Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Multi-colored wallrock ranch housegrey, late 60's Buick circular drive yucca sprouting flowers In pictures, this is the house my father built placing one flat rock on top of another, around a wood frame. This was our house in Brownsville, a mile from the border town of Matamoros, Mexico. Stories of me climbing random rock wall of a reservoir in suburbia, 3 inch pipe and upper body the roof of every elementary, middle and high school in town. Rock thrown through windows on development lots, cut fences, long jumps off decks, waded creeks on a summer afternoon, as I reenacted my escape from suburbia. The gazing skyward over walls and saying, "What's on the other side?" What if I'd been born a few miles south, the smell of tamale and masa instead of coffee and sweetroll. The sound of Spanish and Ranchera, instead of English and Jazz. The slight hint of melanin in my skin, giving me a touch of brown instead of pink. Walls are meant to be climbed. Fences are meant to be...

In this episode, Don talks with the most decorated slam poet in history, 4 time individual champion Patricia Smith. In the 3rd installment of the PSI podcast, series curator, Don McIver talks with Patricia Smith. Don McIver MP3 1st April 2006 poetry, slam, art, performance

In this episode, Don talks with professor/poet Susan B.A. Somers-Willet. Susan actually wrote here dissertation on slam poetry. In the 4th installment of the PSI podcast, series curator, Don McIver talks with Susan B.A. Somers-Willet. Don McIver MP3 1st March 2006 poetry, slam, art, performance

The City of Brotherly Love for Philadelphia Yeah,that's right, I'm packing. I am. I'm packing my wallet, my keys, my watch, the card key to my hotel, my PDA , and my journal, with pen in case I get inspired on the subway. Yeah, and when I passed you on the Penn St. bridge, then stopped, I was only checking out to see if I could make out the hours for the Riverside Rink, lit up, not thinking you would catch me. No, but I guess I don't blame you, when you looked at me as I spun awayto follow you down the stairs to Columbus, and I guess I don't blame you when you stopped at 3 steps and looked at me as I passed you on the left, my engagement ring'tinging on the rail. I'm a guy, so by definition I am a danger. And you're a woman, reading a book as you walk across the bridge, but you're not sporting headphones, and you're not afraid to make eye contactwith me, some 6 foot tall, bulging layers' long haired, goatie sportin'200 pounds of potential...

In this episode, Don talks with the most successful slam strategist of all time, Taylor Mali. Taylor has won the team championship 4 times. In the 1st installment of the PSI podcast, series curator, Don McIver talks with Taylor Mali. Don McIver MP3 1st February 2006 poetry, slam, art, performance

Eulogy There are worse ways to be remembered: a manilla folder in a file clerk’s hand, a mug shot behind the detective's desk, a floating corpse in a flooded stream a broken gravestone in the cemetery soon grated over for an interstate. You’re remembered now. Not by your dead parents: alcoholic, or your brother: still drinking every morning, noon and night, or your sister: shooting up. You: a "wild catter" from the oilfields of West Texas, who partied as much as you could until shooting up speed gave you Hep C 40 years old, and you didn't know what else to do. You’re remembered now. by doctors: as methodology, by actors: a case study to memorize and by med students: a way to practice interviewing. What would happen if you loaded the happy people on one side of a scale and put the unhappy people on the other? Would the happy people even move it, make it budge? Stuck at the top looking down even the happy would become unhappy when the...

Since Engagement We talk about our relationship as if we are giving congressional testimony, you always probing always questioning why I love you, why I would choose to stay with you when you obviously don't give me what I want. This last month has been harder than the 5 years before. I hear you, Under oath, I deny that I am not getting what I want because what you don't say, is that I am not giving you what you want. You want nights of long conversations about the nature of self loathing and the voices in your head about the inner self and why, always why. I often neglect the inner self as if it was a goldfish I forgot to feed over vacation. Our relationship is dying, and its not because we don't love each other, but because strangely, you don't love your self, and every time we talk about our relationship, its me not being interested in your process, you "descending to the goddess," and coming out whole on the other side. We ...