August 3, 2008 - SLAMicide Sendoff

The energy was high tonight; it was the last home performance before the National Poetry Slam in Madison, Wisconsin. The Den was full, predominantly with the family and friends of the team.

Chris August started the open mic portion of the evening with a poem about his mother’s 60^th birthday, describing how she would like to get a tattoo of a butterfly. He shifts from this to discuss religion and tolerance, transitioning from a description of St. Francis as the patron saint of animals to the lack of a patron saint of gay sons. I especially enjoyed how the answer to his mother’s angst-ridden prayers was, “to love him”. Over time, she learned tolerance, finding that “sometimes you have to poke holes in the sides so something beautiful can come out”.

Moving directly from that poem into his high-energy hosting, he welcomed everyone to the “penultimate” meeting before Nationals, using that term specifically because “multisyllabic words make your penis bigger. I’m almost sure it’s been biologically proven”.

Christina read first. A little nervous and rather fidgety, she presented a wonderful remake of Allan Ginsberg’s “America”. This poem had gone through several transitions, originally being written as a solo piece, transformed into a group piece, and then re-written as a solo piece, and the final result was wonderful. “America, it’s been 52 years and I’m still not in my right mind”, she began, proceeding to describe how “plastic is our cash crop” and we are “playing footsie with China”. “America, if you’re going to lie to me,” she continued to many laughs from the crowd, “please do so in my own tongue”. One of my favorite direct references to the original was the line, “America, we’ve finally got them Russians, but now it’s those Tal-heads”. One of my favorite images in this piece was, “America, I’ve hooked my finger in your pocket because you won’t hold hands”.

I thought it particularly interesting how serious (as is usual for readers of “America”) she was in her reading, as opposed to Ginsberg’s own hilarious, tongue-in-cheek presentation.

John Olson next presented two pieces from Kipling. The first, “The Gods of the Cobybook Heading,” he read from the book. The second, “Our Fathers of Old,” he had memorized, and he recited as he moved around the stage-area. Dario next presented a few pieces. This was only his second time at the mic.

Gayle Danley, the 1994 Individual Poetry Slam champion and a member of the 2006 Baltimore National Team presented next. She was playful and conversational, chatting merrily with the audience. She had only prepared one piece, so she asked the audience to select the others. The current team gladly obliged. Gayle’s first poem was a fun piece about how she used to pee on the playground with a childhood friend. “The sun always kept our little secret”. She spoke with a powerful voice and incorporated the audience dramatically. I especially enjoyed the local references in the poem. Ultimately, the piece criticized the teacher who had punished her for deifying herself, and Gayle promised that she’d support her own daughter in such a circumstance rather than allowing society to shame her for a natural process. “Sugar,” she’d tell the teacher, “you aren’t God. My daughter is.”

The second poem, “You Came Together” broke a tie that had enabled the team to make it to finals. A rescued poem, it had nearly been thrown out. I loved the images describing the origins of the child, such as, “Babies come from Friday nights melted into Saturday mornings,” “from EPT tests”, and “three glasses of white zinfandel”. Sweet, sarcastic, and true to life, this was a very fun poem.

The next, “Bird Watching” was written by Christian Drake, a former member of the D.C./Baltimore team in 2005 and the Berkley team between 2006 and 2008. The crowd roared with excitement when Gayle announced the piece, and it proved well worth the anticipation. Opening with a description of how the narrator was attacked by a bird at the zoo, it continues to tell how “for the rest of my childhood”, his mother “taught me to stand holding my hands out”. It proceeds to tell about how, now that his mother is gone, he looks for her through his bird watching. “When I reach for you, I see feathers.” “I do not believe in angels,” he says, “but that doesn’t stop me from looking for you through binoculars”.

This concluded the open mic portion of the night, and Chris August proceeded to introduce the Baltimore Slam Team, describing how they’d been practicing for moths and were able to bring a diverse array of skills and perspectives to the competition. I especially enjoyed this feature because it was a preview of many of the pieces the team would be using in competition. I’m going to list the pieces now, but check the subsequent posts to see when and where they were used in competition.

Baltimore Skyline

Twain performed his piece on the gospel of funk, a fun poem that tells how “funk put wings on the blues” and not it is the turn of Hip-hop “to bring us back together and make us one nation under groove”. Twain’s next piece was a playful poem about marriage. “Any man can love a thousand women,” he concluded, “but it takes a fucking genius to love a woman a thousand ways”. Twain’s third poem was a fun piece about being a bicycle courier.

Ryan performed “Nerd Girl,” his poem in praise of smart, if nerdy, women. His next piece was “Fuckups,” the poem opening with a description of suicide and concluding with a fuckup who has survived and is now committed to life. Ryan’s followed this with “Sex Drive”, the fun poem that described a relationship in terms of many well-played automotive puns, counting off the references on his fingers as he performed.

Chris Wilson adopted a deliberately nervous demeanor as he performed his apology for stealing an ex’s shampoo. Chris’ next poem was “Waiting to Inhale,” a new piece humorously exploring the hypocrisy in our nation’s drug policy and the lost potential resulting from this. It was interesting to see how this poem had changed from the first reading I had seen of it. Chris Wilson next performed a piece with Chris August. They started standing back-to-back, listing the prices of food as opposed to the expenditures of individual politicians. This powerful piece went on to challenge congressmen to experience actual poverty before making their policies.

Kyle performed “DeAngelo”, his piece about a highly tattooed student who speaks his pains in the ink on his flesh. He followed this with his poem about his mother, and the lines about how her heart pumped Elmer’s glue were still powerful, though it was also neat to see how this poem had been modified. Kyle’s next poem was about “Darius Jackson”, a student who could dance and who’s smile lit up the room until he took a hard blow from God.

The team concluded with a very powerful group piece. Standing at each corner of a box, they began by listing a series of related concepts; Twain named a saint, Chris Wilson described that Saint’s subject, Kyle listed a ribbon, and Ryan described that ribbon’s cause. “With more colors and causes, our ribbons are becoming tangled and frayed”, they declared, describing how now a single color can stand for many, and even contradictory, causes. “We’ve been praying to the backs of cars,” they declare before urging the audience to take the causes to our jobs, homes, hearts, and voting booths.

A powerful piece and a good way to end the evening, I was excited for the team. They seemed to be on solid footing for Nationals. They would be leaving in the morning for Madison.