“IT AINT HATE IF ITS THE TRUTH”… U.P.H.A.
showed up for my class yesterday to find that none of the kids were in the house. not a one. i coulda thrown in the towel and skipped out but instead i grabbed a couple of the kids hanging out on a rainy day and BANG! poetry workshop. it worked out damn fine as one of the kids has some real chops to her and i can see her producing some nice work. together we crafted two group poems which i will later add to the blog… look out for it.
with a small class and the fact that everybody in the center wanted to break out- class was done by 7:30 and off i went to the first semi.finals at 13. even got their in time to see anthony morales which was nice. if given the choice, i would have liked to sneak in through the back and find a cute corner to hang in rather than say ‘wazup!’ during ant’s set. maybe for next time.
on to the slam! advancing to finals celena, bonafide & abena
notes to self- there is no excuse for time penalties, celena is a machine, judges are still silly, it will be fun breaking down the math of the scores with folks that understand differentials & parabolas, when i cant tell the difference between poem B and poem C- there’s a problem, when i cant tell the difference between any of the poems- there is a serious problem, strategy works for the things you can control, it dont mean shit when it comes to the variables, how you bridge what you are saying with what you mean is what its all about for me, i am still the fastest walking claculator you will ever dun meet!
the real deal was that there was two slams going on- the one celena was in and the fight for second and third place. celena is probably the best slammer i have ever seen. the only times i havent seen her win is when she hasnt wanted to, otherwise you might as well hand over the money, now. bon was bon and i was a bit surprised that one of his poems didnt score well but that may go to something regie gibson told me a while back “woman dont want to see a man cry- they want to see a man be a man” this may hold true to slam judges as well. abena was dope and i’ve never seen her be so relaxed between rounds and yet give it her emotional all on stage. diane got three time penalties and it would take a big effort from anybody to come back from that. jive poetic was one of the most gracious slammers i have seen in a long time. i’ve seen jive be real cool when he wins but it’s great to see he keeps that same smile even when it didnt go his way.
it was good to get caught up in the excitement and drama of it all and i cant wait to see if my picks for next week pan out…