the open mic goes by smooth as silk. rebecca hart rips it like

always. onto the louderBID! last year’s poets auction was a bit of a

clusterfuck with some hits and misses but this year’s went off with nary a hitch.

sabrina ran the auction like a pro (jacking up some prices but thats aight)

keeping the energy up and never losing control of the crowd. my salsa

lesson went for over $20 to cheryl boyce (yeah!) and to tristen, the

daughter of a cuban who never learned to speak the lengua and

was looking forward to a lil latino culture.

personal funny moment–

this professional salsa instructor showed up with peter conti

and also auctioned off his services. after a demo of his skills (that mofo

busted a pirouette!) his services went up for bid and sold at: $5-.

ahhh, perception is everything baby. in retrospect, i should bid $7- and had

him teach me how to do all the moves i talk about.

louder made way more than they expected, so all in all, a good night.

tuesday– nationals! last year was my first one and i was happy to

just hang around and absorb all that i could which ended up to be quite a

bit. this year, im the slammaster for union square, a more polished

performer and a much more opinionated individual. i’ve been reading the opinions, rantings and delusions of a whole bunch of these mofos on both the

poetry_slam & slammaster listserves– now it’s time to match a face

with some of these diatribes.

to keep reflecting back to the year before, when i wasnt hanging with

seve and catching in all of mini-apple-us, i was with the team. it felt

comfortable to let peeps come to the team, absorb their name and

mannerisms, then see how the team REALLY felt about said individual. i was going with a different game plan this year and was not planning to be attached to

the team at the hip. besides the fact that rog runs some tight rehearsals,

i had some slam administrative shit to do. this worked pretty well since

i quickly got to meet amalia ortiz. she hooked up with the team at the

airport and hitched a ride with us to the holiday inn. on the ride in

we talked about the upcoming competition, then some louderBIZ which amalia

seemed a bit bored with but as we approached the hotel, t’ai starting

talking about chicago sausage with fresh chiles and pickles on a

bun, then lo and behold– a chicago hot dog stand!

after checking in, i call up amalia and invite her for a hot dog, her answer– ‘Hell Yeah!’ and then it started– the walk through the lobby took a few as we both started seeing peeps we knew and stopped for the salutations. the hot dogs were off da hook. a good convo and a minor invite to perform at acentos was shared as we then decided to enjoy the beautiful day and catch a walk around the hotel area.

when i got back, omar had joined up with the team and we then set ourselves

up in the room. omar is the coolest muthafucka you could meet provided you

get past his rough exterior. infamous as one of the harshest critics in all of poetry which is cool when you realize he is just as rough on himself as he is on anyone else. after getting settled, i join back up with the team.

the first night in chi-town was spent at marty’s parents house– which was

gorgeous. the mcconnell’s hooked us ap with some great b-b-q and good

down home hospitality. afterwards we headed to rite-aid to load up supplies and

the team discovers the dancing hamsters! honestly, i didnt find them THAT

funny but then again i wasnt in their same mind frame (that comment was

purposefully nebulous)

their was an un-official ‘welcome to nats’ party at eitan kadosh’s place but

when we called we found out that the keg was empty– in poet speak that

means the party is dead. the official party was at phyllis’ but we decided

to head back to the hotel and let the good times roll from there.

i was just planning wandering around the hotel on my own when i spot rog,

lynne & marty at the hotel bar… here is where nationals drama began as one

slammer accosted us, asked about rotations, group pieces and tried to share

some of their slam work with us… Check, please!

we wuz out. i’m not sayin that it was done on purpose but i am sayin that it

wasnt cool. the icing on the cake was the 45 minutes it took us to get to

the corner liquor store. 45 minutes saying hi to all kinds of peeps and i

knew i was right in running a bit more solo for this nats.

the party at the team room was aight but once the number of unknowns eclipsed the number of knowns (especially when most of them was blasted) i knew i was out. end tuesday.

