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so, i just spent two hours talking about my involvement in the poetry slam� & i�m only up to 2000. i think i talk way too much. it was an interesting experience. i�ve never really reflected on my nationals experiences to that level before. the nationals have always given me the best & worst experiences. grand highs & soul-shaking lows. it was a strange & illuminating experience to reflect upon the past years & see what moments stood out for me. the other thing that struck me was how pessimistic i think i sounded. i can be a grumpy bastard sometimes & lord knows i�ve got opinions, but it was somewhat disturbing for me to realize that many of the strongest memories i have are not the good ones. for all the great poetry i�ve seen over the years & all the wonderful people i�ve met, why is it the distractions & squabbling that seem to rise to the surface of my memory? it�s interesting� when i first became involved in the poetry slam it felt like a family in all the forms of the word. in thinking back upon what i was talking about tonight, it is the moments & events i felt threatened the family that stuck with me. (& on the flip side, it is the good moments, when the family showed what it could be, that also stand out) part of me wonders if i feel protective about something that no longer exists except in memory? tony planted a seed in my head during a talk a few days ago. a punk compilation he got talks about the transition of punk from movement to genre, & how when it stopped being a movement it stopped growing. tony said that the same thing could be said about poetry slam & i think he is right. i think it stopped being a movement & became a description of one style & all the openness & growth in style & form has been stopped. it is an old question, but one that i don�t think has been answered� has poetry slam outlived it purpose? when it was started, it was all about getting people to listen to poetry & getting poets to interact with the audience. i think it has done that. there is an explosion in performance poetry going on & i think it ties directly to the poetry slam. so, mission accomplished. now what? & i think that is where everyone gets hung-up. what is slam going to do next? what is the next goal? what, as a family, do we want to accomplish in the next two years? the next ten years? the next twenty years? if getting poetry to this point was the lunar landing, then what is our mars mission? it is late & i�m babbling. time for this grumpy bastard to head to bed. |
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