Rock, Flag, and Eagle - NPS recap

As you may know, Team Austin took 3rd at NPS this year. Charlotte won, with louderARTS coming in 2nd and Boston-Cantab just barely taking the 4th (0.2 points behind us).

Here’s my take on the whole thing:

The “No Repeat” rule is killing NPS
Someone put it nicely: Do what’s best for the show and fairest to the poets. For several years now, PSI has foolishly insisted on doing what’s worst for the show and hardest on the poets. That is, if you get to finals, you can’t repeat a poem you’ve already done during the tournament. What does this lead to? Finals night gives the audience the 4th best set of poems available, and thus, the 4th best possible show.

We tied with Berkley in our first bout, which sent us to a one-poem “tiebreaker.” This meant that by the time we made it to finals, we had performed 13 poems, instead of every other team’s 12, putting us at an even greater disadvantage. The poem we used in the tie-breaker was the “Black Nerd” duo, which was our “powerhouse” group piece. At the Nerd Slam, it received the largest response I’ve ever seen for a poem outside of Finals Night. In other words, if we’d had it in Finals, who knows what the results would’ve been.

PSI needs to change the “no repeat” rule. Immediately and forever.

Publicity ain’t just a word
I don’t know the details of Dasha’s alleged “blow-up” at the Slam Family meeting, at which she “uninvited” PSI from NPS the following year. But what I doooo know is that our bouts were as poorly attended by non-poets as were our bouts in St. Louis. I saw a few fliers here and there, but that was it. And the one local news story completely missed the point. Madison was ripe for the plucking, but the organizers failed to pluck. It was a disaster of publicity. It’s what NOT to do when running a PR campaign. Take note, young marketers.

Slam poetry may not be the “movement” we want it to be
We----that is, slam poets and the like---enjoy proclaiming slam poetry as some sort of “cultural” or “artistic” or “literary” movement or revolution. This NPS confirms that no, no it’s not. When half the audience at the largest slam of the largest slam event of the year (in the world!) is empty … something’s off. Sure, piss-poor advertisement is partly to blame. But perhaps we, the poets, are to blame, too. Perhaps we’re not as revolutionary as we like to think. Perhaps our words aren’t so inspiring. Perhaps, just perhaps, we’re not heralding a new era, but instead, diluting a once-proud activity with lame, clichéd, and obvious poetry. Perhaps.

Not enough funny
At finals night, mine was the only “funny” poem. A couple of others had humorous moments, but couldn’t easily be classified as “funny poems.” During semifinals, mine was one of only three “funny” poems (one other being our group piece, “Negro Manual”). And during our two preliminary bouts, out of 32 poems, maybe 5 were intentionally humorous. Not enough poets do funny work. This has always been the case, I suppose. I can count on one hand the slam poets I consider genuinely, intentionally, and stylistically funny: Rob, Shappy, Mike M., and Ernie Cline. Other poets do funny sometimes (though often not at NPS) and other poets TRY to be funny often, but aren’t. I may be missing some names, but the point is: STOP TAKING YOUR SELF SO DAMN SERIOUSLY. Poetry is not sequestered to the sad-bastard end of the literary spectrum. If your poetry can’t laugh at life, how can you?

Group piece cobbling is good for the soul
Here was the situation: We got to send up four poems in finals. We have five poets on our team, and we had used all four of our group pieces. That meant that either (a) one of our team members wouldn’t get to perform on the Finals stage, or (b) we had to cobble together a group piece quickly. We went with (b). Tony and Danny valiantly memorized, practiced, and tweaked a group poem that they had from 2007 and which had never been performed in a bout. They did well, too. I’m proud of ‘em.

Group piece finals is good and bad
Good because (a) indie finals is often a mixed-bag at best, and though group piece finals was mixed, I’d rather see mixed group work than mixed indies, and (b) everyone seemed to go fucking nuts for it. But the set-up is bad. Only those teams who weren’t in semifinals were allowed to compete, meaning the biggest and rowdiest crowd of the week was for the teams who didn’t advance to semifinals. Seems unfair to those who did, especially considering the poor attendance at the semifinal bouts.

Robbie Q. is the most important man in poetry slam today
Because he (a) brings the funny, (b) brings the innovative, (c) reminds us that we shouldn’t take ourselves, as slam poets, too seriously, and (d) creates memorable moments in a sea of instantly forgettable work. God bless his crooked head.

I’m done
With being on an NPS team. For at least this year, though quite possibly all future years. I am, quite frankly, wasting my talent on the poetry slam. I’ll still be there many Wednesday nights, and will host from time to time, and I’ll certainly keep performing in different venues, but … well … I feel like I can do more. I’m sure we all feel that way sometimes. I wanna see what “more” I can do.

Love you
For real.

My dick is so big…
… it never returns your text messages.