[Previous entry: "first day at poetry Slam nationals"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "nationals day 4 and 5"]

08/13/2003 Entry: "nationals day 2 and 3"

This will count for wed Aug 6 and thurs the 7th. So we got to Chicago on Wed morning from the drive. I wasn't sure where I was going to sleep (big thanks to Oscar and Omar for letting me crash in their room). The intro's were cool as was my introduction to the dancing(sexually active) hamsters from wallgreens. Bar 13 did their intro with their new stage names such as: Smoke the detector, and DJ manbreasts (you should have seen the people's names who were serious). Went to the room took a much needed shower then went to the second of the preliminary bouts at 8:30. Saw the austin, wicker park, greenville bout. It was Ok. Nothing I hadn't seen before. I stayed in the same venue for the Union square, LA, Portland bout. Highlights: Roger did his Trent Lott piece like he channelled spirits. Have to give it to him on that performance.
La's third round piece about commercialism really did interesting things with voice and movement but it didn't score well becasue it was their third group piece of the night.
Portland had this amazingly gutsy deadpan poet named Der Lovett. He has an incredible delivery and really got the attention of a lot of people at nationals. One of my favorites at this years Nats. But of course he didn't score well. So what.
I wanted to see Urbana's second half but the bout was too close to call so I stayed. Union square won at the last minute beating LA. After that went to eat and found out that all of the NYC teams had won their first bout, giving us the hope of a repeat of 2000 finals(all 3 NYC teams in finals). We went to go drink after that but the bars were closing so we went back to the hotel and drank some more. Side note: Tony Brown is cool.

Wake up late the next day. I really wanted to go to Taylor's intermediate perfromance workshop but I didn't get up in time. (Got notes from Oscar later, good stuff.) Caught the latter half of the cover slam which was really positive because it was people paying homage to other poet's work. Complimented this guy that read a Pinero piece, and wound up making a new friend. So Jerome and his friend Lovella joined our group of supporters. We all went to eat lunch together. It was a big group of Filatino because everyone was either Latino/a or Filipino/a. We rolled like ten deep into this cheap eats spot and had our own comedy show in their. The jokes lasted for an hour and everyone was dying of laughter. We then went to the end of the Native American Showcase which was cool but a little bit wierd because of the politics of the so called "instant indians" that the MC called out, mostly calling out Brett Axle. Whatever. We left and went to the park to have a cool sit down, real hippy in the park, kind of moment as we sat on the grass and ate any candy that people had in their pockets and bags. Ray played guitar and everyone read or wrote a poem so that we could all get to know each other better.
Left the park adn I got a terrible tasting mamey ice cream (tasted like milk and suger). Went over to Union square's second bout. It was a trouncing over Alaska and Ozarks. This guy from Alaska did this poem dissing Taylor and a bunch of other people without saying anything himself so I hate him now(he tried to film me later, I had to ask him to stop). Half way through Rich, Jerome, Lovella and I went to catch the second half of Urbana's bout. They did amazing group pieces against Portland and Fort Lauderdale. Sean even freestyled. Got to see another brilliant Der Lovett piece cementing my admiration for him. Cristin loved him too so maybe he'll feature at Urbana. I'll post as soon as I know. Had a drink and talked with Jerome and Lovella in this really cool Blues club for a while(it was nice to connect with strangers because of poetry) , then went accross the street to catch the end of Miami's bout. They won, YAAAY. It turns out I knew two people on the team from my days in Miami. I was really happy to reconnect with them, even though they knew me under a different name).
Afterwords had the religious experience of my poetic life. Don't believe me ask Cristin, Rich, Oscar or Sean. It was Hollywood-Vancouver-Nuyorican. The first poet of the night got a 29.7, and it only got better from there. It was something in the room. I can't really explain it except to say that they all deserved the scores they got. It was an amazing set. Everypoet came up and hit a different note. Every poet seemed to leave themselves on stage. I saw all of those poets perform either before or after and they didn't perform the way they did that night. Highlights: Carlos from Nuyo's "what are words worth piece", Barbara from Vancouver's "brothers grim" piece which had half the audience (including me) crying. Damn that was good. Hollywood's black white role reversal piece which could have been bad but really came off beautifully.
Damn there was a lot that happened. Ok long story just a bit shorter. Later More drinking and talking... Good Mexican food, providence rocks...mobs of poets in the streets...Great discussion with Tony Brown and Karen Ladsen in the hallway outside room 2503, that ended at 6:30 in the morning.