#texasgrandslam

Every now and then an opportunity presents itself that beckons the response, “I have to take advantage of this!”

This week (yes, this week!) you have the opportunity to change your life. Consider this your call to action, your opportunity, your open invitation...to TEXAS GRAND SLAM POETRY FESTIVAL.

TGS is the largest Poetry Festival in the Lone Star State and it is right in your BCS backyard, friends.

The festival will be featuring 42 of the most talented poets battling it out for the title: Texas Grand Slam Champion.

The “battle” does not occur with flying fists of fury and Bruce Lee ninja kicks, but rather, words.

Words that will fly out of mouths of strangers and friends.

Words that will entangle you in the most beautiful way.

Words that will seep into your pores and make you a different human being.

Disclaimer: I AM NOT romanticizing this by any means, I sincerely mean it.

This Poetry Festival welcomes you with open arms and invites you to take a listen with open ears, open minds, and open hearts. If only for the weekend, step out of the mundane, break away from your textbooks, and into a world of thriving art.

6pm Friday, October 24th in Downtown Bryan, Texas Grand Slam rounds begin. THIS NIGHT IS FREE! FREE!

The final round is Saturday, October 25th at 7:30pm and will be held in Rudder Auditorium.

Cost for the event is ONLY $5. WHAT?! $5 for the journey of a lifetime? I’ll take it!

Details for everything can be found at any of the links below.

WEBSITE: www.texasgrandslam.com

FB PAGE: www.facebook.com/TexasGrandSlamPoetryFestival

EVENT RSVP: www.facebook.com/events/1483694781887178/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

The Eckleburg Project sincerely hopes to see you there!

Until then,

Gabi

"My influences are always creating new work in sense or another. I want that for my life and as a performer/writer. Time is my greatest invest to myself and I am my great asset." 

________________________________________________________

B.Z.A.T. (Before Zuckergerg; After Twitter)

"A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more 

relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa"

-Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook 

I have been wired to miss people 

lately i have been missing the coding of flesh

when I was younger, i felt smarter than a computer 

now, I spell-check my first name 

This digital timeline makes it easy for chat 

but, it is stretching our fibers of humanity

In the land of BZ ...

Before Zuckerburg

We savored memories rather than consumed them

Until we upgraded to A.T...

After Twitter

Where quality time is too slow to download

we sacrifice fingerprints for interface

  BZ, Outside with the mosquitoes was your socail network 

At, We are broken missed placed connections

lost by a simple change in our network

BZ, small talk was texture that felt like woven fabric

AT: small talk is skyping on plasma screens 

Borders Bookstores couldn't machete the Amazon jungle 

And with e-books 

We’ll soon need an app to feel the pages

  we were once scared to share our feelings

because people could tell if they were genuine

When I post my heart and 5 mins goes by and there's

still no comment, it's proof!

That all 3,000 friends 

Don’t even Love me,

Let alone Like me

  Fragile faces attached to true emotion

and detach with artificial emoticons

Like those are sustainable bridges

But, the human landscape too often shifts rigidly

By our unstable feelings and faults

BZ, our bodies were wired for pressure

AT, now we crumble into the waves beneath us

So as you Google;

You're making body language obsolete 

Reach for you because

I don't want to lose the algorithm of us

You are Instagrammed to my memory

Our interface bleeds human

Before Zuckerberg, we forged genuine friendships

After Twitter, we friend expecting a follow. 

Don't let this tool become a crutch 

let go, and experience 

who you've missing 

Before they become just a squirrel in front of your house.

_________________________________________________________

Name: Emanuelee Bean  Stage Name: Outspoken Bean Age: 28 Years Active in Slam: Since 06 Teams You’ve Been a Member of: Prairie View Productive Poets 08, Houston VIP 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 Place from which you are traveling to get to TGS: HOUSTON  Top 5 influential poets: Suzan Lori Parks, Buddy Wakefield, Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Sunni Patterson, Queen Godis Have you been to TGS before, & if so, what are you hoping is the same/different from your previous experience? I have.  The first year I hosted.  The second year I made it to Semi-Finals and beat myself out of it.  I am making it to finals but, from there it’s all wishful thinking.  But, I will do well.  If not, what are you most looking forward to at TGS this year?  I love individual competitions so the all the poets that I am going to see is always great!  How would you describe your writing style?  Conversationist.   Do you consider yourself more of a writer or a performer? I am a performer first.  Who are you looking forward to/nervous as hell to compete against?  The slam in general.  I’ve seen the roster and it is no walk in the park.  What is your goal for this competition?  Competition wise: To win, first and for most or at least to make it to the 3rd round of finals.  Socially:  To converse with poets I have not seen since National Poetry Slam in Oakland and just being in Bryan, TX.  BCS has really invested so much into me as a writer and a performer.   What is going through your head before you get on stage?  Don’t mess up.

