MUSELETTER #39
7/9/2000
Midsummer & poetry's bustin' out all over. This Museletter brings you Gary Mex Glazner's letters home from the Taos Poetry Circus, more news about the great coast-to-coast SlamAmerica bus tour he organized (it begins tonight in Seattle!), Jennifer Joseph's notes from San Francisco, including the City Lights book release party for the book behind the SlamAmerica tour (Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry, published by Manic D), & reports from our readers on a new online haven & the July 4th free speech protest at a Las Vegas Barnes & Noble.
Enjoy! And keep sending your notes & poems!
Margy Snyder & Bob Holman
Poetry Guides
POETRY IS EVERYWHERE AT ABOUT
In light of the Barnes & Noble brouhaha we reported last week, poets may want to study up on free speech & the First Amendment:
- “Short Take: Americans Spurn Free Speech”
Civil Liberties Guide J.D. Tuccille reports the disheartening results of a recent survey of the American public's views on First Amendment issues. - Resist the Censors Resources
Here's Tuccille's collection of useful links: “Ideas and efforts for resisting censorship, as well as verboten material that has found a new life online.” - Free Speech Links
About's Libertarianism site also has a collection of free speech links.
NEW MEXICO/SOUTHWEST
SlamAmerica Comes to Santa Fe
The SlamAmerica Tour comes to Inn on the Alameda in Santa Fe, Wednesday, July 19th, 6 to 8 pm. Check the SlamAmerica Web site for dates in your city.
Three Letters Home from the Taos Poetry Circus
Everyone here in New Mexico is still taking about the big week up in Taos. The consensus is that the Holman vs. Alexie Bout was hot and close. The fires are out and things are returning to as normal as the high desert gets. To celebrate one last toast to a great week, here are three letters home from the Taos Poetry Circus.
The Big Challenge
Taos, June 12, 2000. A field of 17 poets braved the heat in the first round at the Taos Poetry Slam. Set in an outdoor cafe and hosted by Poetry Alive cofounder Jim Navé, the judges included Yale Younger Poet winner Craig Arnold and Sonya Feher's mom, “Mom Feher.” Juan Conche from the Taos Pueblo blasted out his praise poem to the Youth Slam held earlier this year in San Francisco, which highlighted his falling in love with a member of the Seattle Youth Team. If you followed the comments on the Slam listserv by Bowerbird and others regarding the Youth Slam, it was wonderful to hear that joy set to a rollicking hip hop rhythm. Standouts for the day included Joanne Young's poem for Afghani women, Big Poppa E's making Peach Cobbler with his Grandmother, and Abraham Smith's signature impressionistic jazz-tinged waterfall of words.
The most dramatic moment of the afternoon came when suave Navé slipped and called the big-night, final Bout a “Slam.” Poetry Circus organizer Peter Rabbit went ballistic, shouting and spitting at the crowd of 50, that the Bout was born in 1980 and the Poetry Slam was derivative of the World Heavyweight Poetry Bout. . . that all poets in the Poetry Slam were amateurs, subtext “you are all a bunch of losers.” As he wound down his diatribe Danny Solis (who was featured with Paula Friedrich in the Tag Team Bout) challenged Rabbit to a Slam right then and there. Rabbit backed down, refusing to slam against Solis. Later, many poets who had participated in the Slam questioned why Rabbit had felt the need to insult them: why include a Slam in the Taos Poetry Circus at all if that was how he felt? Others recalled the tie between Patricia Smith and Jimmy Santiago Baca from a few years back that was broken by giving the match to Baca.
The general tone was one of reunion and greeting of old friends. The laid-back setting with Taos Mountain in the background and the small town feeling encouraged friendly exchanges. The Taos Youth Slammers were out in force as volunteers and as poets. The crowd buzzed with relief when the verbal whipping was done and they could go back to their iced coffees, quiet slam poems and tie-died desert sun.
This just in! Peter Rabbit has accepted Solis's challenge and they will throw down sometime this fall, place-time-prize to be announced.
Why Do Poets Have Rules?
Taos, June 14, 2000. Terry Jacobus drew his barbed quill, edging a line in the stage, frosty as the Taos Cow. In his opening poem in the tag team bout he stated that “Slamming makes men mean and women bitter.” Continuing the playful but controversial theme of “Bout, good,” “Slam, bad,” Jacobus, who won the first ever heavyweight championship, was paired with returning tag team champ Lewis MacAdams. Taking on challengers Paula Friedrich and Danny Solis, they deftly developed the tag team format, which may be the most innovative framework for presenting performance poetry devised to date.
The tag team bout is broken up into eight rounds of five minutes each; the poets may augment the poems in any way they choose, meaning they may use music, props or dancing bears. Solis and Friedrich made the best use of music, incorporating hand drums and a Balinese Gendar (a xylophone-type instrument). In the first half Jacobus and MacAdams stretched the form by repeatedly tagging in and out, trading off poems and playing off of each other, creating miniature 5-minute shows. The result was not the highly crafted group-piece texture of the Slam, but a more informal following each other with resonant poems, occasionally reinforcing lines or singing together. Friedrich and Solis were more polished and rehearsed; still at the halfway point most had the bout at a dead heat or with the challengers slightly ahead.
