Pages

March 5, 2007

9th Installment of PSI Podcast


In this episode, Don re-broadcasts "Slam: Literary Fad or Movement." The hour long show features poetry from Marc Smith, Patricia Smith, Marty McConnell, Regie Gibson, Taylor Mali, Gary Glazner, Danny Solis, Colleen Gorman, and DaShade Moonbeam. It also includes interviews with many of above poets.

In the 9th installment of the PSI podcast, series curator, Don McIver re-broadcasts "Slam: Literary Fad or Movement."

Don McIver
MP3
5th March 2007
poetry, slam, art, performance


March 4, 2007

Sparrows-Day 2

After a nice hike in the moutains above Salida, we swam in the hot springs pool and I went over to my workshop at Bongo Billy’s.

I was surprised to see the room full, more dropping in and wondered why I even bothered to ask their names if I wasn’t going to remember them. Oh, the teacher in me. It says do this and this to break the ice, but doesn’t bother to tell the poet, “Now make sure you try and remember their names.”

On the plus side, I started out my workshop: “Spoken Word: Literary Fad or Movement,” by explaining my relationship to this very strange, amorphous genre. We talked a bit about the early Dadaist movement and played Kurt Schwitter and argued that that is arguably the birth of “spoken word,” because if there is any sense to be made in what he is saying it is in the hearing of it. I think the hearing of it creates a sort of happy satisfaction in the listener, which reading it on the page never would. But it would be nice to really understand what spurred people to write this way and how it expressed itself in society at large at the time. Likewise, getting a better understanding of how “Spoken Word” fits into the African-American and Native American traditions too. I have the material, but I don’t understand the importance of the preacher, stories in each tradition.

Obviously the section on the beats, since I’m a fan is where the piece really begins to take off. Supplemented by passable material (really need to get better material for Jack) and bring up some other characters and the importance of performance in their work. Launching into the early origins of Hip-Hop (which I’m no expert on) was fun, and it was interesting to hear the teacher say, “Using Hip-Hop songs and lyrics as a way of talking about rhyme and rhythm would be an easy way to tap into kids’ culture…” Or something to that effect. And of course, more Cowboy poetry, more background. And frankly, I’m pretty fucking knowledgeable about slam.

All in all it was a good workshop, a good overview of what Spoken Word is, how it works, why now, and where is it going.

The night's performance rocked. A really good show. My personal favorites: Hakim (of course), Kory Ford, and Jim Tipton. Overall, everyone was good and the show was structured so no body read too long. Then went to the Victoria for an Open Mike and my poem, "The Joint," was definitely the favorite of the line cooks. Line cooks love me. I'm one of them in my soul.

See you at the Win2andYouAreIn qualifier.

March 3, 2007

Sparrows Poetry Festival (aka The Colorado Performance Poetry Festival)


The little performance poetry festival that could. A few years ago, I was at the Mercury Cafe in Denver (the home of the fabulous Denver Poetry Slam) and saw a poster of the 2003 Sparrows. Gary Glazner, Roanne Lewis (the original incarnation of the Headless Buddhas) and I traveled up for one night and auditioned (5 minutes) and they invited us to come back the next year.

We, sans Roanne, came back and performed (adding Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer to the mix) and we killed. Easily the best Headless Buddhas set we've done. Well, Gary moved on to other things, I moved on to other things and didn't really think about Sparrows (in 2005-duh! wonder why) and in 2006 I sent the organizer an e-mail and asked if he needed anybody. They'd already overfilled their bill, so I didn't come up.

But this year, they wrote me and asked if I'd be willing to perform, just me. So, last night I performed. At first I thought it was gonna be weird. They had set up the stage as "a cafe" and I was the "bard-tender" as if I was the host at an open mike. But it actually worked quite well. Instead of the poets waiting for their turn to read and looking blank while the others read, they actually had to pay attention because they were "acting" as if they were at a cafe. Brilliant. Everyone had a role even when they weren't performing.

I performed "Daily Special," "The Awning," and "Cool." All killed, I've been rehearsing a lot lately so I was pretty on top of my game (yeah rehearsal). But "Cool," the only poem I slam with of the three, was particularly engaging. The audience, a not slam audience, reacted to many of the places and everybody commented, etc. Even got the, "your poem kicked ass!"

The festival seems to be a strange hybrid of non-slam Denver poets and mountain poets. All older for the most part and certainly not slammers. Will have to consider pitching a slam. Doing a workshop this afternoon and will update tomorrow. Maybe?

Gonna post Slam: Literary Fad or Movement to the blog so its available to all next week. See you in poetry land.