Good morning to morning

I am saying good morning to morning today, appreciating all of its light, birdsong and newness. There are times when it becomes as necessary as breath to appreciate the smallest things while we await some life dream or push across a milestone.

Milestones... the new chap, getting into The Pedestal Magazine, getting off my duff on a grant application, getting through the birthing.

Today I am, again, just breathing and it feels so, so good.

So... back to the grind

Tired for a week,
back aching like a brownstone imploding upon itself,
mind a moth enchanted by incandescent glow,
fickle wanderer afraid to touch a single bulb for long.
Forecasters promise rain
and hours later the sky is bright blue and lace.
Plans cancelled cannot be redrawn.
Learning to breathe.
I'm just learning to breathe.

NPS 2005 Retrospective

Okay, so if you've been reading my blog or the listserv, you do know I came in 13th at NPS, right? Missed semi-finals--mostly due to a gawd-awful, low-scoring bout with wack judges on Night 1. I had the second highest score of the bout. Average score for our bout 1 was around 22.

In ANY OTHER venue, this bout would have seen scores 4 to 5 points higher on the average, likely putting my second place score anywhere from 28.8 to 29.3, possibly more, which would have placed me in the top ten. No sour grapes. I just have to face the realities of this slam mechanism. (The points are not the point. The point is poetry. -- Marc Smith)

There are other things that influence a poet's reception in a bout. Things like how well the poets before him/her did. How well the team as a whole is received and how each individual from that team is received--by other poets and by the crowd. I do know the other poets in Bout 2 were not giving it up for Columbus at all and that the crowd was there to see mostly west-coast poets. Other factors were also at play. 'Nuff said on that. But I make those observations to say this:

Some people will never respect my 13th place finish at National Poetry Slam 2005 because of the low raw score accrued. I refuse to care. I was there. I lived the bouts. I watched the two "from-unknown-non-poetry-country-can-you-even-hear-at-all" judges give wack scores all night long in our Bout 1. I know (well, at least I've been told over and over) how incredibly stunned the entire building was when I delivered my poem. I know I earned it. In any other venue that night, my score would have been better by four to five points--especially in a different context. That's good enough for me. I'm going to be honest with myself and say, "Rose, you earned that 13th place slot and better." And I'll leave it at that.

I feel fine about my contribution to the team. I just wish I could have shared the good vibes with them throughout our stay AND shared a semis stage with them again. Once we took that 5 in Bout 2, teammanship became even more difficult to maintain. Not for loss, though. Team Columbus forced me to come out of my shell and get to know other folks--and that's for the better. Long stories in there. I'd better shut up or get spanked.

I loved visiting Sandia Peak with Scott, Liz and Tracie. Highest altitude I've ever been to in my life. What a shame with so little time I had to make choices on whether to support people I am close to in order to do that. But one little mommie sandwich can't be everywhere at once.

Okay.... on to a new year. To NPS or NOT to NPS.... that is the question.

National Poetry Slam--Finals are Finals

I don't think I'm going to say a lot about National Poetry Slam finals. The teams that were there earned their way into that event and they each deserve respect. I was a little disappointed to watch Christa Bell get knocked off the indie championship tier by a time penalty. Would I normally react to that? Not really. Slam is slam. But I watched her go overtime using the same poem she went overtime on in our semi-final bout last year in St. Louis--now that.... that is disappointing. The rules are what the rules are. No one can convince me that every word of a poem is so precious it's worth sacrificing a national championship.

Christa is a massive talent --incredibly unique delivery and style. I would have been happy to celebrate her win. Instead, I celebrate the sense of community and acceptance that led the two current individual champions to share the crown and the prize after a tie breaker proved the equivalence of their offerings. One tenth of a point, Christa. If I remember correctly, without that time penalty you would have won by one tenth of a point. I came away from Wordlympics Canada last year with one poet forever imprinted on my heart because of his fresh delivery, intelligent writing and uniqueness. I'll still keep you in my US freshness bag, Christa. You are all into your poems and that's good. You are the poet I take away with me this year.

As for team finals, I have little to say. I was in the semis bout with Albuquerque. They earned that win. I was in finals night with all these teams. Albuquerque earned that win. ABQ content was fresh to the rest of us, even if not necessarily fresh to their own audience who live it and know it well; and in spite of their youth, this team brought massive talent to the stage. I will respect that. Danny Solis and others--don't take any crap from anybody about this win. There was no home-town advantage, I don't care how many folks rumble about somebody booing.... somebody whispering... some uncanny noise and feedback. There are such things in many bouts, many venues. The question is:

Are you in the zone when you hit the stage or not? Are you in the POEM or just gettin' up in front of folks to sound smart and look cute? Are you and your message one yet? Or are you just talking to be heard? Believe me, if being there in the big lights is all about YOU, that's the only reason such things will matter.