If there is anything Slammers understand, it is the primacy of rules in competition, and the champions had been going overtime. After a quick huddle, the organizers decided that the rules would be followed and penalties for overtime would be enforced (although some weight was given to the idea that adhering too closely to the rules was not in the spirit of the bout). In the second half, both teams heated up. MacAdams found a way to get Marilyn Monroe and Walt Whitman married. Jacobus brought Edgar Allan Poe to modern auto culture. Solis and Friedrich began to trade poems within the rounds, Paula blasting out the blues in her Medusa poem, Solis doing his signature poem, “Coyote,” starting from the audience and working the crowd.
The match ended in a tie, with one judge going for the champions, one judge going for the challengers and one judge giving each team four rounds. The audience held their breath as Peter Rabbit announced the bout going to Friedrich and Solis on time penalties, with the champs going overtime on three rounds. It was a great show and the tag team form has many possibilities to be explored.
Much of the work at festivals is done before, after and between the readings. Taos is a great example of that with its huge sky and the organizers Annie and Peter with hearts to match. After the tag team bout there was a great party hosted by Jen. The new champs filled the hot tub, singing songs of praise to the first ever performance poetry mascot, “Slam Duck.”
Congratulations to Sonya Feher for her performance and win in the open Slam. Congratulations to the Taos high school kids, who may be the first in the nation to get a letter in poetry. Think team jacket with a big P! The weather is great, the Open Living Room reading sweet, & I just wish everyone could be here in New Mexico.
The Final Night: In a Superb Show, Alexie Retains His Title
Taos, June 17, 2000. Like the percentage of marriages that last, the challenger also has a fifty, fifty chance at the Taos Heavyweight Championship. Much advice and well wishes were received before the ceremony. The comments for the challenger ranged from “Sing harmony, to his Mick Jagger,” to “don't play the victim.”
Holman vs. Alexie, the 19th annual Heavyweight Poetry Bout. The MC for the event immediately set the stage for the event, calling Holman “the fastest talking white guy” and referring to Alexie's new book by calling him “The Toughest Indian in the World,” clamoring for Holman to sit in the white corner and Alexie to sit in the red corner. Although Holman had many supporters in the audience, Alexie was clearly the crowd favorite. No one could be ignorant of the races of the two men, and although it was done in fun, calling attention to it in such a blatant way removed the neutrality one hopes for in the MC.
For Slammers not familiar with the form of the Bout, it goes like this: The MC and organizers makes announcements of sponsors. Then they name the poets in the audience, mostly acknowledging participants in the festival. This year they dropped the winners of the tag team bout from the list. The cool thing about the format is that once the bout starts, it is poem after poem, with the MC no longer involved, focusing the audience on the poetry. The three judges are selected from the community in advance and generally are not writers. The judges score the rounds, winner 10, loser 9, although if they feel the round was not up to par they may give lower scores. The scoring is done in secret. While this means that you do not have the excitement of the MC calling out immediate scores as in the Poetry Slam, it does move the event along quickly. The audience is encouraged to vote along, on score cards provided and tallied at the end of the evening for a popular vote, which does not impact the official judges' decision. The secret scoring does give the event a cliffhanger feel, with the audience buzzing after the match to hear the outcome.
Alexie dominated the first half with his trademark theme of life growing up on the Rez. His early training as a stand-up comic shined, with his impeccable timing and on-the-fly editing of lines from the poems. Alexie's poems, although strong with poetic language, are always stories, easy to follow and understand. Holman works in the New York School lineage of poets, taking up where Frank O'Hara and Ted Berrigan left off. His work is greatly influenced by the theories of abstract painters. One judge, who scored the bout a tie, remarked that at times Holman was hard to follow.
In the second half Holman came back strong, starting with the intimate poem “A Jew in New York.” In the anything-goes seventh round Holman became the first poet to use a live musician in the Heavyweight Bout. Teaming up with violinist Mathilda Nance for his poem “Impossible Rap.” Nance started out in a Bach-like classical vein, switching to a dissonant minor jazz to follow Holman, and using the back of the violin as a drum as Holman broke into rap. The piece brought down the house. Alexie responded by chanting his new poem “One Stick Song.” He explained in the introduction about a gambling game that involves betting sticks, how when you get down to your last stick, you sing your best song, your “One Stick Song.” Although Holman had clearly taken the round, Alexie's passion and clear deep voice made it close.
In the last round of the Bout, the poets select one word from a hat and have 30 seconds to compose a poem. Holman drew “Beads,” and strung together a beautiful extemporaneous story of uniting the images of the beaded hat that is one of the bout's prizes, how words are like beads in language and tying in the image of his father. Alexie drew “Masks,” weaving a tale of the different masks we all wear, ending with his taking on the mask of his father, how each day he looks more like his father and how he loves the man. His ending responded to Holman's bringing his father into the poem. Earlier in the evening Holman had stepped out of his abstract word-play vein to reveal that the words of his poem, “I'd Rather Be Crazy Than Stupid (So How Come I'm Crazy For You?” were based on the suicide phone call from his father to his mother, telling her he had drunk poison. Although he was taken to the hospital and had his stomach pumped, he died the next morning. Many people in the audience were brought to tears at the moment of this revelation. Alexie, showing the savvy of the returning champ, played off this emotion, ending the evening with the powerful image of a son loving his father no matter what.
