Journal: Sep 09, 2010
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04/14/2005 Archived Entry: Thwarted Plans
Over and over I find things don't happen as I plan or expect them to happen. Take last night for example. In this final bout of the Mid-West Poetry Slam league (against Sturgis, MI and Detroit, MI), I expected to have the 2-minute slot and I was going to read either "Ok, Fuckers" (humorous) or "I Have Heard of Evil" (a heavy piece).
I didn't really want to do "Ok, Fuckers" because the folks from Sturgis had heard it already. But Detroit was supposed to be there and that would have done well against their "Carlita" (who as I hear it is always on about sex and using some schtick or another to get by).
What happened? All sorts of things. First, Detroit bailed so it was more like a haiku death match, slam death match.
There was open mic and I was able to cleanse my worry about appearing to have only one poem (yes, I worry about crap like that, I think it's diminishing) by doing "Today Is Not the Day for the World's Best Poem" in the open mic (and Jennifer Bosveld was in the audience and I didn't want to be represented solely by "Ok Fuckers" to my would-be publisher) after which I got multiple high fives. (Wow.) So there I was ready to do either well-prepared 2-minute poem without expending mental energy worrying about repeating "Ok, Fuckers".
The match started and I realized that I'm going to do "I Have Met Evil" because the judges were into substance and Rose Smith's mother-oriented poem (it's a lot more, but I'll leave it at that here) did great and "I Have Met Evil" is mother-oriented as well. Then what-the-hell, it was my turn next and I moved closer to the front and Ed Mabrey kept pushing in front of me. (He and Sidney Jones, Jr., were going to do a 1-minute team piece after.) He went right up to the front and Sidney thought he was next too, ran up and returned with his part of the team piece. There went my 2-minute slot so I pulled out "Freak" -- which is definitely a weaker poem -- and did the one minute slot.
Ed was all "Scott [Woods] announced the one-minute round." (Yeah, right. My journal policy forbids further comment about that.) Later, Scott said I should have done the 2-minute in the one-minute slot, but I didn't know I could get away that -- and I might not have anyway. I got a 1, 2, 2. I think I got a pity "1" for my good performance of "Not the Day" -- maybe not, the 1 was from the guy, and a guy (especially this traditional sounding guy) might appreciate a woman loving a man for seeing the ordinary in her (which is the gist of the poem -- the poem is flawed, but ok at the end).
Team Results: a tie. I think our poets were better and never made me cringe with embarassment like one of the Sturgis poets did (multiple times).
So there was a tie-breaker round and Rose went up and pulled out "Tell Mary Not to Weep" and won it for us. Thanks, Rose.
Lesson learned -- be ready for anything. Review / memorize "David" as another one minute -- maybe "Rock. Paper. Fall." for the literary crowd. Anyway, season over. (But you never know what will happen.)
Tonight, Lancaster.
[ Pictures from the April 6, 2005 Sturgis Bout ]
Replies: 3 comments
I'm still president of your fan club, Louise, and anyone who wants to disagree with me can go fuck themselves.
FUCKERS!
<3333 Louise
Posted by Zelda @ 04/14/2005 08:49 AM ET
Oh, hey, fucker is a compliment in my mythology.
Give me a high five and I'll call you a fucker anyday.
;-)
Posted by Louise @ 04/14/2005 08:51 AM ET
Why isn't that on a tshirt?
Posted by Zelda @ 04/14/2005 03:48 PM ET