Comments on Reading Tonight

Are poetry slams still legal?

I was kind of surprised when I got this job and I realized that the Poetry Slam was still going on. I remember meeting a winner of the slam, almost ten years ago: He'd started to do his hair up like a TV newscaster (his friends informed me that the haircut was new and inspired by the win) and he spent all his time writing poems about writing poetry. I wonder where he is now.

I went to that poetry slam at Tost once. Beat poetry isn't my favorite, so I haven't made an effort to go back, but the visiting-guest kid the night we went, who had to wait outside until it was time to go on because he was underage, and who had won at some larger beat poetry competition in California or something, was pretty impressive. You know, for a beat poet.

I hope the scowl and 'drop dead' note on his hands are meant to be ironic, or at least a joke. He fails to provoke any fear.

Is the slam really tonight? The Tost website lists it as every Wednesday. . .

It's now on Wednesday nights. Whether it's any good depends on the feature, usually. And as with any open mic format, you're going to have to endure a few painful pieces ("War is bad!") in order to catch flashes of brilliance (Buddy Wakefield, Christa Bell, Danny Sherrard).

@3: Beat poetry? When did you attend, 1967?

@6: No, sometime in the last year. What else would you call it when everyone rants with a specific cadence, or "beat", if you will? It infrequently rhymed, it was often angry... and they all "spit it" in almost the same way. Perhaps I'm using the term too liberally, but it was definitely very "beat"-influenced.

Scowl? That's an ironic smile.