What do your influential poets teach you?

They taught me in way or another to keep performing. Keep writing. They taught me to keep doing. My influences are always creating new work in sense or another. I want that for my life and as a performer/writer. Time is my greatest invest to myself and I am my great asset.

  How does your approach to slam differ as an individual poet and as a youth team coach?

When I am competing all I have to worry about is me. Whereas, when I am coaching all decisions in way or another fall in my hands.

  What is your writing process like, from idea, to writing, to performance? Since you are a performer first, how does your poem change once you performance workshop it?

That is a long process for me. But, most of my poems that I end up internalizing and memorizing come from conversations that I've had previously. Writing them takes a while but, ultimately I want it out of my head on some form of medium whether that's paper, my phone, etc. It may stay there for awhile or it might find it's way being changed and edited and revised and reviewed and that process repeats itself until I am satisfied. I start working on the performance as I memorize really.

What made you write B.Z.A.T. (Before Zuckergerg; After Twitter), and do you prefer to use it in slam, or do you only use it at open mics or non-slam events?

"I feel responsible for the effect my words can have on people's thought and emotions; uplifting art has been a tremendous ally in the daily war I fight with the part of me that wallows in negativity, so it would be remiss of me to create anything that didn't help people win their own inner battles."

_________________________________________________________

My name is Chris.

I am addicted to gambling.

My game of choice is playing self-esteem like a slot machine,

Pulling myself down and hoping to see change.

This is how I was born,

Where my neighborhood park was a canvas for Wade in the Watercolor bullets;

I learned to play for keeps and swim shackles deep in bloodstreams.

  Raised by 3 queens and a pair of Jack asses,

So I always knew a Full House could still echo.

These are Savannah, Georgia memories

But even all the way in Austin,

I struggle to Texas Hold 'em all in.

I was taught money is strength,

So I see casinos less as gold mines

And more like Gold's Gyms:

Places you go to increase the burden you can carry.

It's not as simple as mental exercise,

Where I'm from,

Our tread meals are crumbs and burnt rubber,

That money in the middle smells like roadkill and Goodyear

And it's been a while since January 1st was more than a big metaphor for me dropping the ball.

You think I've made something of the chips on my shoulders,

You don't know I'm just waiting to plant them on the table,

In hopes they will grow to greener pastures worth a pilgrimage,

Because at this step in my life as a bottom rung bonfire,

Even Dante wouldn't tour my insides.

My Mom says, "Boy, you’re playing with your life"

I say, who can fault the man who plays four corners with the Bermuda Triangle in a quest to square his situation.

100 dollars lost from 4 side bets, and I see I will never have all the right angles.

I gotta stop playing my self-esteem like a slot machine:

Pulling myself down and hoping to see change,

It ain't that easy to line things up.

_________________________________________________________

Name: Chris Formey

    Age: 22

Years Active in Slam: About a year and a half.

Teams You’ve Been a Member of: 2014 Austin B-Sides and slammed in the first Austin Poetry Slam Duet Slam with Julian Copado

Place from which you are traveling to get to TGS: Austin, TX

Top 5 influential poets: Tupac Shakur, Christopher Michael, Outspoken Bean, Good Ghost Bill, My daughter (Her poem "Crunchy Boobs" is next level. And she freestyles poetry on request. It's amazing.) And Kevin Burke. Can I add Kevin Burke? I know that's 6 but I have to put him in there as 3.5 or something.

Have you been to TGS before, & if so, what are you hoping is the same/different from your previous experience?

I was fortunate enough to qualify for a paid trip to TGS through Austin Poetry Slam last year. The experience was a blessing and pivotal in my growth as an artist and member of the poetry community. My journey in slam poetry wasn't even a year old; I believe last year's competition was around my 6 month anniversary of participating. Being exposed to different styles of poetry from around the country and audiences from outside of Austin helped broaden my horizons of creativity. For that, I am forever thankful, and I hope to get that from this experience again. As far as what I hope is different, I hope that I can put on a much more inspirational, and refined performance for the audience.

    How would you describe your writing style? Embracing Struggle. Making the best of what we have and loving it.

Do you consider yourself more of a writer or a performer? Categories scare me. I'm just a person who's trying to maximize the abilities/time I have been blessed to share with the other growing souls I have the pleasure to encounter.

