Thursday February 24, 2005 - Chicago 11:55PM - Central Time

1.
Last Nihgt i taped for HBO's Def Poetry Jam. i think it went well, though it makes me a little nuts how much the cult of fame affects us. we immediately think ourselves important, or on the verge of greatness or just more worthy on the ctrength of a potential 15 minutes of airtime at midnight on a Friday. Still, it is always an excellent room to perform for. The producers know exactly what they're doing, in terms of the set up of the room, how they get the crowd amped up for the performers, so that by the time you get on the stage, the crowd's energy is a vitalizing kind of force, so that you have almost no choice but to deliver a high quality/energy performance. Even so, too much of the work that makes it to the taping, is, in my estimation, bad poetry - poorly crafted work (even if you choose not to look at it as poetry). Not that it shouldn't exist, but this is a show that professes to present the best of the country's spoken word poetry. Not so - anyway, enough of the hateration. if you are so inclined as to check out the upcoming season of Def Poetry Jam, these are the performers you should look out for (at least out of those that i had a chance to hear); Dennis Kim, Marty McConnell, Kevin Coval, Caroline Harvey, Geoff Trenchard, Willie Perdomo, Michael Cirelli, Rachel McKibbens, Ishle-Yi Park... i can't remember anything else right now...

***

So i decide tonight that since i'm in Chicago and i can't seem to get hold of either Quraysh or Kendra (and Kendra called just 3 minutes ago, but i've already returned to the house), that i'd have a date with myself. I figured i'd take me and go pub-crawling. I showed up on time and everything wearing a pink t-shirt and camouflage pants - a little strange, but whatever... I am intersting date. i seem to like to talk a lot and pay attention to just about any sporting event taking place on a bar's television screens. i like straight vodka, but couldn't seem to hold it together long enough to make the pub crawl last any longer than three pubs, before i needed to get a late night omelette with steak fries from Clark's Diner on Belmont. If i could have held out for another hour, i would have been still in Wicker Park when Kendra called and Kendra could have joined us and made the date a threesome. Probably just as well though, i have to perform for high school students in Joilet (a suburb about 2 hours away) tomorrow, so i should probably get some rest, especially since after the Def Pietry taping last night, there was much foolishness at the hotel bar involving all the out of town poets losing their minds.

This is not a tour. There are enough performances but only one city. One city does not a tour make...

Saturday February 19th - 6:01PM - still Columbia, SC

I can't say i particularly like Columbia. There is a stillness of spirit, that seems to whisper everything i fear about being black in the south. Still, we had our reading this afternoon, and it went well. Lynne followed by me followed by Samantha. A scattered crowd seemed to like us by and large, though a white man in the front row seemed really alarmed by Samantha's and my, work. Good...

I'm about to siesta before tonight's "party". Apparently it's a fish-fry. I expect it to be interesting at the very least.

later...

Friday Feb 18, 12:06PM - Greenville, SC
the (mini) Red-State Tour

So i've begun my mini red-state tour. Just landed here for the South Carolina Book Festival. Already the confederats flags, already that feeling of having interloped on a bad joke; someone else's history, mocking you in that southern air smell that is (for me at least) so reminiscent of home, of the Caribbean. Dirt you can almost taste, the smell of fauna so thick you could laugh if you didn't know how many things such a smell could mean.

But i only slept three hours last night, so i'm gonna catch some zzzzs right now. I just found out i'm taping for Def Poetry jam next week on Thursday. Will keep you all up to date on that. i have quite a few opinions on that joint. When i leave here i head for West Virginia, to Elkins and Davis college.

see y'all soon.

11:19AM - Wednesday 16th Feb

So, i'm back from iWPS and Binghamton University. i made it all the way to the last round of the finals and i placed fourth. More importantly, i think i performed really well and i did work that i thought was good and because i worked hard and performed hard the entire week, i have no second guesses and absolutely no hard feelings about having won. Besides, Buddy Wakefield won and he did a marvellous job.

I think it was easier to deal with not winning too, because i didn't have a team in my charge. i didn't have to feel bad for anyone else. The huge responsibility i place on my shoulders every year i go to the National Poetry Slam (not just to do well, but to ensure that folks have a positive experience) is something i think i hadn't quite understood the weight of, until i got this chance to go to a National Slam event by my self.

Worcester did a great job putting on the event as well, so Bill MacMillan, Sou MacMillan, Dawn Gabriel et al (i can't remember everyone's names after the absinthe) kudos to you. The next day (Sunday) i featured in Binghamton, NY with Bassey Ikpi and Mekkah (who was also in the finals of the iWPS - the only woman to get there) and after about 8 hours of bus riding to get there, i was thoroughly tired, but we did a great show anyway. So now settling into NYC for a full and wonderful three days til i head back out on my red state mini-tour (South Carolina and West Virginia) which will presage my deep-red (or blood-red) state mini-tour in April (Mississippi and Texas).

I'm reading Sharon Olds' "Blood, Tin, Straw" again! God she's good!!

