After checking into the dorms, I walked over to the opening ceremonies with the Dayton, Ohio team, whom I had just met. It was their first time sending a team to the Nationals, and my first time at Nationals. Incredibly, their teammate Bill briefly wondered if I were Sou MacMillan. It's tough enough, locally, to get people leave the 'o' out of my first name, and the 'z' off of MacMillan, but now strangers were mixing us up? (Note: The way to tell us apart is Sou is the mother of Liberty and I am the mother of Chance. Also, she rocks and rolls, and I crock and droll.)

The Poetsfire Welcoming ceremony featured perfect weather, a gibbous moon, drums, fire, water, Bill MacMillan in a kilt (hmmm, maybe I should squeeze that 'o' into Su. . .) -- oh, yes, and poetry. Sage Francis nailed his signature piece (for which he'd been heckled in Chicago at last year's Nationals) before retiring it. A whole lotta love was going on, from audience to performers, and amongst familiar faces recognizing one another.

After the ceremony, I really needed to catch the last train to Boston, so I could go home and pack, but of course I had to check out the mayor's reception and I kept meeting people.

“You're Su Millerz?” asked one established scenester. He'd heard all about my being “banned in Boston" and seemed somewhat incredulous.

“Yes, don't I look the part?”

“It's the gingham,” he quipped. Checkered shirts indicate checkered pasts, naturally.

I missed the train, then went back to mingle with more poets, where I straightaway met Nick Fox of Mesa, who made it into “The Tattler” as hardest working man in show business. Even at dawn I ran into poets (including a very wasted youngling) who hadn't been to bed yet and stopped to chat until I feared I might miss that train as well.

When I got back to Providence that afternoon, the team intros were already underway at Metropolis. The miraculously recovered youngling cheerfully shouted which way I should go as he passed me on the street. Well, it had been 8 hours. The intros were a blast. A great way to get a sense of the teams. The Hot Springs team (an all-chick team who boasted about their 10 tits) charmed everyone, as did Adam Stone, the lone member present from the Boston team, forlornly describing his missing teammates. My team, Cape Cod, showered the crowd with postcards and salt water taffy while team captain Kristin Knowles crooned “Old Cape Cod.”

By time our team met to go over which poems we would do, it felt as if two or three days had already passed. This was the part I most adored. Working together as a team, deciding what to wear, what to perform, spit-polishing. Our first bout would be at Nick-a-Nee's, a dive bar I'd slammed in many times over the past year, although I'd heard they'd built a stage especially for the Nationals. I was used to competing with the pool table for floor space and with the regulars at the bar for speaking volume.

My teammates convinced me to keep on the fitted linen lace dress I'd poured myself into for the first time in 12 years, though I feared it was overkill for the space. I'd chosen to prepare “Postcards from Hell,” a poem Kristin told me had great potential, although it had never garnered big scores for me. Everyone gave me tips on how to ham it up.

Because all I had to focus on was doing one poem at a bar I'd been to many times, I felt as if my first foray onto a Nationals stage was manageable. I parked myself at the corner of the bar, ordered a cup of soup and the one drink my coach, Sean Shea, would allow me before the bout, and there I stayed. The Dayton team, in the first round against San Jose, Chicago/Mad Bar and Connecticut, were seated nearby, so I was able to share their triumphs when they nailed their group piece and when Furaha really slammed her poem. Scores? I wasn't going to look at numbers this night. Other high moments for me included Clarissa's (from CT) poem and. . . Shappy, whom I'd already developed a crush on after he unexpectedly made me laugh my ass off in Worcester's Java Hut when the Slam America bus did a show there Sunday.

I think Chicago won, but at this point all I could concentrate on was our bout. Cape Cod was up against Pittsburgh, LA and Boston. Formidable competition, but we felt comfortable enough with our material to believe anything could happen. Boston and Cape Cod have a special bond, since I began as a Boston poet and Adam's the Cape Cod Poet Laureate. “Traitors,” some would tease us; “traders,” I'd reply. Many of the supporters who showed up for Boston were my friends, as well.

My fears began immediately following the warm-up poet. The scores were all over the place. We had drawn first slot, so would bear the brunt of the judges' continuing adjustment during the course of the bout (score creep). It was worse than I expected. As Tom, first up, performed “Blue,” a rollicking love poem I could listen to any number of times, no one was laughing at the most charming places, although the laughter did pick up as the poem continued. Probably the heat and the inexplicable hour-plus delay between bouts had taken its toll on the crowd. A heckler (one of the low-scoring judges from the first bout) exacerbated the problem, but I was too focused on Tom to notice until I heard people talk about it afterwards. The scores were low, and it didn't help that the spotters/scorekeepers were at a loss how to add once the computer went down. They shaved off three whole points, until corrected. Ouch!