“And I feel as if my home is in your arms”

part of hosting is keeping track of how long the feature goes on. when you’re up there time just loses all kind of meaning. a pause between a stanza feels like forever and a 15 minute set can pass by in a wink (more so for muthafuckas that have to tell you an epic between every poem) so as host, i gotta keep track of time to the feature know when their set is almost up. it’s always best to let them know when they have two pieces left; that way they can build up to their big send off piece versus having them do a complete switch of energy and jumping into an entirely inappropriate piece (one of my first hosting jobs had me cuttin the feature off like that)

so far i have only had one acentos feature cut himself off before the

cut-off point and that was manny xavier. just as i was going to tell him he

had two pieces left, he looked at me and said ‘i’ma do one last piece.’

well, that was easy. conversely, i have NEVER felt so bad giving someone

the cut-off, as i did with cheryl boyce-taylor. man, i coulda have her go

on for at least another 15 minutes. the work was just flowing right out of

her. she seemed a bit nervous to start the set (just some observation from

seeing her feature before and also the fact that she is one of those performers who cares so much about the work) but the nervousness was shaking

off and she was starting to jump into third gear when i gave her the cut.

i’m sure i gave her an extra five minutes or so but i still felt bad.

gotta get used to it, we are developing a great reputation for attracting top names– so i’m sure that it will happen again.

after the poetry is the after party and after the afterparty it must mean– cake! maria promised she would bake cheryl her very own special cake modeled after the one she baked for my birthday. this one would be a lil more special since cheryl is a diabetic and thus required a low sugar cake.

maria never baked one before but looked forward to the challenge and to send

back cheryl the same love she has shared with us. it was awesome. my favorite thing is how she keeps everything on the downlow, maria doesnt mention that the cake took a lot more work than normal and also minimizes how she transcribed all these lines from cheryl’s poems into the icing. the way maria makes it sound, you can just go to a local bake shop and order up an e e cummings icing sheet or a sharon olds stencil for $3.99.

back to cheryl, long ago i dubbed her the best hug in all of poetry. met cheryl last july when i opened for rog at the bowery. she had already featured at 13 that summer and i was left flabbergasted by both her poetry and the respect she commanded. rog, lynne & staceyann made it a point to grab seats in the front couches then sat like groupies. they stayed head high and mouth agape through out her set only stopping to applaud loud and hearty. at rog’s show i made it a point to give it my all (it was my first type of featured reading) and decided that i would direct my poems to cheryl. when the show was over i saw cheryl going around congratulating rog and saying hi to folks. i figured she didn’t have any big opinion on my work… till she came up to me and demanded the address to the ceviche spot. i gave it to her and made a great new friend. she would e-mail me a few weeks later to say that salinas was all that and a bag of moto. after that i would come up and always show her mad love and

she would always respond with a hug– the best hug in all of poetry.

the rikers graduationn ceremony was incredible. i reprised my new poem, complete with the references that the line betweeen criminals and everybody else is very blurry, in front of the directors of the freshstart program and the new warden of c76. very tough.

i also know the difference between a poem and a speech cuz the dude that went after me (a communications teacher, no less) gave the most boring speech after me saying the same things i was saying.

seeing the fellas there, reading their poems in front of friends and family was really great. the food after was better! shrimp and chicken with cashew nuts, fresh ceasar salad, chicken cacciatore, grape leaves with snow peas, haricots vert with tomato & dessert– creme brulle with fruit and chocolate gananche with strawberries.

all prepared by the fellas.

i cant wait to do this again next semester

“Back shots proper, the law can’t stop us”

get this call last week from lynne, “can you put a team Acentos together for the bizarro team slam?”

putting the team together was pretty easy since we have some real strong readers on the open mic but my biggest concern was our over proliferation of males so i knew that i wanted jayme (as our most consistent lady) on the squad.

the game plan was pretty simple and i let everybody know the deal… “we are going up against a team that has been rehearsing every week for the last three months and another team of national veterans that dont give a fuck! lets have fun and do our best.”

i needed fish to be first in that his energy is incredible and i wanted something to set the team in a real forward direction. in retrospect, it was a great strategy mobe in that no one else on the urbana squad had the same OOMPH but that was totally coincidental. strategy proved sound as fish scored well with the judges and proved to be the barometer for the rest of the evening with a 27.6, dawn saylor came up next which was an entire 180 and a good strategy but her piece somehow didnt connect with the judges, marty & lynne followed up with a 13 group piece(!) that is real young and will only get better in time for a 27.9

recap– first round and we are still in the mix!