  Who are you looking forward to/nervous as hell to compete against? I'm looking forward to competing with and cheering on everyone. Most of the people I listed on my favorite poets are registered to compete, so I know this is going to be an amazing show that I am honored to be a part of.

What is your goal for this competition? My goal is to remind everyone that we are blessed to be alive.

What is going through your head before you get on stage? Let's do it! You got this! Remember why you do this. Remember how you felt when you wrote this poem.

  How do you think Austin Poetry Slam has shaped your poetry in a way that another home venue might not have?

The people there have really taken me in. Everyone who has ever performed there has inspired me in some way, but the veterans of the slam, like Danny Strack and Christopher Michael were especially supportive very early on. I always knew that I wanted to do something with writing, and the warmth and friendly competition at Austin Poetry Slam encouraged me to push myself to discover my inner voice and how it can help others.

Since you strive to embrace struggle and to inspire, are you ever in the wrong mood to write an uplifting poem? And if so, what do you do?

Yes, when that happens, I choose not to write until I can get my mind under control. Sometimes, I will freestyle alone in my car. This gives me a straightforward way to vent some of those difficult feelings until I'm ready to articulate them in a constructive way. I feel responsible for the effect my words can have on people's thought and emotions; uplifting art has been a tremendous ally in the daily war I fight with the part of me that wallows in negativity, so it would be remiss of me to create anything that didn't help people win their own inner battles.

What is it about slam that keeps you coming back?  

The desire to grow through healthy competition, the rush of the stage, the amazing people I have met; my fiancée: when I'm looking for ways to avoid work; the hope that my daughter will be molded into something even more awesome than she already is by rubbing shoulders with all of the self-love, honesty, and creativity of the members in this community; Thinking about where I've come from, shedding tears over all of the time I've wasted; Confidence that the universe has shaped each of us for a specific path, and this is part of mine.

Do you have a pre-performance ritual?

I do boxing warm-ups, walk around, drink lots of water, go to the bathroom(from all of the water), and I say encouraging phrases while all of this is going on. Everything except for the going to the bathroom. I try to keep my mouth closed in there as often as possible. But yeah, I'm a strong believer in the powers of visualization. I constantly picture myself succeeding. It's a good way for me to ensure that if I do not achieve my goals, I know I gave myself the best to and probably put myself in a good position anyway. You can only have a chance if you believe you do.

    What is the best thing that your poems have taught you?

"Working with these young poets is quite the privilege and we have all grown as writers and performers. I am in awe of their fearlessness and of the pursuit of their craft in a community that needs their insight. They have encouraged me to let it rip. And I try to oblige them."

_________________________________________________________

Passing the Baton Enlightened By The Fluent One’s Poem  “The Hug” November 14, 2012 “They say that if poetry hasn’t change your life, it’s cause you haven’t heard the right poem.” At the Southwest Slam 2012 I heard Jeremiah read about poem about how someone saw the pain that he was hiding about his abuse as a child.      His poem changed my life and when he came down to Laredo, I wrote this for him. As a thanks.

Growing up, I never got invited to run in any races where a baton was handed off. I’m a marathon man, a long distance runner, convinced that endurance was my gift. In other words, I run slow. No fast twitch muscles here except for that smartass mouth that gets me in and out of trouble every day.   There is no fluidity in my movements, no graceful embrace of space by stubby appendages.    On this warm night in Tulsa, most of my slam poetry, was still inside of me. On this night of my transformation stood in front of me this Houstonian. Tall, lanky, sauntering onto the stage like a cat enjoying all of his nine lives. Emanating a cool that I envied as a young man, and lamented in this older shell. He was Something that I could never be.  At this age I am an accordion to his cool saxophone.   He had my attention, and as he glided on stage he told the story of passing the baton from one tortured and liberated soul to another.  Every word, every verse, every metaphor,  every light but leaded step pried open the pain that others thought was covered by scar tissue, ripped open the wounds, so that they could be finally cauterized.   The fluent one, in three minutes laid out the agonizing, baton-passing, soul-lifting message, that this experience, this unspeakable horror, this invisible burden, fuels a spiritual rawness that artists embrace and then set free.   I learned that one hug from a liberated sufferer, can pass the baton to another, now free to heal what only they can see and what we are blind to.   That night in Tulsa, they who felt similar pain jumped into your arms, your truth fluently told, in motion and in verse.     And I knew that I was in the right tribe.

