The road to IWPS...

...has been long and winding since I last was there. Which would've been 2006, in Vancouver, BC. That was my first IWPS (though I watched the 05 wips in Charlotte for my first national poetry slam event) and I didn't know what I was doing. Not even a little bit. I had exactly 2 1/2 poems at most, but still managed to come in 22nd. I was cool with it. Got to watch one of my boys make finals (Baz), my other boy actually win the damn thing (Ed), so it was a really good time to me. When Ed won the bid to bring IWPS to Columbus, I was amped. Like Crank type shit. I mean, how often do you get to compete for a National event in your own backyard. So I was dedicated to working my poems and giving myself a legit shot to make Finals, especially since it would be in my hometown. Then Ed moved to Arizona. And the bid fell apart. Then I started Writing Wrongs and wanted to focus on growing my scene over competing during the winter. In the words of Tyler Durden, "I suppose these things happen."

So I set my self up to make a run at this year. Berkeley sounded like a great place to jump back into the fray since I've never performed out west before (besides Vancouver). I'm still trying to grow my local scene, so I didn't want to compete in the preliminary slams as to not take a spot away from somebody else. I've been working pretty hard on my craft for the last few years and I feel...adequate going into Berkeley. Of course, the first night all ways kills more dreams then it births, but I'll blow up that bridge when I get to it. Wish me luck...I'll keep you updated as the nights progress.

Some moving pictures

I get hit up all the time as to where video of me performing is at. While I don't have a ton of recent stuff, here's what I could grab from the interwebs

Poem: 15 Songs for the Inner-City Teenager

A few people asked about this, so here it is:

15 Songs for the inner-city teenager

I. The first time you watched an animal starve to death
You told yourself
This was nature’s way
An evolution you were helpless to stand witness too
The first time you watched
You didn’t even notice it gnawing on your leg
To save itself

II. He says, ‘They gave me a hall pass, I think I’m supposed to be here’

III. Do you think it’s a coincidence that dolphins only commit suicide
After their family has abandoned them. There is a mass grave on beach fronts
Vacant of a biological history to claim for themselves

IV. When you catch the little black boy reaching for your wallet, only confront him after he has taken it
You will know if he is an animal
If he snaps at the throat that fed him

V. The walls of Eastmoor Academy High School are stained with primer
But allergic to paint
You can hear the lockers rusting under barbwire tears
The ceilings bleed yellow
Pissing over proposed failures
Like a hate crime

VI. A convicted pedophile once said that today’s youth
Are like fountain pens
They can produce beautiful arts
As long as you don’t press hard enough to break them

VII. The fourth time you watched an animal starve to death
You crossed the street
Quickened your pace
Sang ‘Amazing Grace’ loud enough to block out
The death rattle behind you

VIII. He used to walk to school with his friends. Then he walked to school with an extra clip in his pocket
Now he just walks with an extra clip

IX. Near the end of World War II, the US soldier confronts a civilian of Auschwitz near a concentration camp:
Are you fucking kidding me. Are you trying to tell me you couldn’t smell the bodies. The burning. The ritual
Do you expect me to believe that you can’t taste death when you opened your bedroom window at night
That you don’t know extinction when you see it?

X. ‘I have a hall pass, I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to be here’

XI. The streets are like dog years. If I live to my senior year, I want 34 candles on my cake. What the fuck do you know about privilege? I walk past guys every day that size up kids like malt liquor bottles. Longing for the day they can twist my top off and pour out some for the losers that ain’t here. Did you think this was as easy as falling off a bike? Did you think that adults would live forever?

XII. The 11th time you saw an animal starve to death
You closed the door. Called animal control. Boarded your windows
Complained what the spectacle would do to your property value

XIII. The walls of Northland High School are slick with the gooey insides of torn promises
If you press your chest to the linoleum, you can smell the bodies, the burning, the rituals. Do you think the walls flirt with the ghosts of extinction? If it had arms how tight do you think it would hold it students?

XIV. The last time you saw an animal starving to death
You shot it in the forehead. Watched its ambition hit the cement like a bear trap vomiting on itself
Its left leg was still twitching when you removed the hall pass from his fist and replaced it with the gun
You then immediately forgot the whole thing happened

XV. A bloody E Flat he says, ‘They gave me a hall pass, told me, I was supposed to be here. Did they know you were waiting here, when they sent me?’

Horshoes...Handwritten Grenades

It comes back to you sometimes. Like an old accent you suppress until you hear your native tongue flirting with the tip of your ear drum.

Winning...something came back for the Writing Wrongs squad on Thursday as we were able to win our bout. The team battled hard, performed their asses off and dug deep with a collective grip around their nads (er, ovaries in Barb's case) and did what needed to be done to win. So that gave us a total of a 4 thru pre-lims (3rd place finish on Tuesday, 1st on Thursday). Just so has it a few "4's" got in to semis. Unfortunately we weren't with them.

But I couldn't be more proud of how we bounced back, finishing 27th overall (out of 68 teams with the top 20 making semifinals).

