National Poetry Slam Report (Thur) part1

i got up pretty early to catch the workshops and showcases. went with maria to check out the beginning performance workshop. hey, i aint that good, i need all the help i can get. a good class where i was more happy meeting new folks and hearing their poems but not really getting anything new for myself performance wise.

maria stayed for the memorization class as i head to taylor intermediate performance workshop. this class was amazing. did you know that eating an

apple can help moisturize your throat before a perforance? neither did i.

taylor laid out a nice list of ‘to dos’ and some folks agreed and some folks

didnt but the discussion led to a greater insight of personal performance

choices. maria enjoyed the memorization class which involved the physical

memorization of a poem– combining actual movement with parts of the

poem. damn, wish i had checked that out too.

next up was the cover slam that a whole bunch of us were looking forward

too. one hitch, taylor (the host) was giving priority to memorized covers

and i hadnt gotten my version of jimmy santiago baca’s poem 14 from ‘martin

& meditations on the south valley’ fully integrated in my synapses. ditto

for rich and seve. no worries, most of the covers were really good (one big exception but every cherry has a pit) especially jerome’s version of pineros ‘dying

for a cause’ ok, there was a dude who disrespected the mic by segue waying

his KRS1 cover into his own poem. man, that shit is just wrong. anyways,

we quickly became friends with jerome and this other girl, lovella, kinda

adopted them as part of the nyc entourage. i say nyc cuz ed shows equal

love to uraban and 13 and fish tries to be pan universal. (as for me, i had

a nice lil talk with cristin the night before and she convinced me that we

should support the nuyo (yeah, but i know ALL their poems!) then i also recalled that nuyo was in a bout with all 1 ranks (whoever loses can kiss their semi chances to hell) so i figured that it will be a tight battle and it would be a great chance to show some nyc love)

before the cover slam, maria and i discovered this great greasy spoon called

the 7d. double cheeseburger, fries and pop for $5! and all of it good!

well, we couldnt keep the secret to ourselves so we rolled down 11 deep and

had a blast. rich, seve, jayme, fish, lenny, jerome, lovella, ed, ray, maria and me. the jokes were priceless and somebody said something that almost made me drown in my own glass of water. ed garcia’s hal sirowitz. seve joking that track 8 of ‘5past13’ is more potent than warm milk. all good stuff. we shot back to catch a bit of the native american showcase but i had to break out to change my gear and get ready for 13’s 7:00 bout.

what a blur… i dont even remember how i actually got to the subterreanan

for 13’s bout. methinks i caught a cab with omar which means that we must

have started talking smack already.

more latah…