I usually remember poets via their poems (remembering names is difficult for me) -- but I found myself completely unable to listen to any poem all the way through. I would get only bits and pieces before going inside to focus on how I'd deliver my poem. Mary Ellen, second up on our team, experienced a similar crowd reaction to Tom's: the laughter only kicked in half-way through. So, yes, I was nervous as I stepped up onto the makeshift stage. (And not only because it was a big two-foot step and I was wearing an extremely short dress.) In fact, my knees were knocking, and I can't remember how long it's been since my legs shook like that. But I had many friendly faces to deliver my lines to (and appropriate lines like “Go to Hell!” to deliver to unfriendly ones) and I really connected with the audience. The best thing about competition is that it forces us to rise to the occasion. This does not always translate into high scores, but it did for me this time. I was awash with nine-point-somethings as I collapsed in Sean's bear hug. I knew I'd placed high in the bout, but no one on my team was keeping track of the judges' scores; so all I knew for sure was that I'd outscored my friendly rival, Adam.

Our momentary joy was crushed when Kristin came up, shared her poignant tribute to her mother and infant sister, and was brutalized by the scores. “Momentary” is the key word here. With a fragile spell cast by a poem like “Bridges,” any number of distractions can rip the mood. The two key moments in Kristin's poem suffered intrusion by noise when silence was most needed. Our team placed fourth. Boston won.

THURSDAY
After brunch the next morning, Mary Ellen and I headed over to check out CAV, where we were slated to compete that evening. It took some doing to find the place. We were very pleased with the atmosphere and the stage; it seemed just right for our type of material. We met Sylvia, the owner, who was one of the first people to bring spoken word to Providence. She was thrilled to have poetry on her stage once more (her previous attempts had proved financially disastrous and her business had evolved in a new direction), but was concerned that directions to her place were incorrect, so she printed off a better map for us to distribute. I couldn't find any of the event organizers at the AS-220 or Perishable Theater, so I decided to copy and distribute the map myself. Although I wanted to see many of the daytime theme slams, I could not bring myself to endure the packed sweat boxes, so after watching a poem or two from the back of each place, I wandered the city, found a place to copy the map (with a little help from the unofficial tour guide), and went back to the dorms to start distributing them.

One of my goals for the day was to find a poet who had written down all of the judges' scores at Nick-a-Nee's Wednesday night. My rankings said I had come in 7th in my bout, and that seemed wrong. Not to mention the fact that Tom's incorrect score was posted, so it was obvious the entire night's scores were suspect. As we milled around the posted scores, I spoke to poets from Pittsburgh and LA who had also found mistakes in the scoring, and both said they had written down the scores. From various sources, I heard all about the downpour I'd slept right through, how a circle of poets danced through it. . . at least one of them naked. I was satisfied, even though I'd missed it. National Slams have to entail some public nudity, in my mind. I also heard how they had to eject the heckler at Nick-a-Nee's. Sitting in the back, I'd missed that, too.

a home-town advantage

Toward the end of the day I headed up to the LA team's rooms. Jerry Quickley had come in first, but Boston had won the match. The team was discussing how they felt there had been too many Boston judges. I couldn't recall recognizing any of the judges, but I had not been able to spot them all. I conceded that there was a home-town advantage since so many had turned out to support Boston, but did not see any discrepancy with judges, given the circumstances. The scores they supplied for me were merely totals, not the individual numbers, so I headed down to Christina Springer's room, where Norman had been keeping tally for Pittsburgh. Norman had written down the five scores for each poet, so I could add the totals up for myself. From his records, it appeared I had come in 2nd, not 7th, scoring higher even than Iyeoka (from Boston). Ranking by my newly totaled score, I moved up on the list next to Staceyann Chin and Roger Bonair-Agard -- amazing! Norman kindly volunteered to run his record book down to John Powers, who was correcting errors as they were detected.

