June 17, 2008 - The Moaning Pipe Open Mic

The Moaning Pipe Open Mic Night is held by the Towson Arts Collective in Towson, MD on the third Tuesday of every month. The venue was a basement next door to a bar. The floors were concrete and the walls were unexpectedly sterile, merely a few scattered pictures warming them. The open mic itself was held in a back room. There were exactly a half-dozen people there when Mom and I arrived just after 7 to find no more than a half-dozen people and many empty chairs.

I struck up conversation with a pair of individuals on the far end of the room. Lisa said she’d been to the Moaning pipe once before, brought by a few friends of hers. She was a guitarist and song-writer, and she was trying to muster the courage to add her name to the sign-up sheet (which called the event a “cabaret”). Chris was also a singer and guitar-player, but he was more certain of himself. He later left to get his own guitar, thereby guaranteeing himself that he’d play.

Lisa said that, in May, there’d been about 30 people drifting in and out of the open mic. He words proved portentous, and, as eight o’clock neared, the room began to fill up. A girl with the curly hair took the stage, welcoming everyone with a short story she’d written about moving to Baltimore. It was stylistic and enjoyable, describing the move in disjoined steps. It might have seemed especially relevant to me since I’d just moved into the apartment above Sweet Things, or perhaps because my parents have a similar fear of me going to the city on my own.

It turns out that it was the curly-haired girl’s birthday, and the next performer, who was bare-foot, hatted, and oddly hobbit-like, brought out his banjo and had a birthday sing along for her and one of the other collective members. This was followed by Micheline, a middle-aged woman from California with, according to my Mom, “an opinion on everything. My Mom had been talking with her for most of the time since we’d arrived, and I laughed to see my Mom glancing over at me when she started reading her passage about women and cussing. While an interesting topic – the societal restrictions upon the language used by the female sex – her excerpt was far from impressive. I suspect that her book, Everybody Lies About Their Sex Lives, is self-published.

She was followed by a guitarist who sang two vocals, and this set the tone for the night. All told, there were seven different musical groups. However, each had its own flavor. For instance, one was a string trio with a very whimsical, children’s-special feel about them. Another was a Blues-Brothers-esque duo that played with a guitar and a washerboard. Chris’ guitar was rigged to the max with a large metal disk in the middle and many buttons of indeterminate function. I also ended up speaking with a fellow named Dan, the friend who’d brought Lisa last time, who played barefoot and accompanied by a lanky, morose fellow.

The worst performance of the night, by far, was the stand-up comedian. Fall-over drunk off of his “lemonade,” he became so hung up on child porn and Miley Ray Cyrus that he forgot the rest of his routine. The curly-haired girl pulled him from the stage as soon as she possibly could, giving him a full five minutes to embarrass himself in ways he will probably never remember.

Two people actually read poetry. One, Cliff, looked like Bob Ross. He immediately started reading his first piece, but he introduced each of the following. He read directly from the page and made some, but minimal, eye-contact. He wrote a poem about Vega, the rain that doesn’t fall, which discussed possibilities never realized. He wrote about a girl who writes poems on the inside of cereal boxes, and he wrote about a guy going blind from glaucoma. He also had a super-hero poem, 1/16 Man, the Lowest Common Denominator, that was hilarious and especially notable because he had the string trio accompany him with music – guitar and violin - and voice.

The other reader was Dave, the hatted fellow from the Blues Brothers duo. He had a wonderful, confident stage manner, making jokes as he performed. His first piece, The King of Flames was an ironic commentary on the Salem Witch Trials (“Why burn something you think came from hell?”), and his second piece was about his inheritance and ancestors. Comical and enjoyable, they were a good way to end the night. However, since there was a little more time, the String Trio and the Banjo Hobbit had a reprise.

All in all, the group was friendly and supportive. I think that this was a good outlet for these individuals to express themselves, to affirm their desire to produce and create art. I was especially intrigued by the fundamental role that music played for so many of them in constructing their verses. It was also interesting to note the different approaches taken to creation.

Lisa says that her songs had to come all at once, while she was in the height of emotion. Chris said that he’d return to a piece and revise. Sometimes he’d get a whole song in a sitting, more often, it was slow going. Dan said that he’d been playing since he was a small child, and that his style’d evolved over the course of the play, following the paths that he likes.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it back, but, if I do, I’ll definitely read a piece, perhaps an original piece.

June 13, 2008 - 11th Hour Poetry Slam

The Eleventh Hour Poetry Slam occurs in the Langston Hughes Room (aka the Peace and Justice Room) of Busboys and Poets on the second Friday of every month. This Friday just happened to be a Friday the 13^th. Busboys and Poets is a restaurant with a bookstore in the back and the large Langston Hughes Room on the other side. The restaurant itself was packed, and we had to wait until nearly 11 PM before the room was cleared out enough for the SLAM.