The judges went to a back room along with the acting commissioner of the WPBA, Amalio Madueño, to tally the score. Alexie and Holman were mobbed with fans getting autographs, having books signed and generally rubbing up against them. You could taste the tension and love in the room. The crowd went crazy when Alexie was announced as the winner for the third year in a row, the first time any poet has remained champ for so long. In his concession speech. Holman remarked that after conquering the Bout, the only thing left for Sherman to win was the Nobel Prize.
SAN FRANCISCO/BAY AREA
Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry
Okay, this is gonna be a little short because I've been working like a maniac to get the opus grande Slam anthology published by Manic D Press entitled Poetry Slam: The Competitive Art of Performance Poetry out the door and on its merry way to Seattle to meet the SlamAmerica tour bus which launches Sunday on its whirlwind poetryfest leading up to the Nationals in Providence, RI. In fact, the book is done! And Manic D is throwing a little bash to which y'all are invited at City Lights Bookstore on Wednesday, July 12 at 7 pm. Slammers past and present will be on hand to kick out the jams, including Beth Lisick, Ariana Waynes, Big Poppa E, Lisa Martinovic, Mack Dennis, Gary Glazner, Juliette Torrez, Cas McGee, Nisa Ahmad, and Paula Friedrich -- and that's just some of the 100 poets contributing to this wacky wonderful book. . . In fact, Bob Holman hisself wrote the chapter on how to start and host a Slam, and he knows more about this stuff than almost anybody. . . Yeah, yeah, be there or be square. . .
Local Slam News
In other Slam news, the local Slam finals are over and members of this year's teams representing the Bay Area at Nationals in August will be:Lots of dynamite talent and diversity represented -- the Bay Area presence in Providence should be totally out-of-control and over the top.
- San Francisco
Ariana Waynes, Aya DeLeon, Rene Van, and Seeking (2 rookies, 2 members of last year's championship team)
- Oakland
Carlos Wilborn, Nazleah, Michael Cirelli, and Afro Ken (all-rookie team)
- San Jose
Jamie Kennedy, Mack Dennis, Pittsburg, and Geoff Trenchard (Jamie was with Oakland last year when they placed in the Finals.)
Tea & Catalyst Tour
Spoken word scenesters Michelle Tea (of Sister Spit fame) and Clint Catalyst hit the road this month for a major West Coast tour up to Vancouver and down to LA, with many stops in between. If they come to your town, don't miss them -- both are great readers and great writers. Check 'em out!
Outlaw Bible Tour Rumor
There are rumblings about a West Coast college tour this fall supporting the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry with the likes of poets Bucky Sinister, Sini Anderson, Carl Watson, and a couple others I can't remember -- stay tuned for more info. . .
READER-SUBMITTED POETRY NEWS BRIEFS
From Jennifer Andino:
News Flash! There's a new place for poets and writers to place their work. It's for all to come and see and if you want leave a nice little story for our enjoyment. We are located at www.egroups.com. Look for us under poetsandstories and you'll have the pleasure of seeing all different types of work. So please help yourself and come on by to the newest kid on the poetry circuit. Thanks!
From Shelley Hicklin:
An account of the July 4th protest at a Las Vegas Barnes & Noble bookstore in response to their recent censorship of a local poet.
We met at Espresso Roma at 11:00 to discuss a plan of action. There were 9 of us altogether. One poet stood outside and handed out flyers explaining why we were there to the people entering the store. The other 8 slowly filtered into the store one at a time. We made selections of books that we wanted to read from including Whitman, Burroughs, Ginsberg, the Bible, and a book of Greek plays. Once everyone had arrived a few people began reading out loud. At first it was quiet, barely noticeable. People were looking around confused, as if they weren't quite sure whether this was just a coincidence that so many people around them were reading out loud. One of the employees who was shelving books turned to me and said “I think it's a protest,” not sure what to make of it. At that point I got up and began reading too.
Eventually B&N was filled with the sound of people walking the aisles reading from books found on the shelves of the store. It was beautiful -- every direction you turned you could hear literature being read out loud. By the end even those who had entered unsure of whether they wanted to read or not got caught up in the energy of the moment -- it was too great to resist. We read for 20 minutes or more because the management was simply confused. They weren't sure how to handle us. Around every corner was someone reading a book out loud, exercising their right to free speech. But eventually they began to circle the store asking each of us individually to leave. And as planned we each left when asked to.
There were a few customers in the store who reacted violently. One man walked up and shoved me and called me “Bitch.” I simply kept reading as he walked away. One of the readers said that a man took a swing at her. It seemed odd to me that someone would be willing to act physically violent towards someone who was simply speaking out loud. When someone asked him what he thought of the protest he said he thought it was quite rude but evidently he believed that trying to hit a woman was okay.
So that's what happened. It was very cool. It definitely shook up quite a few people. I just hope it made them think about free speech a bit.
