Conversant, too?: August 2007

About Me

Name: Rose

Location: Columbus, Ohio, United States

Rose M. Smith is a shy, quiet poet who's lived most of her life in Columbus, Ohio--a conversational voice heavily informed by human situations and emotion. Voted "poet most unlike herself at the mic," she has been known to silence an unruly room when her poems begin to speak. Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, The Iconoclast, Good Foot, Pavement Saw, Concrete Wolf, Boston Literary Magazine, The Examined Life, Main Street Rag, and The Pedestal Magazine, and other journals and anthologies. Rose reads throughout the midwest--she'll make a jaunt cross country if she's needed (you pay for it). She has been called "a quiet visionary spanning the worlds of performance poetry and literary print! challenging and enriching the norms of both. She is an associate editor at Pudding House Publications and author of Shooting the Strays (Pavement Saw Press, 2003) and A Woman You Know (Pudding House Publications, 2005) and is featured in the Poets' Greatest Hits collection now managed bt Kattywampus Press. Rose is a Cave Canem Fellow.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Chillin' at Nats

National Poetry Slam. Austin, Texas. I wake up today and realize it's probably going to be pivotal for us. Lots of teams coming into today's preliminary rounds determined and hungry for a win. With a second-place showing in our first bout on Tuesday night, we're sitting in 19th place. This is one night we will have to hang onto the ropes with our hands, feet, and teeth to keep from getting dropped from semi-finalis contention. It's a tough place to be. It's a learning place to be. I am so blessed to be here, and it's also the most fun I've had in months.