The emcee, a slam poet named 2 Deep, was a personable and energetic woman with a great stage manner. She selected five volunteers from the audience to judge the slam, and she presented each with a dry erase board. She told the judges to rate each poem on a scale of 0.0-10.0, and to express their feelings truly. 2 Deep presented this as a favor to the poet: this way, the performer would know if he had a truly awful piece and would not make the mistake of performing it again. She cautioned the judges not to let the audience sway them. However, after the judges returned to their seats, 2 Deep addressed the audience. She warmed them up and made them scream with a few games, and then she told them she expected full participation in the SLAM. The job of the audience, she said, was to sway the judges. This created an interesting, and enjoyable dichotomy, as the judges were supposed to rise above the audience’s attempts to influence them.

Since so many of the audience members were entirely new to Slam, 2 Deep gave us a succinct definition. She said that

"slam is competitive poetry. It is a way for the community to tell the poets what they like,"

creating a dialogue between the artist and the audience. Each poet was given a maximum of 3 minutes and 20 seconds to present their piece before they would start receiving point deductions (-0.5 points for each ten seconds over time). The competition itself consisted of two rounds; each poet would present twice, and they would be ranked based on cumulative score. During the intermission, the featured poet, Jon Sands, a finalist in the 2007 National Slam, would perform.

Ten poets performed in the competition, though only eight really competed. Lamar was a professional performer with a play coming up next week, and he was asked to through his performance, which he did in spectacular fashion (eight minutes over, complete with a plug for his play, CD, and fractions of about 3 different poems). Sean was absent for the first round, so he performed in the second, but could not compete overall.

The winners were Jon, Stephen, and Maji (1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd). I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to talk directly with Jon prior to the performance. He was very personable. Jon said that he first got into poetry as a 13 year old writing love poems to girls. He said he stopped writing for a while, but had picked it up again. The appeal of slam to him was that it was a way for the poet to communicate with the community. Rather than writing on his own secret poems of angst and love, he could present and become part of an open dialogue. His first poem played off of the love poem theme, asking a girl to “choose me,” which because the refrain as he went through a comical series of metaphors for why she should chose him (Eg. “Chose me like I’m a midget at a limbo competition, like I’m the only computer at recess with the Oregon Trail game”). He was particularly successful for the accessibility of his references and his topic, as well as the running joke with dysentery.

The most common artistic elements I noticed from these performers were the use of repetition and refrains to carry the poem. They truly created a beat. Rhyme was used, but only relied upon by Maji and one or two others. These poets tended to have a more rap-like rhythm and cadence. I was surprised by how non-rap-like most of the performances were. Few of the poets relied upon paper to read, though most had their poems written out for reference. The more successful poets tended to have better stage mannerisms and microphone etiquette. They also tended to have accessible poems. Many of the poets brought in bits in foreign languages, such as Swahili or Hebrew. Love and religion and human bonds were among the most powerful themes.

Jon Sands, the featured performer, was amazing. He performed 7 original slam poems, one haiku inspired by DC (“He told me to clear / the sidewalk and his gun was / much larger than mine”), and he read one poem from Michael Sireli, another Slam poet. His major themes included love, tolderance, social awareness. One of my favorite of his pieces used the world cup as a metaphor for how the government is separate from the nation, making the point that people should not reject the US if they disagree with policy but act out of love of this country to improve it. Notably, he said that,

"the power of slam is that it allows us all to participate in “one long conversation we’ve all been long over due for.”

I was impressed not only with his ability to present, but also with his message. Sands also cheered the audience for supporting live art rather than watching reruns at home.


We didn’t finish until 1:30 AM, but even then the audience energy was high and the night electric! It was so much fun!

June 11, 2008 - Brown Bag Luncheon Presentation

Today, I presented my research project concept before the other R. E. Lee scholars and professors. The room was packed, and, aside from technical difficulties, the presentation went well. I was excited to have the chance to hear the feedback from the community.

The response was overwhelmingly positive. The audience was interested in the idea of studying performance poetry in this contemporary context, and they seemed captured by the energy of the Youtube clips that I showed. It's exciting and inspiring to get this much enthusiasm from such an intelligent, motivated crowd of people! I also received a few really interesting suggestions that I would like to follow up on.

- S.D. suggested checking out a National Geographic article about the origins of Hip Hop. It also discussed the African Ties with rap and various musical forms, as well as the commercialization aspect. He was kind enough to send me a link, which I've posted.

- Dr. U. suggested looking at Greek performances/competitive drama, which was judged by the audiences much like slam poetry.

- Dr. D. suggested the democratic nature of performance poetry, removing the realm of critique from the hands of the elite critics and restoring it to the masses.

- I also hope to be able to follow up with research on slam in other countries and the musical nature of slam poems.

Also, discussing the project with Professor Wheeler afterwards was very helpful. I'll be going to my first slam this Friday, and I'm so excited.