we start with a quote:
"Brooklyn bound and I left my heart uptown"
Willie Perdomo
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last week at synonymus, i may have come as close as i ever have to a full schizophrenic split. one minute, i am pissed in twelve directions at work, taxes and the general disarray of the show; the next second, i am up on stage havin the time of my life and even pokin fun at myself. at one point i felt like i was just bringin down the whole fuckin show and wanted nothing more than to disappear in the upper rafters. then i have to go back on stage. luckily, i only had to host the first half of the show but my mood got no better… until i got called to perform. then its back to bein all cotton candy and guavas.
-run energetically on stage (check)
-light banter (check)
-strike the heisman trophy pose (check)
-drop About B-Boys for all its worth with a chorus of djembes in the background (check)
-take a bow (check)
-return to sullen mood where you really dont want to deal with the rest of the world (check)
on the bright side, the show rocked and the future for synonymus in year four looks damn rosy.
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just finished an editing session with mara where we tightened up two of the pieces for this wednesdays feature. that girl has one of the best ears for poetry on the planet. back in the day, she helped me nail down the ending for Ceviche. to this day, i always hear her voice when i drop the end line.
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y’all should go check out veronica monte’s review of Pinoy Poetics. while you are at it, you should check out her blog as well.
*strikes the genuflect pose*
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in other blogoshpere news:
eduardo corral has decided to execute plan 66 on his blog so (inside joke bell) run dont walk! and check him out. his insights are damn cool and he is one funny mofo not too mention his reading a few weeks back at the 92nd St Y rocked on mad levels.
leslieann has started a new blog that (gasps!) actually questions our role as poets and tries to figure some stuff out in our role as a creative class. good stuff.
from said blog, you have a look at the sometime antagonistic relationship among poets courtesy of c dale young. speaking for myself, i have not really had to deal with any of that shit. there are people that i dont like cuz i dont like them, period. but i am always damn happy when i hear a good poem regardless of the source. most of my beef with people comes from outside shit and it just ends up being that we also both happen to be poets. now, if i was in some ultra competitive MFA program and i had mufuckahs tearin mah shit to the floorboards one second and then stealing lines and inspirations the other– i could see it gettin nasty. jus sayin’
this is just wrong (on many levels) –> The Official Blog of Fetus Spears
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clap like mad dog and give raj, kyra and eli crazy props for their upperCASE feature at bar13. i know for a fact how much work went into raj’s set. hes been thinking about this for a minute and then ironically came through with almost all new hotness. sounds like somebody i know ;-) raj brings great lyricism to the stage with an understated delivery that lets his more poignant pieces ring with out the normal hyperbole associated with performance poetry. raj also knows how to have fun and rocks the stage with an unapologetic smirk that lets everybody share in the joke. (lets see if he can also keep updating his blog as well. LOL)
i meet a lot of folks that write poetry but i dont get to many poets- kyra is a true poet. everything that comes out of her pen is dead on point. her imagery is tight and never self indulges. she comes to the stage with a take no prisoner attitude to boot. right now, she can feature anywhere in the country. a real voice that should be out there and be leading the way. i think my favorite from her set was “Reading Charles Bukowski is a lot like listening to Wu-Tang” any poet that can make that opening line work and deliver with the goods is the real deal y’all.
uppercase is normally a time that an emerging poet basks in the glow of new found celebrity in the louderARTS community and presents a set that shows off that new found glory to the fullest. it comes as no surprise that eli went in his own direction and presented THE most daring uppercase set i’ve ever seen. a series of short conversational poems revolving around the vulnerability of loss was a big mountain to climb. i would be lying if i said i stayed with him for the whole trip. a lot of the work presented up there was so direct one had to shut off every distraction in the room (not easy in the maelstrom that is 13) and follow every word and every line break to get the full effect. eli has shown me that my poetry ear still needs help in that area but i stayed through the meat of this set and came away impressed. eli’s closing poem was as good as it gets on the stage. raw, honest, innovative (he used the term “breath angle” to describe a position of sleep) and well delivered. eli is someone who makes mondays worth the trip.
and there goes a nice (unedited) rundown of the night. no tellin who the next crop of upperCASERS will be but i have faith that this community will deliver the goods.
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the yankees and red sox are goin at it even as i type. i got a pretty good bet ridin on this series so if ya love me then root for the yankees damn it!
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may decided to finally make an an appearance in the city and i plan on enjoying the weather this weekend and (hopefully) try to get out of my current funk
love ya like 30 silver pieces
The death of a tragedy
Electra thrived in the atrophy of all
she once tendered in the temporary
possession of her bosom,
her Father’s face carefully fixed
between her hands-
scraped seemingly from the twin pillars of Hermes,
the secret indigence she bewailed, her dependence,
her cast, and a surreptitious door.
The nuance of her humility,
axiom of lying sepias,
framed in centuries of war
plastered with scorched blood,
submerged her in a black and white
pearled gown specially made
to scale the depths of the Aegean
Sea where she attempted a chimerical
love affair with a golden seahorse.
Constantine disguised? No, it was
Ichthus she saw as she drowned speechless.
What was that you asked?
Is this personal? “Electra thrived in the atrophy of all
she once tendered.â€
The fear of changing
from one religion to another
as I did,
was personal, hell yeah.
I shook in shock
because
I come from Corinthians
where my father was a Orthodox Priest,
part of that homo-socio male club
that always made me shriek.
When the change finally materialized
I was filled with fear and two reasons.
One; The possibility of ending up in hell
(even though I stopped believing in hell
when I was twelve)
Two; Fear
this new religion would sever
my connection with Christ
and all that I truly loved of Christianity
As the years passed
I came to realize
that the fear
was in fact
irrational.
The search for truth
has always been innate in me
just like the desire for knowledge.
I have no control over any of this.
More,
there was the exhilaration
of having found something
that came close
to what I hand already started to formulate
as “my religion, what I believe.â€
Asserting me as a woman
Now you see me pondering
with an eyebrow raised,
Mister Street.