Women of the World Poet Saroya Marsh

Bang! by Saroya Marsh in surprise February feature before the White Plains Library's slam.

Wednesday at the spur of the moment I decided to go to the White Plains Library to see Zork and Sweetie. Hadn't seen them in a while. For the first time in a long time, I read a poem in an open mic. On this night, that was after falling flat on my face getting on the stage. Really. Literally. Nose to carpet. Oh well. 

The format at the White Plains Library is, open mic, FEATURED POET, then last the SLAM. And on this night, another poet had cancelled and  Saroya Marsh  - an educator, poet, personable activist, "voice for the voiceless," and high power performer was the feature!  See the Split Journal Interview  Check out her Poets & Writers page  

Later at the diner, big smiles

Zork and Sweetie, slam veterans. Zork runs the White Plains Slam. They are also known for a crazy vlog, BedVlogs - recorded fully clothed in bed. (yes you read that right)

Just back from the National Poetry Slam in Cambridge, MA

  What a great week at the National Poetry Slam which was in Cambridge/Boston this year. I heard some fine performances, brought home interesting points of view to ponder and a slew of photos of the architecture on the MIT campus.

  Congratulations to Slam Nuba from Denver, the winning team in the finals. And thank you PSI for all the unsung work you do. And thank you Zork & Sweetie (of Bed vLog fame) and Jonathan Harris, my teammates at nationals, for making this wonderful field trip happen!!!

  Though I have dabbled in performance poetry for many years, even being an alternate ten years ago, this is the first time I have actually gone to the National Slam as a competing poet.

  Slammers are a crazy weird and wonderful family really. As an old grandma type, they were very kind to me. I like the tee-shirt design this year too.

For poems, I did Alternate Theories on Wednesday night at the Democracy Center, and Blood Brothers, an old saw from my 1998 chapbook Inverse Origami on Thursday night at the Cantab. I am glad to be back - I missed Henry Cort, my guitar. It was all poetry this week, and for logistical reasons Henry stayed at home.

Slam Sculpture: You Gave My Poem A Two?

Opinion differs wildly and widely on what is meritorious or not....

In a poetry "Slam"  - a competitive poetry reading scored like the Olympics, there is a panel of judges who rate each poem from 0-10. It's supposed to be half for the poem itself, half for the performance - though that is pretty much tossed away in practice.

 In that spirit, this person is appalled that his slam poem/performance has been scored as a TWO out of TEN by one of the judges.....

 This sculpture is of polymer clay, painted and mounted on a stone tile.  It's better then ten years old and is owned by poet Faith Vicinanza.

We had our 1st haiku slam tonight at wednite poetry. What a fabulousevent!

Haiku night big hit
five seven five syllables
fit, end with a twist

We had our 1st haiku slam tonight at the Wednesday Night Poetry Series. Three little lines can hold so much. So many funny, clever haiku! I couldn't stop laughing and my uncle who always leaves early forgot to go home. And there were also gorgeous haiku followed by a pause then a collective gasp of surprise or awe.

Jerry Brooker and Frank Chambers came out of hiding armed with many haiku and Ernie Daruka, Sandra Mally, James Joseph Buhs, Dan DeRosa, Barb Stout and I all pulled our haiku shorts out of respective dusty notebooks or wrote a bunch of new ones for the occasion. This short form with a twist worked particularly well for James' pun-a-riffic styling. The final bout was between James and Dan. And after a close fight it was Dan who became our first haiku slam champ!

We all had an enlightening and entertaining time. Louise Sieviec surprised us by reading two traditional haiku in the original Japanese during the open myk. Jim Whiteside read a poem he wrote for Terry McLain. Barb Stout read beautiful haiku from a little book of them she had printed up quite a few years back. It was a grand and successful experiment! I suspect this will not be the last haiku night at WNPS.

Had a 2nd place slam win - my songs as slam poems - weirdly it worked

At the Oct. 1 slam at the White Plains Library - which I had been promising to attend all summer - I tried a new slant to slamming. At least for me. 

When I slammed in 1996-97 I had a few signature pieces  that I used - Blood Brothers, and the Uses of Nature. I also slammed on occasion with Inverse Origami the title poem to my chapbook.

This year I thought I would try slamming with some of my song lyrics - which are more slam-like than most of my recent poetry. 

On Oct. 1, there were two rounds and I used "She Wouldn't Take Me Home" and  "Without You" which are songs of mine that I wrote long before I ever heard of slam...   It worked I guess, as I came in second in that evening's slam. Go figure.

New experiment - song lyrics as performance poems? Maybe

Yup I did it. I went and played a song in the poetry/acoustic open mic at Wednesday Night Poetry. . It was a fun night with many different readers.

Sandra Ebner was the feature and Slam Pappy Steve Marsh warmed up the room for her with a 10 minute play on My Fair Lady starring the NeoCons, McCain & Palin.. (Hilarious.)

Earlier I played one song and read one poem during the open mic. - but later I had an epiphany -- some, not all, but some of my songs would make GREAT SLAM POEMS..... I will be working on this idea....to painlessly get ready for the NorthBeast Regionals which Zork has asked me to compete in again this year. Very cool! This was the day my dad was born. It was a good day all in all.