taylor and shappy did another group piece which had shappy talking about ‘de bebies in de billage’ and taylor adding a rib on ed garcia (peligro, peligro) and both taylor and shap ribbin’ marty (look at your hands!!!), rog up next with ‘song for trent lott’ clearly the best i’ve ever seen it done and the crowd exploded (29.4), rich up next with ‘noche buena’ which also tore the roof off. not bad strategizing again as we followed rog’s highly political piece with a more sincere cultural funny poem (again, this is just by chance) rich got a 27.2 and earned much respect from all the poets.

thrid round– rog & lynne do ‘ode to rita marley’ and get some low ass scores. not sure what was going on with the judges. taylor goes with the introspective and drops a poem about his family home and the judges are unfazed hitting him with a 24.0 and here come jayme dropping a fresh brand new poem written just for the night that talks all about my coaxing her to slam (i belive in ya! you are awesome! who will represent the ladues? i need you! you know you want to!) and my guilt trippin’ (if you cant do it i understand -sniffle-sniffle) and the coachin session (excellent! you nailed it perfectly. do the poem just like that and wear a tight shirt… uhmm, ultra feminists can back down, i love jayme to death and have WAY to much respect for her to mean that seriously)

the poem worked perfectly with just enough inside comments to keep it light, enough inclusive to keep it real and a wonderful personal revelation to keep it personal… an amazing poem that let jayme win the whole round with a 27.6 beating out the heavyweights.

and here i come… with my surprise… a fresh, brand new poem dedicated to the graduating class of the riker’s island freshstart program. the poem hit the emotional high note i wanted it to and the judges were kind with a 27.6. more than that though, i felt i had to give back to my team who went out there way to re-do their pieces, take critique and write fresh material. its a lot to do a poem three-four times and stop, restart, adjust, restart and their coach was going to do his old tried and true? hell no!

i had to take a big a chance as they were in order to consider the night a success.

the restis a blur with RAC rippin it and getting an awesome score and then t’ai bringin the ‘bionic ebonics’ and having the whole room freak out to, i believe a 29.8 or somethin ridiculous like that.

slam over, all teams to the stage, and in thrid place– should.a.been.urabana and in second place ACENTOS! and the winners team nyc|union sqaure

man, i cant describe how great it was to share the stage with all those heavyweights and know that i took my team of newbies and represented to the fullest. won a round and kept the level of poetry at a high level with diverse performance and unique perspectives. i am sure that any one would be happy to have a team acentos in their next group slam and that’s all i really wanted.

cue the sportscenter music

Friday Five

1. Do you remember your first best friend? Who was it?

marcos martinez. we met in first or second grade and he lived only three blocks away. his dad was a super which meant marcos lived in the basement and at the age of six that shit is hella.cool… playing tag, handball and wrestling right outside the doorway.

2. Are you still in touch with this person?

nah, marcos moved to florida around the same time i moved to the projects and hit a new school.

3. Do you have a current close friend?

eric is my best friend in the whole world. we met in the fifth grade and somehow clicked. i say somehow since i was a real brat at that age. in seventh grade, eric was the kid i went to talk to when my mom died. we kinda parted in high school but hooked back up when we went to the same college. the rest, for those that know, is history.

nice to say that i have other close firends in fish, the collins brothers, jose. angel and ray.

4. How did you become friends with this person?

see above story

5. Is there a friend from your past that you wish you were still in contact with? Why?

yeah, i really wish i still stayed friends with john p. we were hanging MAD tight for almost a year and then a girl came in my life and i pulled a houdini. the girl turned out to be smoke.and.mirrors.dressed.up.real.fine while john found true love. he married her, bacame a stepfather to her lil girl and they have another boy and girl now.

we tried to keep in touch for a lil bit after but it just never clicked right again and it was all m’fault. on a brighter note, ‘mercy on the battlefield’ is all about him so every time i do it i always think about him.