We're done slamming, but I'll have more updates from the National Poetry Slam later

Heartbreak...

Well, for Nationals the first night of slamming is always heartbreak hotel. Everyone finds out if they prepared enough or gets to see that they’re no nearly as good as they thought they might be. Writing Wrongs pulled the 3 in their first bout (ie, finished 3rd out of 4 teams). Judging by the performances we put on, that seems about right. Definitely not the type of effort we had prepped all the summer, so in that aspects it’s a little disappointing. We still have our next bout on Thursday in a very winnable matchup, so we are not past our window of atonement. Making semi-finals is probably a long shot at this point, but we can still make a herculean effort towards it by winning on Thursday.

But that’s the slam part of it. From a coaching perspective, while I’m not happy about how we performed, I’m glad everyone got to hit the stage on the first night. Our rookies got a taste of the hard skin of slamming at Nationals and I think they’ll be better for it. We all got to hear some amazing work both in our bout and others, making a lot of new friends along the way.
Wednesday is our off day, so I think our team has made it mandatory that the beach is on the menu. A much needed day of rest, relaxation and at the end of the night, just hearing some good poems.

I’ll check in again soon.

National Poetry Slam: Take Four

Yeah...so I'm sitting at the Southwest Terminal in Columbus (which is the best for the techy traveler since Port Columbus has free wi-fi and Southwest has bars and stools with electrical outlets and usb powered ports, something visibly and incomparably vacant from 70% of US airports). By 11am (God-willing), I'll be in West Palm Beach, fully immersed in the opening salvos of the 20th annual National Poetry Slam. Got a lot going on this year. Coaching the first Writing Wrongs Slam Team, my second team overall. Getting the first print of my new book in my hands. Trying to sale said book. Setting the foundation for some extensive touring in fall and winter. We shall see.

For the immediate focus, I think the team is ready.


They're fun. They're focused. They're incredibly diverse and probably nervous as hell. I don't think I've been on a team where the poets all felt like they had this much to prove. Including myself. I've got two rookies (Ethan & Wyk) that are desperately trying to make me and everyone else forget that they're rookies. I suppose they're as ready as newbies get, though I'd love for them to already have the experience that they'll get from this Nationals...heading into it. Such is life I suppose. Spike had an inconsistent Nationals performance in '08 and wants to atone for it. He probably had a lopsided balance of prep & partying last year (lopsided away from my desires no doubt) and he's been noticeably focused this summer in improving himself and our team. Probably doesn't hurt that I've been riding his ass for the last year or so because of what happened in '08, but he's been very committed. Then there's Barb. Well, Barb is Barb you know. Smile and hug on you, rip your heart out on stage. Smile and hug afterward. I saw everything from Barb that I needed to see in Toronto during Rustbelt.

Me, a brotha wants to make semis. Somewhere between Nats last year, Rustbelt and hanging out at IWPS and WOWPS, the community started treating me very...alpha. Which I'm cool with. I just know that when in doubt, people are going to expect me to carry the team when necessary. I don't think this team needs that from me...but I need to be ready...just in case.

As for the bouts, we didn't get any favors as far as an easy road. Of course, everyone will have their own favorites, but I've heard the echoes about how tough our first bout will be. Denver Slam Nuba, Oakland & Eclectic Truth (Baton Rouge). Are you serious? Yeah, apparently. But you know what, that's a Tuesday issue. Today, I'm just a travelin man like Mighty Mos. Gonna settle under some Florida sun and wait for my team to arrive (which I think I got 5 or 6 hours before the next one arrives).

My heart is in Toronto, though the Rustbelt trophy is in my kitchen

To get it out of the way, lets hang a big, pink dress (in honor of Barbara Fant) on the elephant in the corner:
A lot of people decided to not come to Rustbelt this year.


Which is a shame...but understandable from some standpoints. The perceived distance to Toronto for some cities, the complication of crossing an international border and worries of obtaining a passport (though you didn't actually need one till two days after Rustbelt ended) or the theological discussion of whether the city of Toronto was actually part of the Rustbelt Region or not and just how relevant that point was. I'm not disputing any of those causes. What disappoints me is that by simple math, plenty of teams that voted for Rustbelt in Toronto last year decided not to show up this year. That...is a problem. So I went in to Rustbelt with a completely different perspective from past years. I put together a make-shift team before Writing Wrongs even had their slam-off, eventually ended up registering 1/3 of the teams that would compete at Rustbelt and told Mike "Spike" Cowell that this would probably be Rustbelt 'Lite' because there were only 6 teams.

