Spoken word

I went to a poetry slam last. This was by no means my first poetry slam or reading for that matter as the majority of my Atlanta friends are poets. True, not all of them are aspiring to be full-time poets but some successfully, might I add, are. I am proud of the ones making it but also have lots of love for the others, the engineers and mathematicians and programmers, who write for pleasure.

I half-heatedly wanted to be one of these poets. When I was lucky enough to know beforehand of poetry games, I would come with my lines pre-written in my mind (usually something about eggshells, which I was SURE was poetic) or in a marble notebook that I would surreptitiously consult and then slip back into my pocket. These games involved, ah hem, "extemporaneously" writing one line on a typewriter that is passed around a circle of ironically dressed wine drinkers.

If my memory serves me correctly, the game was captured at least once if not numerous times on film. You see, a successful poet friend was one of the subjects of a documentary off and on for a year or so. He once told me to show up to his apartment to act like a poet because they "needed females" for the shoot. "But I do not write poetry," I said. He assured me that did not matter. I tried hard to be quiet so as to not give myself away but then came a question from the camera man/producer/first Norbet in my book: what is your favorite poem, Mary?

Good question. The classics and what my friends write. But to pull a High Fidelity move, my top five are:

1. This is Just to Say - William Carlos Williams
2. Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota - James Wright
3. Sheltered Garden - Hilda Doolittle
4. Tell Me a Story - Robert Penn Warren
5. Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas

I decided to tell him of how my 9th grade English teacher made the class memorize "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams with accompanying hand motions. He seemed thoroughly impressed, and just as I was congratulating myself on a job well done, he asked for a demonstration. Having consumed a few glasses of wine, in true poet style, I conceded without thinking about whether or not I recalled this poem or these gestures. I started wildly gesticulating, talking about white chickens and rain on wheelbarrows but could not seem to put the pieces in the right spot - the hand motions were off and I second guessed my memory of the whopping 3 line poem. I finally capitulated and told him I could not do it and that maybe he should consider erasing the display, half joking. Whatever came of all that footage? The nights in Shawn´s apartment, the typewriter game, or the jam sessions at the Tipsy pony where we played improvised music and I sang the lyrics of poems? It maybe culminated in a nasty end but who knows.

Of the poetry readings I attended, the ones that successfully plucked me heart strings were, of course, well written but they entailed something more. It was the tone, the emotion, the slight hand twitch or perfected dance of the feet (exactly this many steps forwards and backwards at just the right time) that can arrest a crowd.

As with all poetry slams, the one last night was not gripping performance after the next. What amazed me about the slam, however, was how powerful the readings could still be without full command, on my part, of the Spanish language. I could discern the major plots of each poem easy but I focused a great deal more on the movements and flow and facial expressions. One spoke slowly; One spoke too fast to be real words; One sang the poetry to nursery rhymes; One came tearing through the crowd screaming the lines of his poem; One shivered in delight while recalling the embrace of a lover before turning stoic and stating that already he was not in love; One might as well have been the announcer for a baseball game.

I left the slam thinking that Spanish is a particularly mellifluous language.