Minor things blown out of proportion pretty nearly ruined finals night for me. We will go away from the best National Poetry Slam event in the five years I've been going thinking of pettiness and protest. What a shame. Let's get out the Clearasil and get rid of those zits. Please. This is about poetry--if your poem is all that, who CARES what anyone else thinks!

A Gathering of Poets--National Poetry Slam

National Poetry Slam 2005 is winding down and gearing up at the same time. I am at the host hotel, relaxing after three gloriously grueling days. Half a block away, the individual poet semi-final bout has just finished up, yielding the five poets who will go on to compete as individuals on the finals stage tomorrow night. Below me in the hotel courtyard, one hundred poets or more are gathered in groups, "spitting their poems" to each other in turn while others sit around relaxing. Two blocks down Central Avenue, yet another gathering of poets is convened at the 24-hour open mic, while yet others are attending an after-party of sorts at one of the local clubs. This is an event that never sleeps.

Hotel management continues to be gracious and accommodating. Our only concessions?Agree to use the stairs as much as possible (with thanks from the aching elevators). Promise--not to take glass inside the pool area fence and not to drop cigarette butts in the courtyard. John, the hotel manager, is a close friend of the organizer and new to management in this hotel after its recent change of ownership. He tried to negotiate out of the NPS contract because he was new, then accepted the immense task of maintaining a semblance of order while his entire facility was overtaken by poets from all over the country. He is a poetry enthusiast and took on this daunting task despite his newness and hesitation and has not been sorry.

My sacrificial/calibration poem tonight at the Hispanic Cultural Center bout went well. The teams have thanked me multiple times for "calibrating the bout just right." We'd sweated out the wait for "open doors" together in a side auditorium while HCC management got ready for the big rush. A seven-hundred person theater? I'm not sure, but maybe six hundred seats at the least, and full to the chair. Man! Magnanimus kudos to the Albuquerque organizers for a job done well, even with the last minute switch to this venue!

And what a GREAT bout it was, with the home team, Albuquerque, coming in first place among the five teams in that venue, but not a SINGLE team performing poorly... and in case you're wondering, NO. It was not home team advantage. These kids absolutely cut air molecules in half with their words and their performance. They deserved it. How wonderful to have experienced this bout. They are a new breed coming in with fresh perspectives.

There have been many, many political poems this week, among my favorites: Team Hawaii's group presentation of a piece that warns indigenous peoples all over the world "the Americans are coming." It was heartfelt and passionate, openly discussing the effect of America's slow and total infringement upon the islands of Hawaii (...'til we've become a minority on our homeland...) and its similarity to the effect of modern civ on other parts of the world. They knew they had no chance of winning the bout at the third round and chose to repeat a poem they had done earlier in the week. No consequences, except disqualification, which doesn't matter if you won't win, anyway. I will never forget the performance, and I sincerely hope it was recorded by the cameramen present. I'm sure there are lots of Native Americans who would have stood and cheered.

I've done my several circuits for the night: Saying hello, hugging folks who've been genuine, thanking those who comment on my work, giving back and giving back, taking photos of the folks I will forever consider friends, and genuinely drinking in the energy of this place.

On to tomorrow: The annual Haiku Slam championship. Columbus' Ed Mabrey will be defending his championship against any number of poets who believe they can better him in this ancient Japanese form. Others of us will enjoy the fun of "entering haiku" with Daniel Ferri as our master of ceremonies.

Finals tomorrow night will be a glorious rush of adrenaline and substance.
Leading to finals and afterward, poets will trade and negotiate copies of each others products (books, CDs, sometimes crafts), network with slammasters and other poets from all over the country, and make plans for feature dates and tours. They will memorize each others' faces and the imprint of their poetry and take these away with them to feed another year of creativity.

Exhausted, we will all sleep lightly or not at all, worried about missed planes and "did I pack everything." Outside my door, there is the sound of Animal House, everyone talking at once and an occasional chant of "Spring break, spring break." Some of us watch and gage our time limits for the moment. Soon it will be time for normal people to retire. The rest will go on all night.

