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2 august 2000

the past five years have been kind of busy

So yesterday, I told you the story of how Slam got started, and of my experiences on the 1995 National Championship Team. Once poets achieve what they want within Slam, a lot of people move onto other things. Slam has been a great springboard for a lot of people. Some have become well-known writers with highly-distinctive voices, such as Maggie Estep. Some continue to grow as poets and performance artists outside of the Slam format, like Hal Sirowitz (America's best-selling poet in 1998).

And then there are people like me, who keep finding new roles to play in the Poetry Slam community, as well as expanding my own range as a writer and performance artist. Believe me, there's plenty to do. I competed again in 1996 on the Winston-Salem, NC, team, and we placed a very respectable fifth overall. When the '96 Nationals were over, though, I was really in a quandary as to what I should do next. I was tired of competing, yet I loved being part of the Slam Family. I liked being on the stage and part of the action, so I decided to become a host. Being as my career as a game show host never worked out (Bob Barker, go away!), this was the natural alternative. And I loved it. It kept me on my toes, and I got to enjoy and be a part of the show.

To be a good Slam host, you need to be quick, and be hyper-aware of what's going on in the room. When a poet leaves the stage, your job is to get their scores. Like right now, this minute, hold them up now before I come over there. Simultaneously, you need to keep the room's momentum high, move the show along at a fast pace, and help to keep the playing field even. That means talk about anything but the poets competing that night. On some nights, that's a tough job. When you're at kind of a sucko venue (and there are plenty of those), you just want to make fun of everyone and go home. On the other hand, there are those magic nights where you find yourself listening to the most incredible stuff, poetry that makes you wonder why these people aren't famous yet, and how you got to be so lucky to hear them in the first place.

In addition to hosting throughout the year, I also perform my own stuff when venues invite me to feature. In the past year alone, I've featured my work at universities, high schools, bars, coffeehouses and bookstores. I was part of the American Amazons of the Dying Millennium tour last November, thanks to the sponsorship and generosity of Janus Kodal in Copenhagen, Denmark. Then this past May, I was part of the Reykjavik Arts Festival in Iceland. Add all that to the hundreds of schools I visited during my tenure with Poetry Alive, and you could say that poetry has presented me with some awesome opportunities. I feel pretty lucky to have had them.

I, and my work, have been described by lots of people. It's always weird to get reviewed, but I think my recent favorite was a little snippet by Stazja McFadden, a new friend of mine up in DC. She wrote that I was "geek gone glam", which I just totally dig. I don't know about the "glam" part, but I got the geek going on! Three cheers for nerd girls!

So here we are, Y2K, and I'm entering the arena again like some kind of lanky, word-spouting gladiator in glasses. On Thursday of this week (August 3), I will be boarding the SlamAmerica bus tour as a featured poet. This tour, sponsored by Grand Marnier, and conceived by Gary Mex Glazner; features poets from around North America. Most of the them travel on the bus for five cities along the tour, in which they perform their work at scheduled appearances. From what I understand, all events have had incredible attendance, and the poets pretty much blew the roof off each place.

The real kick for me this year is that I'm scheduled to feature in New York City on my twenty-ninth birthday, which is this Saturday, August 5. And I can't think of a better way to spend it: surrounded by a bunch of poet friends, sponsored by a liquor company, and ending up at Nationals in Providence, RI to see everyone else. So it sounds cheesy, but I'm going to say it anyway. This is our poet family reunion, and that's the primary reason we turn up in the first place.

With that, my denizen friends, I'm going to bid you a swell day.