This below has festered and roiled in me since Open Mic at Sippin’ Internet Cafe Sunday night before last — Father’s Day. It keeps demanding air, so I’m going to let it breathe. I was raised by Southern Baptists, and was married to one, which perhaps adds to the intrigue.
Sloan for mayor, political advertisement approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky
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SLAM POETRY
Who, yes who? Please tell me who invented the rule that poetry must be written down ahead of time, or anytime? Yes, please tell me who? Just who invented that really stupid fucking rule, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t know a fucking thing about poetry. Not a fucking thing.
I’ll show you someone who wrote a poem saying he was not a written word poet, and then he read the poem he had written down about not being a written word poet. And then he told someone who’d had hundreds of poems erupt out of him, who’d said a poem he had not written down, coming out of the blue as he spoke it, wasn’t a poem.
And it was too long, about three minutes so far, and he’d have to stop saying his poem that had not finished coming to him from out of the blue, and the poem stopped coming, it died, and he never learned how it ended, what it would tell him, maybe something important, maybe for him, maybe for the world, but it died, because it wasn’t poetry, and it was too long.
Killed by a person who had written maybe three poems in his entire life, one of which was he wasn’t a written word poet. Killed by a Southern Baptist just after the poet had said the refrain yet again,
“Today is father’s day, I didn’t hear from my daughters today,”
Then added,
“Today also is the Summer Solstice, one of the highest holy days on this planet, the coming of the dark . . .”
Then the Southern Baptist, right on cue, stepped in and stopped what was coming to the poet from out of the blue, a freaking slam of written word poetry the Southern Baptist had invited with his poem slamming written word poetry — dark coitus interruption itself a poem.
To be fair and honest, the Southern Baptist only is interested in performance poetry, which seems to value the acting over the poetry, and money prizes for winning, the kind of poetry the poem from out of the blue he stopped was slamming to fucking hell and back, or maybe just to hell, where it just might belong.
Right, this isn’t a poem, it doesn’t rhyme or have pentameter, and isn’t cast into verse according to rules someone who didn’t know a fucking thing about poetry, either, invented. Right, this is simply a cosmic joke. So why aren’t you laughing your fucking ass off? Maybe because you aren’t a poet. Maybe because you’re a Southern Baptist.