4:46AM - Saturday Feb 12th - iWPS

so this is where we are. "Chunkin' tha deuce" means you're leaving; as in you're throwing up a peace sign.

dawn gabriel likes mayonnaise (i the missle of a converstaion about different versions of chorizo.

after two nights of competition, i'm ranked 2nd overall and so, i'm in the finals. andy buck, buddy wakefield, ria thompson, adrianna ramirez, dawn saylor, carlos gomes, dawn gabriel, whoopeecat, nick fox and i are in a room together. it is really stupid all of the time. there are many new opinions i have about slam and what it means for poetry in general, for women and for black men. the opinions are not always good ones. i'll say them later when i'm more in control of my faculties.

there is only one woman in the final field of twelve. that's a shame when you consider that voices like rachel mckibbens, dawn saylor and rachel kann didn't make it. it's really really late and the worcester review will be coming to get me at noon to make a recording.

later

iWPS - 2:29PM

Okay, Ladies and Germs, it's already weird; and i'm not talking about the dude from Alabama selling incense in the lobby of the theatre where we're having the bouts (i bought three bags).

There are, out of sixty competitors, only twelve women. Five of them are in my bout! It gets better. In World Cup Soccer, when all the teams have been drawn, there always ends up one group that has four powerhouse teams in it, so that at least two teams that are really good are gonna be eliminated. So it is for my bout tonight. Christa Bell (Seattle), Dawn Saylor (NYC), Rachel McKibbens (NYC), Rachel Kann (Los Angeles), Daniel Vaughn (Milwaukee), Alvin Lau (Chicago) and a couple other folks whose faces i know but whose names i don't. Basically half the women and all the New York folks (except for Akua) have ended up in the same bout. It's gonna be festive.

It is less stressful than the team nationals though, possibly because very few of the folks there, have other folks they have to worry about, whose movements and needs they have to monitor etc etc. I'm back in the hotel room now, because i didn't really feel like messing with all the open mics for the rest of evening. My bout is at 8:30PM. There will be an update around midnight...

iWPS - 2:29PM

Okay, Ladies and Germs, it's already weird; and i'm not talking about the dude from Alabama selling incense in the lobby of the theatre where we're having the bouts (i bought three bags).

There are, out of sixty competitors, only twelve women. Five of them are in my bout! It gets better. In World Cup Soccer, when all the teams have been drawn, there always ends up one group that has four powerhouse teams in it, so that at least two teams that are really good are gonna be eliminated. So it is for my bout tonight. Christa Bell (Seattle), Dawn Saylor (NYC), Rachel McKibbens (NYC), Rachel Kann (Los Angeles), Daniel Vaughn (Milwaukee), Alvin Lau (Chicago) and a couple other folks whose faces i know but whose names i don't. Basically half the women and all the New York folks (except for Akua) have ended up in the same bout. It's gonna be festive.

It is less stressful than the team nationals though, possibly because very few of the folks there, have other folks they have to worry about, whose movements and needs they have to monitor etc etc. I'm back in the hotel room now, because i didn't really feel like messing with all the open mics for the rest of evening. My bout is at 8:30PM. There will be an update around midnight...

iWPS - 2:29PM

Okay, Ladies and Germs, it's already weird; and i'm not talking about the dude from Alabama selling incense in the lobby of the theatre where we're having the bouts (i bought three bags).

There are, out of sixty competitors, only twelve women. Five of them are in my bout! It gets better. In World Cup Soccer, when all the teams have been drawn, there always ends up one group that has four powerhouse teams in it, so that at least two teams that are really good are gonna be eliminated. So it is for my bout tonight. Christa Bell (Seattle), Dawn Saylor (NYC), Rachel McKibbens (NYC), Rachel Kann (Los Angeles), Daniel Vaughn (Milwaukee), Alvin Lau (Chicago) and a couple other folks whose faces i know but whose names i don't. Basically half the women and all the New York folks (except for Akua) have ended up in the same bout. It's gonna be festive.

It is less stressful than the team nationals though, possibly because very few of the folks there, have other folks they have to worry about, whose movements and needs they have to monitor etc etc. I'm back in the hotel room now, because i didn't really feel like messing with all the open mics for the rest of evening. My bout is at 8:30PM. There will be an update around midnight...

Worcester – iWPS - 2005

Wednesday February 9 – 6:43PM

Yesterday was the 105th anniversary of my grandmother’s birth. That is what I will tae with me to this weekend’s iWPS (individual World Poetry Slam) in Worcester, Mass. I am on a bus on the way there and I’m intrigued by the possibilities. I’m curious to see how this poetry slam amongst individuals on a large scale will wor. I’m curious to see how I handle myself at a national slam in which I don’t have a team I have to look out for and worry about.

Last week, I was unable to journal here. I was at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania doing a residency with Vision Into Art, that while enlightening was so absolutely stressful, that I can’t begin to air out the sort of stress I had to sift through my body on this; a public forum. Suffice to say, we no longer have the director we had when we went there and we’re completely re-vamping the show for the BAM performance (March) and the Whitney performance (May).

So… back to the iWPS. I’m trying to remember to have a good time and to focus on my poems and the work and the communion with other artists; without getting caught up in the scores and the bullshit. One must first be vigilant with oneself. One of the good things that came out of the Dickinson residency was this essay on Identity in Poetry (that I wrote for the Identity Sketches portion of our programming) that was filmed and everything. I’ll share it with you all next week after I edit the written version. So now, more bus riding. I don’t get to Worcester till 10:30PM.