Love you all,

Bout 2 National Poetry Slam Details

Okay, hold onto your seats. The roller coaster ride is even more amazing:

Bout 2: Team Columbus vs. Atlanta, Oakland, Palo Alto and Boston Lizard Lounge. Scores flying in the high zone all night long. Teams with their posses. Strategies attempted--some good, some not so good, and a group of judges that don't know quite what to think when they're hit with a complex poem. Team Columbus draws a "five" in this five team bout by 1.7 points. Get that in your head before we go further: Only 1.7 points separated the "one" team from the "five" team. We thought our work would be easier tonight! Not so, holy Joe.

I can't pinpoint what the judges were about here. There was none of that "we want content" attitude from the night before. They appeared to react a little more to performance and for some reason scored a few poems well that I thought were fairly average, but that's slam.

Scott went in round one with "Queen Takes Black Knight," a thoroughly engaging and unique poem about a guy whose girlfriend is a rape survivor. Not soap box, not pablum. Scored very respectably, within about .3 of his rotation leader. On to rotation two:

Ed goes in with "Take a Walk in My Shoes," a eulogy to Gregory Hines. I love this poem, but it is complex and requires listening. Frankly, I don't think the judges were listening (or maybe were not able to) as Ed fired that poem with passion, and Ed-type speed and rhythm. Now, let me say this--Ed will either agree or disagree: I don't think Ed was full-on with this piece. He'd not been feeling great earlier in the day after eating something possibly undercooked the night before. He was stuffed up and had had trouble breathing earlier as well. But he did the macho thing, said he was fine, and went for it--after all, we had no choice with only three members on the team. He did well. We should have concensed on a different poem for him, but he did well with this one. For the record, I had voted for "The Blackest Poet," but my vote was misunderstood. I should hit myself for not calling Ed back when he began to walk away.

Round 3: Rose goes in with "Pressure Switch." Complex poem that requires listening, but full of enough emotion that someone not familiar with the history or similar occurrences in present culture can still grab the meaning. I put everything I had into it. Scored well and was, happily, momentarily tied for first place individual poet score of our bout. Shortlived tie for first, being wiped out two poets later by the last poet of the night, but a respectable tie for second place nonetheless. I have to owe it to the slot: Ed, Scott or me--whoever was in that third slot would probably have scored well with our type of work.

So... sorry Columbus, but Team Columbus will not go to semi-finals this year. We've done our best and come out somewhat closer to the bottom than recent years in spite of our awesome efforts here. Here's why:

Remember that historically low-scored bout we were in yesterday? It will hurt us BIGTIME in the rankings with we go from a "two" team rank to a "seven" team rank and our two scores are added together. We can still potentially come in in mid-field, but that daggoned low score from night one for a "two" slot will definitely hurt us in overall team rank. I'm not very excited to see the team rankings when they're posted later this morning.

We came, we saw, we went out swinging. Hopefully you all still love us.

Peace and great tidings for new things to come.... rs

Bout One National Poetry Slam Details

What a night last night. We were up against the heaviest competition we will face this year in prelims and we managed to come out in second place in our bout. Lots of hard work, lots of strategy and reworking. The judges were a little "nuts." See: There's this long history of judges being absolutely "wow'd" by "group pieces." That's where multiple members of a team perform a poem together--often very well choreographed and well executed. They have a history of scoring extremely well for the Vancouver, Canada team, and they are encouraged by PSI proponents. Last night? The judges in our venue were simply not eating it up at all--they were content oriented ONLY, and that worked to our advantage.

Scott up in first round: Jesse. The judges were tilting their heads a little like puppies... "what was that... a POEM? Wow!" He got the highest individual score of his round, by 2.3 points.

Ed up in round 2: Progress. Betters Scotts score by .3. We were excited at his scores, but he was not. He knew Reeves (sp.?) from Hollywood was still to come and would likely take the individual lead.

For the record, we had the lowest scoring bout in the first nights prelims. The judges were totally "wack." One guy was consistently handing out 4.7, 4.5 and another generally nothing above a 7.0. Those are all historically VERY LOW scores for a nationals level event. We almost began to wonder whether someone had planted them there, in a preliminary bout full (except for us) of past finals stage teams. Team Hollywood beat us by 1.9 points, taking a ranking of "one" home for the night, while we took a "two". But get this:

Because of the judges' obviously conservative reactions to the poetry, Team Hollywood is the lowest ranked "number one" team. In other words, if you line all last nights winners up in a list, their score is at the bottom. Does that tell you how hard we ALL had to work? We had the most obstinate judges I'd EVER seen in ANY event. But that's what happens when you participate in an event where the outcomes are determined by purely arbitrary ratings, where the objective is supported by that arbitrary system.