Alaska was the westernmost team and Cape Cod the easternmost

I was a mess. I wasn't thinking clearly. Originally, I had been looking forward to our bout, wanting only to make a good impression via poetry. Now, I wanted to do as well as I had the night before. And we were up against Oakland, NYC/Nuyorican. . . and Alaska. Alaska was a bright spot that night. I had run into some of their entourage at the hotel and recommended they try CAV for dinner, so they were all there when we arrived. Alaska was the westernmost team and Cape Cod the easternmost, so there was instant, if brief, camaraderie. But after the mild chaos of seating all of our group, I had to give up the idea that our team might get a practice session in. Still, we managed to run outside and do one run-through of our group piece, which the film crew documenting Kristin wanted to record -- but unfortunately Mary Ellen balked at performing it that night.

an abecedarian poem, and I left out “F”

I was hopeful that the crowd would know who Edward Gorey was (my poem for this night is a tribute to Gorey, who died this April) and would be in the mood for comedy after so many dramatic poems. While waiting my turn, I was fascinated by the Nuyorican coach, who stood by our table, his back to the stage, and orchestrated their evening down to the amount of cheering his entourage did. My hopes were soon dashed. I did not connect with this audience, and even began to lose the poem. “Mourning Gorey” is an abecedarian poem, and I left out “F” --of all things. (Well, I'm always a little iffy on the alphabet, but it usually doesn't break down until Q or W.) I was too dejected even to listen to the scores. Apparently, I even got one 10 and finished dead center of the pack. Our team came in 3rd.

they were the “po' ass team”

But I saw the up side of “losing” the minute we hit Lupo's to see Dayton, Hot Springs and NYC/Urbana duke it out: a) I could actually enjoy the poetry, and b) I could scarf down all the pizza and chocolate I wanted. Diet time was over. As a bonus, we could bop back and forth between Lupo's and The Met Cafe, so we could also catch parts of San Antonio, Ozarks, Mad Bar and Ann Arbor's performances. In one club, I got to see killer versions of Shappy's “Butterfly” (Mad Bar) and Erik Daniel's “Ok, Fine” poem (team Ann Arbor). In the other, I got to see Taylor Mali for the first time. He did his declarative poem, which I like, but one has to admire the spunk of the Hot Springs team, who followed with “And here is a poem I didn't write five years ago.” (The Hot Springs team had spunk to spare. They'd blacked out letters of their POET PASS to read “PO ASS,” as they were the “po' ass team.”)

Beau Sia, wearing a big pink fuzzy sweater

But the highlight of the evening was Beau Sia, wearing a big pink fuzzy sweater, reading a hot and heaving love poem to emcee Wammo, who didn't seem to know how to react. It was crude and over-the-top and very funny. A little later a friend sidled up to me and pointed out, “Beau's not wearing that pink sweater anymore. Costume.” Darned if the sweater was not now adorning a girl friend.

I went up to Beau, grinning. “So. . . Was your girl friend chilly? Or is that her sweater?”

He explained, “I get cold just before I perform. Then afterwards, I get overheated.”

“Mm-hm," I conceded that point and moved on. “Lucky thing the sweater was pink.” (Considering the topic of the poem.)

“Actually, I like pink. I've been wearing a lot of pink.” He's good. Everything is thought through. I (truthfully) told him how much I liked his Night Without Armor spoof and bowed out.

FRIDAY
I woke up rested and revived, wrote a spoof on how to succeed at Nationals (which included dropping the pink skirt I planned to wear that night -- without its being a prop, since I would leave it “available to all.”). . . just in case I got a chance to do a calibration poem. You never know.

by now, it no longer mattered

Back at the dorms, I saw they had “corrected” my standings, but even so the mix-up was far from over. Valerie Lawson (cohost with Adam Stone at the Daily Grind in Bridgewater) had kept tally Wednesday night also, and her record differed from Norman's. According to her records, I had come in 3rd, after Iyeoka, which would make a difference as to whether Iyeoka made it into the semi-finals as an indie. Already, because of a protest, Bryonn Bain had been erroneously told he had made the indie semi-finals, so there was talk of adding him as a 13th entrant. Now someone would have to be dropped, if it were true Iyeoka belonged in the line-up. It seemed unbelievable to me that no one had the scores officially recorded to compare to these varying records before adopting them. By now, it no longer mattered that there seemed to be no concurrence about my scores: if Iyeoka belonged in the line-up, there was very little time to make sure she was included. Valerie gave her scoresheet to Adam to dispatch to John Powers.

