“I’ve had my share of sand”
monday recap… i won my first slam! (YEAH) using someone else’s poem (HUH?)
i had zero intention of coming to last monday’s show. no beef, it’s just you need a break every once in a while and last monday seemed a good show to catch that break but, alas, it proved not to be the case. fish, marty & rog were going to be late and that left the skeleton crew down to just a few bones so i changed my plans and headed to 13. of course, when i got there, rog & marty were there early and fish was only a bit late. no worries, i’ll just chill and enjoy the night.
the open mic was cool but not as exciting as the last few weeks, less new voices might have brought me down a bit. agent neill took off the glasses and appeared as plain ol’ rob– bad back and all, delivering a great set as only rob can.
now to the slam: it was a cover slam and prizes would be awarded to different types of poems– funny, political and academic. somewhere around the 9 o’clock hour there were only eight folks signed up so i added my name to the hat. rich had my copy of “Immigramts In Their Own Land & Selected Early Poems” by Jimmy Satiago Baca (faithful blog readers will know that JSB is one of my favorites of all time) and i found “Mexicans are taking jobs from Americans.” i really wish i had “Martin and Meditations on the South Valley” with me because there are MANY cover-able poems in that book and i could have REALLY been in character.
the slam started with mara covering “Self Improvement” by Tony Hoagland, rob coming back and doing Jeff McDaniel’s “Foxhole Manifesto.” reid harris cooper reprising some Jim Morrison, fish bringing some Pinero with “The Genesis According to Saint Miguelito” which rich really should have done but rich opted for “Mercy on the Battlefield” much to my embarrasment (excellent job rich and dont worry about the dancing parts– i cant salsa and its never stopped me from doing the poem), lynne grabbed ian the saxophonist for backup on “The Best Part of the Affair” a modern classic from Stephen Maher, more louderLOVE as cairo took us back to e(g)’s days at the door with “I’m the Doorman” (at least, i believe that is the title but i do know that it is from “Water Immitating Glass” by Eric Thomas Guerrieri) and both vandana and ed garcia got down with selections from my copy of Pablo Neruda’s “Residence on Earth” (ed went full blast and covered it ENTIRELY in spanish which freaked out the judges but had me transfixed as to the lyrical quality the work has in its natural language and thus i will continue to rip more pieces in the mother tongue) and now to the winner’s circle…
abena dropped some Langston Hughes on the crowd and when you add her vocals to “Let Americ Be America,” i was sure she had it all wrapped up
regie cabico lost his ENTIRE mind (as usual) while doing a poem from the Short Fuse Anthology. with lines like “your poem is like an ice cold finger giving me a prostate exam” and “your poem is like a bent dick” well, regie got to be regie and had everyone pissing on themselves
rog came up with an Ava Jordan poem in relation to the word “nigger,” bar fights, life experiences and acting like you should versus how they expect you to. the poem rocked and rog gave it the full bonair-agard touch and his 28.8 beat my 28.0…
but i had the power of the leafblower with me! and added some ed.garcia.ness into my delivery and had the crowd laughing furiously for JSB’s poem… at least in the beginning cuz that poem hits a turn in the middle that takes the laugh out the crowd and has them looking inward. i managed to hit the turn just right and then channeled some roger.bonair.icity into the final stretch and was able to get a great score (expecially when you consider i was fourth in the line up)
no one was more surprised than me to hear that my poem won for being the best politcal/academic/funny poem in the bunch and it was great to get the win… for a minute. i mean it is someone else’s poem and it is just a slam so, in the end, who cares? i will be going the poem a lot more and seeing if it may give me the blueprint for a good political poem of my own in the future…
and that’s why i have to always show up for mondays… you never know when lightning may hit