We tried to analyze what was going on, and as noted before, it's quite simple: The judges were looking for POETRY. Not style and glitz, not fast moving words and cute subjects. They wanted POETRY. No holds barred. And they'd never seen a slam before, so they didn't know the point range that was customary, so their scores were flat-out honest and conservative. One woman came up to me after the bout and specifically requested my chapbook. Said she could tell that was a poem that works on the page, one that she would enjoy as much by reading my work. What joy! Someone in the crowd who knows the difference, hears the difference! Pity we couldn't clone her as multiple judges .

Reeves (Hollywood) was frustrated because Ed's performance pushed the judges' scores up and made him pull out one of his heavy hitters: An amazing poem called Deaf Poetry Jam, about his hearing impaired students' poetry slams. He performs it both with voice and sign language. Truly amazing poem, and I was glad to hear it (and see it) again. Coming up in last slot for our team for the night, the guys were voting for Lithia Park, but these judges were not going for "cute," even on serious subjects; so I proposed "Crumb" or "A Good Wine". They opted for Crumb because it has a widely proven track record.

I got to the mic: Opened my mouth to speak the first line and found my voice was gone--so much for me cheering for other teams again this week. The word "Grandmother" cracked so badly I could hardly tell what I had said, so I had to push through that hoarseness. I didn't recognize my voice, but I'm told it was deeper, raspy and bold. Midwest folks who know me said it gave it more power--go figure. You gotta nearly lose it to use it?

Well... long story short, "the German judge, Mr. 4.7" gave it a 7.0 (woo-hoo! I was told to be very proud of that), next judge a 7.5 and the scores went normal from there. Only a 24.3 after a .5 point time penalty (pushing the voice out takes time), but the second highest individual score of the night for our bout.

My favorite thing of the night: Danny Solis, the Albuquerque event organizer, came up to hug me after my poem and said, "Thank you so much. Hearing that made all the hard work, all the frustration and stress, WORTH it. Thank you SO much." That, my friends, along with the individual audience reactions to the poem after the bout, make all the stress worthwhile. I will treasure that--knowing that there is room for message and literary quality in any poetry environment.

Life is good. Life is tough. We'll try to make semis (tonight should be easier), but who knows what lurks in the minds of "the Querquians." Scott keeps voting down Pressure Switch, says its too inaccessible; so I guess my next most powerful piece might be A Good Wine. I really am not in the mood to do Lithia Park out here, but the team loves that poem. I think I will retire Crumb and Lithia Park after this year.

Thought about retiring from the NPS circuit after this year, but then you get here and the energy is extremely addicting. I normally don't have a competitive bone in my body, but there's something about believing your MESSAGE has as much validity as the next guy's--or more. Trusting your message. Giving it the best life it can have to one roomful of avid listeners at a time--THAT is truly addicting. I think maybe I'd do it for years to come, given the right circumstances. We'll see... We'll see. There are lots of gray haired people out here giving their hearts voice. I've got a long time to go yet.

Love and great peace... and keep writing.

A One and a Two and a...

Just back from tonight's bout and fighting a grueling headache, so not much to say here. Just, "Whew!" We've made it through what may be our toughest bout of the prelims. Took a two: That means second place out of the five teams in a bout with absolutely tough judges. One judge was handing out an average 4.7 for every poet or performance down the pike. Great night! More later.

looking inward

I discovered today that I'm nervous. So much to do, so little time. So many ways to trip over my own shoelaces. Do you do that? Some days we look at the sky and see sky. Some days we look up and see clouds, not thinking sky at all. Not to fear, though. Today is sunny. We're doing 90+ degree weather in the midwest, and I'm wondering what the heck the temp is in Albuquerque today.

I want to see Taos, and wonder if there's a chance in a haystack of getting that far up the road for a minute on an off day at Nats. But if we do well, there won't be any off days, so I'm not ordering my car rental coupon yet.

I'm thinking how the heck I can get books to the folks that want them and still have books for Nats. I'm thinking about how wonderful it is to have friends who allow me to speak my mind, then still love me when I do.

And I'm thinkin' I owe a hug to any person who touches this page in the middle of cyberspace... some person who cruised around or answered an URL to find out something and found instead an ordinary woman in Columbus, Ohio, who found herself blessed enough one day to whisper her heart's cry and find it came out poetry.