it looked like I was sporting Barbie boobs

I dressed up in a hot pink silk skirt and orange net top, ready to have a blast. With a flesh-colored foundation slip underneath, it looked like I was sporting Barbie boobs. In answer to the most-asked question of the night. . . yes, I do have nipples. . . . I saw John Powers at the Met Cafe and gave him fair warning another headache was coming his way: he later asked if I agreed with Ray Davey's decision to add Iyeoka without dropping any other semi-finalist, so that there were now 14, and I whole-heartedly agreed that was the best choice at this final hour. I made my way to the back alley behind AS-220 and watched through the window at the back of the stage as Boston won their bout, congratulated my friends, then got back to Lupo's for the indie competition.

overdosed on love and words

It was a night of hugs, kisses, screaming top-lung. As my throat began to shut down once more, I noted one of the Tennessee poets waving pom poms instead of cheering. Smart, I thought. Next year. Halfway through the second round of individuals, I stumbled outside and said, “Enough!” I had overdosed on love and words. Iyeoka made it to the finals, as the number one poet of the evening. And Boston would be in the finals, along with the three New York teams.

SATURDAY
I woke up sick. Pointed at my throat when people wanted me to talk. I managed to down a cup of coffee and half a spinach pie, which I shared with Tom. I was determined to get to the slam family meeting, and hear what was said about the indie semi-finals, so a group of us piled in my car and we somehow found the place. There was a long discussion on a “Hall of Fame” for organizers which I did not entirely follow, except that the slam masters had decided on this at their spring meeting and wanted us to accept it. I voted for discussing it further, and when that was knocked down, I voted against accepting it at this time. Some awards ceremony idea was also voted down.

struck me as odd and foreboding

What followed was an issue that meant more to me: a protest had been filed that Boston had an unfair advantage in the judging. The accusations seemed unfounded to me. As I had heard elsewhere, and as Bill MacMillan explained to the family, the council had access to how each judge had scored throughout the evening Friday. So during the protest meeting, the scores from the two judges from Boston could be eliminated, to show that Boston had still won, by an even larger margin. Nonetheless, it was suggested that people lie. Michael Brown, Boston slam master, stood up and said he would find out by this evening, and if he discovered that anyone had lied, he'd pull his team out of the finals. Something about it struck me as odd and foreboding. Although the next agenda item was the one I'd been wanting to hear about, the issue of the number of people in the indie competition, I had planned to read at the Children's Museum and it was time to go. I stayed just long enough to hear both sides from Danny Solis and Bill MacMillan, then took off.

I found a 4-leaf clover and friends said to give it to Boston

That afternoon a group of us went to the cookout (by which time only potato chips and cheese were left). I found a 4-leaf clover and friends said to give it to Boston -- Adam stuck it in his cap. The Burlington, VT team, the Guerrilla Poets (I can't believe I haven't mentioned the ubiquitous guerrilla poets before now), Corinna (Boston's alternate), Adam and I went shopping for finals night attire in the Garment District. Jenny, from Ithaca, came by just in time to win a hula hoop contest a store was holding on the street, then we all split up to get ready. After I had a hot toddy and got dressed, I culled a few dawdlers like myself into a group and we piled into my van. On the way to Veteran's Memorial Auditorium, BessKepp (team LA) mentioned that he'd heard the Boston team had cheated. Oh no, I assured him. I explained I'd been at the slam family meeting and heard that when they discounted the scores from local judges, Boston still won.

One look at his face and I knew. . .

But when we arrived at the auditorium, my friend Adam was outside. One look at his face and I knew. Boston had been pulled. It was true: a friend of one of the team members had judged Friday night. I was too disheartened to stay for the entire evening's proceedings. I did watch the individuals and wondered how the knowledge that she wouldn't be able to compete with her team affected Iyeoka's performance. I thought her passionate and moving and elegant under fire. . . and her scores a little on the low side. To come in fourth under any circumstances, but especially these, is admirable. I know that at least Adam and Iyeoka attended the after-finals party, and had every reason to hold their heads high, but I headed home to crash. I also know that slam poets in the New England area, particularly in Boston, will be dealing with the fallout from this Nationals for a while to come.

POSTSCRIPT
Not to end on an unhappy note, I want to add that I drove out to the Java Hut on Sunday night, where I discovered that my cold originated in Worcester (just so all you folks at home know when it hits you) -- and where I decompressed by listening to the fine group feature by the executive committee. I woke up today still harboring the echoes of Brenda Moossy's haunting biblical piece.

--Robyn Su Millerz

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