FIVE FLORIDA TEAMS CHICAGO-BOUND
Get out your calculators, your slide rules, your abaci. ’Tis the season to tally and re-tally, at National Poetry Slam 2003.

Among the record-breaking 63 teams competing in Chicago this year at the 14th annual National Poetry Slam (August 6 - 9), Florida will be well represented by these five teams:

• Delray Poetry Slam from Delray Beach, slammaster Marya Summers
  
  
• Spittin Fi’ya from Ft. Lauderdale, slammaster Aavan Adkins
  
  
• Miami Masters Poetry Slam from Miami, slammaster Alexander Proctor
  
  
• Broken Speech Poetry Slam from Orlando, slammaster j. bradley
  
  
• Speech Therapy from Pensacola, slammaster Ches Kanno

TAKE NOTE OF LIZZ
Whether you are heading to Chicago for NPS 2003, or passing through Florida, take note of Elizabeth Rose Straight, or Lizz, as she is affectionately known to friends and family. A first-time member of Team Pensacola, Lizz has been building a reputation for herself throughout the Southeast. I met her earlier this year when she featured at the Globe Coffee Lounge’s Sunday School Confessions in Poetry showcase in St. Petersburg. A wisp of a poet who packs a wallop, she brought the audience to our feet. In June, Lizz beat out 70 other slammers at the Southern Fried 2003 regionals in New Orleans, ranking #1 overall.

Born in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Lizz has carved out her own slice of the universe in her short 23 years. Being born to a 15-year-old mother, raised Catholic and Black in the South and having lived in eight states has lent her a multitude of environments and circumstances with which to paint poetic pictures. Currently a journalism major at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Ms. Straight has produced a poetry CD, Misanthropic Topics of a Literary Luminary, and a poetry chapbook, Nursery Rhymes, Heart Attacks and Public Service Announcements.

Her focus is to give back to her ancestors and leave gifts of informative, hard-hitting, down to earth spoken word, literature and journalism. Her words can be seen and heard live most Tuesday nights at the Tropix Nightclub in Tampa, where the Conscious Party produces a weekly Black on Black Rhyme spoken word celebration.

CLOSER MAGAZINE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Marya Summers, Dada Queen and Delray slammaster, asked me to announce a call for submissions to a short fiction contest sponsored by Florida Literary Arts on Page & Stage, Inc. in collaboration with South Florida’s premiere art and culture magazine, Closer Magazine.

“We’re looking for edgy work no longer than 2000 words. There’s a $300 prize and publication in Closer Magazine; this is a national competition that’s been advertised in Poets & Writers magazine. This email is giving you the jump on the contest since the ad doesn’t come out until the Sept/Oct issue.”

PETER MEINKE COMES OUT OF RETIREMENT
In 1966, Peter Meinke came to Florida Presbyterian College, now Eckerd (the only private national liberal arts college in Florida, located in St. Petersburg). He set up one of the country’s first undergraduate writing majors, then took early retirement (perfect for a writer!) in 1993 -- but the program’s still going strong, directed by novelist Sterling Watson, aided by poet Scott Ward and others.

Meinke has published 12 books of poetry, six in the prestigious Pitt Poetry Series; the latest, Zinc Fingers, received the 2001 Southeast Booksellers Association (SEBA) Award for being “the year’s best.” His work has been published in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Atlantic and scores of other magazines, and he has been writer-in-residence at the U. of Hawaii, Hamilton, Davidson, U. of North Carolina and many other colleges and universities.

If ever there were a deserving candidate for poet laureate of St. Petersburg, it would be Meinke. But according to James E. Tokley, Sr., who is serving a ten year appointment as poet laureate for Tampa, the conservative St. Pete mayor was less than enthusiastic about establishing the post in his city, poets being so politically outspoken and all.

When I contacted Peter about a slam I’ll be hosting at Eckerd College later this month, he (kind of) apologized that he won’t be able to attend, as he is (sort of) “un-retiring” to move to Norfolk, Virginia as writer-in-residence at Old Dominion University. One of the nicest guys you’d want to listen to on the subject of poetry, Peter graciously commented on page vs. spoken word:

“Although I’m a book person, and spend a lot of my time reading and memorizing poems (not my own), I think poetry, like music, is wonderful to hear. Poetry slams are lively, and sometimes even moving; anything that widens the audience for poetry has my vote -- even though I prefer its quieter modes: reading it all alone late at night, or listening to a poet in a reasonably small and intimate setting. But I agree with our Poet Laureate Billy Collins, who read recently at Ruth Eckerd Hall [in Clearwater], alternating his poems with Mary Chapin Carpenter singing songs: What we need to do now is try to get poetry out there in any way that works. Poetry is a serious business, but it can be fun, as well.”

NAKED POETRY

Catholics have always known
nakedness embraces sacredness:
How the heart’s mouth
yearns to strip
if only in a box or on a page
for strangers with downcast eyes

Words reined in too long
implode on liver and lung:
Hermit crabs scraping
the veins’ lanes
until they find a hole

to hunker in
Look at my hands
their ragged nails
I press them

together as if to pray:
here’s the church here the steeple
Poets are

unhealthy people
whether sinful or too pure:

WRITING IS THE ONLY CURE

© 2000, Peter Meinke
from Zinc Fingers, University of Pittsburgh Press

Stazja McFadyen