Well, either by coincidence or as a direct correlation, this was the most fun I've had at a Rustbelt yet (which includes two of those happening in my hometown). For the record, I've never not enjoyed a Rustbelt to some capacity (except the self mutilation that occurred within my team in Milwaukee '06). But the community aspect we all want to take away as poets and that we as organizers all try to sculpt from the walls of the venues we choose was there...in a big way. The competition was unwavering, make no mistake, but the love for every poet that stepped off stage, the anticipation of every poet from the previously unknown (like Phoenix of Cleveland), the Alphas (like Jamaal May), the uniqueness of the multi-voiced poems that Toronto always brings to the table was thick and seemed to hover above the speakers during the intros of each round. Toronto developed the reputation early on how impossibly friendly, committed and organized they are in the poetry slam pursuits and it put a nice shine on everything this weekend. And congrats to the organizers growing the biggest Finals audience in Rustbelt history. The venue was beautiful, the energy was dripping into the aisles and the attentiveness of the crowd was as good as you're going to find...on either side of the border. Cheers Toronto...you get my props in a big way.

I also learned a ton about my National Slam Team as they made up most of the official Columbus Writing Wrongs team at Rustbelt (plus Omari Kingwise who I'll get to later). I gave Mike the reins to coach the squad as I doubt I'll be coaching adult slam teams for another 10 years and didn't want a conflict of interest being on another team anyway. I was proud of them, extremely proud. I felt like Ethan and Wyk cut their teeth the right way, getting a taste of National Competition, the feel of how lonely and liberating the stage can be in front of a bunch of strangers. It renewed (or re-upped) my confidence in them as we prep for Nationals. Mike got a crash course in decision making and its short and long term impacts on your squad (while he performed extremely well himself). They all got what they needed to get out of it and I couldn't ask for more than that. The immortal Jim Brown once said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth"...and they definitely stood tall after taking their lumps.

Which leads me to Omari...who was invaluable. I have no illusions of whatever shadow I may cast for my National teammates and just how Alpha and opinionated I am as a coach for them, so I know there's a chance of them becoming numb to me at times. So Omari being part of the squad was just perfect. He's an ideal teammate, a team first guy who excelled into Indy finals anyway. He led by example and gave my guys a glimpse at what a professional, selfless poet looks like in a competitive situation. He definitely one of my favorite people right now.

Ok...Detroit...not much I can say as I love these peeps already. Its no secret that J.W. Baz (who rolled with Detroit) is one of my best friends in poetry scene kinda made my weekend just being there. The always beautiful Karrie Waarala is a joy both on and off stage. Tom Budday just did his fuckin thing. Point blank. When the opening salvos were fired, he was winning his rounds and he rode that energy to second place at Indie Finals. Which was only because Jamaal 'Vs.' May won it...again...Of course he did. Before Rustbelt started when we were all trying to guess who might make Indie Finals, we were all like, "Well, Jamaal is the only automatic..." I make no concessions on my admiration of the man's work as he's one of my favorite cats in this here poetry game. There were times when he performed this weekend where I could feel my spine CLICK and as cynical as I've become about poetry, that doesn't happen very often.

As for my Brooklyn-Columbus team...we accomplished what we set out to do, which is win the whole damn thing. Which felt good. Damn good. For a number of reasons. I had people telling me that I carried us to the championship which is complete BS (nice compliment aside) as everybody, I mean, everybody brought it. Especially at Finals.

Dave Nichols - Dave has always been an interesting case study as far as slam is concerned. You won't find a person that doesn't think his work is amazing, but he's feast or famine in slam at times because of his rapid and dense style. He stumbled a little the first night of competition and I told Mahogany that Dave would internalize that and be a complete Beast the rest of the way...and he didn't make a liar out of me. Just a joy watchin the big guy let loose on stage. And if you haven't heard about the booty bounce her performed in the middle of his poem, then you better ask somebody.

Barbara Fant - I don't know how it happened exactly, but somehow I became more like an older, overprotective brother of Barb more so than colleague or coach. In my short time on the poetry scene, I have never seen someone skip as many levels on the evolutionary ladder than her. More than anything, my favorite aspect of the last couple of years has been watching her go from (seemingly) shy pretty girl with a big smile to Godzilla behind a microphone and its been awesome, awesome, awesome.

Mahogany L Browne - Look, this started as a joke. We were chillin at the Hard Rock Cafe during Women of the World when Rustbelt came up in the discussion and she was like, "I wanna be on your Rustbelt team." I said absolutely. She thought I was bullshittin. I wasn't. She went thru a lot to make her way to Toronto this weekend and its unquestionable that she changed the landscape of how this event was going to play out. Her poetry and high scores aside, she just gave my squad (and the competition on the whole) this swagger that could not be silenced. She got Barb and Dave to believe that it was our title to lose. She got us all to wear the "I'm kind of a Big Deal" T-shirts just to cement that confidence. She was awesome as she always is in every way and made this even more fun than it was going to be. Love you Mo Browne.

Again, Toronto, you did a great job, behind the scenes and on stage, giving me an experience I won't soon forget. Peace to everyone that made this thing really, really fun (like Tom Noy, Free, LOGIC, Mr. Edward Mabrey and the Marsh Family) as LOGIC will have his work cut out for him next year in East Lansing. Goodnight Canada, I miss you already.