How To Train for the World Heavyweight Poetry Bout Championship... & Lose!
Part II: The Training Regimen
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Training Regimen for 19th Annual Taos Poetry Circus World Heavyweight Poetry Bout Bob Holman vs. Sherman Alexie Goal: Peak Poetry Performance |
Tuesday, June 13th:
- Holman arrives, pick up at airport, drive to Santa Fe, light vocal exercises
- Arrive Rancho de Horny Toad (home of Gary Glazner & Margaret Victor) 5pm
- Meal: Taco salad, iced tea, ice cream
- Evening walk
- Begin to make calls for names to include in Praise Poem (continue throughout week)
- Watch videos of previous Bouts, note performance styles of poets: What works? When did winner win?
- Look at stars. . . lights out midnight
Wednesday, June 14th:
- Morning jog with dog
- Breakfast: Oatmeal with bananas, juice, coffee
- Video Holman reading poems, analyze performance, offer critique
- Lunch: Pasta salad with hint of basil, bread warm with hint of garlic, ice water with mint
- Mock Bout: Gary reads Alexie's poems, Bob responds, choose imaginary judges to give imaginary scores
- Light Snack: cut fresh vegetables with light ranch dressing
- Travel to Taos, watch tag team, support Danny and Paula
- Dinner: Carne Adovada
- Spend night in Taos, lights out midnight
Thursday, June 15th:
- Morning walk in wilderness
- Late big breakfast: Chorizo omelet with Christmas sauce, coffee, juice
- Return to Santa Fe, discuss mock bout in car: What worked? What didn't? Why?
- On arrival at Rancho de Horny Toad, return calls, check email
- Afternoon: Run through selection of poems
- Evening walk, enjoy sunset
- Dinner: Bar-b-que chicken and egg plant, ice tea, sodas
- Watch videotape of Alexie vs. Smith, discussion to follow
- Look at stars, relax
Friday, June 16th:
- Morning jog with dog
- Breakfast: Coffee, toast with jam
- Discuss Shakespeare's Sonnets, Neruda's Book of Questions, Alexie’s One Stick Song
- Lunch: Caesar salad, discuss poetry of Catullus
- Drive up to Taos
- Attend “Poets' Living Room” reading
- Dinner: Bowl of red
- Attend evening events
- Lights out midnight
Saturday, June 17th:
- Morning stretching and jog
- Breakfast: Wheaties, coffee
- Relax throughout morning
- Light run-through of poems
- Lunch: Optional
- Afternoon, dream
- Evening: Have fun
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What a great poet! Polished, grounded, vulnerable |
We stuck pretty much to the schedule. Sherman’s video revealed what I already knew: what a great poet! Polished, grounded, vulnerable. So, to help me appear polished, we printed out some of my new poems and pasted them into books: “For Jorge Brandon” over a Jorge poem in Aloud, a truncated version of “1990” into USOP. For grounding we did breathing exercises, foot-sock-shoe sole-floor-earth feel-throughs, and let balls descend. For vulnerability I told Gary the story of how my father’s last words were encoded in “I’d Rather Be Crazy Than Stupid (So How Come I’m Crazy for You?)” while we were ascending Pilar, the mountain that leads to the fairyland that is the Taos plateau. Gary told me that now I had to tell the story in the Bout! I was floored, but knew I had to. Also because Sherman’s line, that it’s all stories, no matter the medium, and it’s what enables us to survive, what survives us.
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You need a “Good Luck” |
The Mock Bout I won by pulling it out in the last rounds, but boy, was I terrible -- I’d never read “1990” so poorly, my intros floundered, the desert mocked me when I coyoted along with my brother on cassette in “Crazy.” This after I’d stuck the cassette in backwards in my new $20 Radio Shack boombox, pressed play, waited, realized, flipped tape, rewound too far, jockeyed to beginning, all the while making with the stupid patter, oy. Could go wrong? Did.
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I looked for the cunning snake and trickster coyote. . . |
Crashing on Gary and Margaret’s comfy couch (Marc Smith slept here!), lending expertise to last-minute Slam Across America poster emergencies, waking in full moon desert ballet, I know Sofasurfer Rule #1: do the dishes and take your hosts out to a super dindin. That would be Thursday night, some yummy tall food. Then we cruised the Plaza. I went souvenir sniffing in the General Store; tried on a mega-fringed Buffalo Bill coat (hideous with bermudas!), and discussed the Bout with Dennis, the Indian behind the counter. You need a “Good Luck,” he said, taking me over to a box of fetish-inscribed rocks. I looked for the cunning snake (my peeps on the Appalachian side were snake-handlers) and trickster coyote -- but Dennis settled on an open palm with spiral: openness, communication. He gave me the white stone; I gave him a hug; we walked into the velvet Santa Fe night air.
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. . . but he settled on an open palm with spiral |
And into Mathilda and Vint, musician couple. My original thought had been to get a mariachi band for the 7th (music) round, part of a whole “Blow the Place Up” ethos that I’d started with. As vision matured I had other thoughts; I’d still like to work with a mariachi band, though. Then Gary mentioned Mathilda, a super fiddle player and improviser -- alas, she was booked. But her first words this night were that the gig had been canceled -- now she’s free, we jam on the street, it’s a connect, and all of a sudden the music round will be live and improv -- we run through “The Impossible Rap or The Other Thought” a few times, Vint a super arranger, calling out changes.
I could go on about training (Gary brought his computer/printer to Taos, and I ran off my last version of the Praise Poem about 4:30), about the great Circus events (Jerry Rothenberg’s pleasure-filled readings of Hugo Ball and “Cockboy,” Nanao Sakaki’s Basho-spirit wisdom, the heroism of Ishmael Reed and John Trudell), the controversial Slam, wonderful poets around -- Go! Read the damn Praise Poem!
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When you win, your life changes. . . |
But I do want to segue back to the second half of the Bout. We’d been locked out, and had to walk in through crowd, and it wasn’t till I needed them that I realized I’d left my poems in the Green Room, and had to summon Gary to retrieve them -- had to read “Storyline” from the 8-pt-size CD booklet, difficult, is that why I lost the round? Hahaha! World Champ Bout Poet leaves poems backstage after months of training -- hey, guy, why you think I got a coach for?
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Lose, and it's back to your life. . . |
And yes, John, I did “Performance Poem” in the 9th round, out of the auditorium and into the arms of Terry Jacobus, the first Champ, who had a hard time reading the “Lake Snore Freedom” line of the poem. It was the only round that went unanimously, and it was poetry’s.
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Life ain't a bad place to be. . . |
When you win, your life changes -- poets, starved for accreditation, utilize even the mock, crazy wisdom, “title” of Taos. Lose, and -- as Wanda Coleman (loss to Alexie in ‘99), Patricia Smith (loss to Alexie in NYC ‘99) et al know -- it’s back to your life. Let me tell you a story: life ain’t a bad place to be, keeps ya busy. One more advice bite comes lilting back, this one from outdoorsperson, ‘shroom expert, skibum new daddy Rob Fullerton (love to mama Robyn and baby Ayla Mariposa!): “Sing harmony.”
--Bob Holman
Back to Part I of this article