________________________________________________________

Name:  Armando X. Lopez Stage Name:  AXL Age: 56 Years Active in Slam: 3 Teams You’ve Been a Member of: Laredo Border Slam Place from which you are traveling to get to TGS: Laredo, Texas Top 5 influential poets: Daisy Zamora,  Joaquin Zihuatanejo, Jeremiah The Fluent One Payne, Damien Flores,  Carmen Tafolla. Have you been to TGS before, & if so, what are you hoping is the same/different from your previous experience? Nope.  This is my first trip to TGS. If not, what are you most looking forward to at TGS this year?  For the opportunity to hear the art of other great poets and learn to let it rip! How would you describe your writing style? Free association from inspiration.  Do you consider yourself more of a writer or a performer?  A writer. Who are you looking forward to/nervous as hell to compete against? Every single poet.   What is your goal for this competition? To provide another voice in this great panorama of the world we call Slam. What is going through your head before you get on stage?  Reward the curiosity of any listener in the crowd.

Where does your inspiration come from? Is it your daily life? Is it, in the case of the poem you sent me, the stories of other poets?

  My inspiration comes from the respectful notion that “cada cabeza es un mundo”. That is the concept that every mind is a universe unto itself. I am in constant wonder of the unique perspectives that people bring to this universe and how each mind captures the circumstances of the world in diverse and captivating perceptions. With a background in sportswriting and news reporting I claim to see stories everywhere. My law practice also provides me with day-to-day contact with people in immense personal strife and their tribulations and triumphs spark much of what I write. I am also blessed with three wonderfully talented and artistic children who amaze me now as they are in their 20’s. I recently became a grandfather and that experience has further heightened the amount of love that I feel. I also come from a political bent. Like most poets the injustices of the world infuriate me and hypocrisy fuels much of what I write in that vein. Though I rarely write about romantic love, the notion of love filters its way into my poetry.

  The art of other poets magnifies the “cada cabeza es un mundo” inspiration that I seek in the world. Like musicians who enjoy the virtousity of fellow musicians, I am enthralled by the views of the youthful poets in the slam scene. At 56 I am usually the senior voice at many of these events. The poets keep me young.

  How has the Laredo slam community affected your poetry?

  Chibbi Orduna, LBS founder signed his chapbook for me and added this wonderful inscription to his autograph. He wrote, “You don’t know how important you are to these young poets”. The reality is that the Laredo Border Slam scene has given me eternal youth. Working with these young poets is quite the privilege and we have all grown as writers and performers. I am in awe of their fearlessness and of the pursuit of their craft in a community that needs their insight. They have encouraged me to let it rip. And I try to oblige them.

  How do you decide which poems you are going to use in a slam?

  I love to write. For every slam I try to write at least one new poem. Our slam master Julia Orduna helps the process by have thematic slams. This tactic forces the writers to bring new poetry instead of reciting older poems. My release comes from writing new poetry that processes the life events that have occurred since the last slam. Unfortunately my computer crashed this week and I may have lost all of the poetry that I wrote during the time that I have been slamming. I will probably write new material for this slam.

    What is your all-time favorite line of poetry?

  “Maybe it’s time we embrace our differences like they were our children and just

"What I've found is that there are people who are willing to challenge and beat me down when I present a political or social argument, but for some reason, when I take the same damn argument and put it into poem form I have been able to reach these folks."

__________________________________________________________

An Anonymous Letter to White Feminism

Dear White Feminism,

You keep asking

Why we cannot bond over womanhood

But history has shown

This is not a bond you consider

Until convenient

You must think us women of short memories

and no questions of our own

But did you think we would not question your motives when you made our bent backs bridges to your limited

liberations?

Did you think we would forget whose shoulders you stood on when you tried to stand eye to eye with your

oppressors, who suffered for your suffrage?

We

Women of the margins

demand more than an occasional invite to a table that we built

and were forced to serve you on

We demand our questions be answered

the same ones we’ve been asking them for centuries

White Feminism

You keep asking

Why we cannot bond over womanhood

But

You have yet to answer my first question

Ain’t I A Woman?

__________________________________________________________

Name: Mwende Katwiwa

Stage Name: FreeQuency

Age: 23

Years Active in Slam: 1

Teams You’ve Been a Member of: Slam New Orleans

Place from which you are traveling to get to TGS: New Orleans

Top 5 influential poets: Decline to answer

Have you been to TGS before, & if so, what are you hoping is the same/different from your previous experience? Yes I went last year and made it to finals stage and then got a time penalty...sooooo basically just do like last year but no time penalty :p

If not, what are you most looking forward to at TGS this year? I'm looking forward to reconnecting with poets from last year's tournament and being in a competition where there is love between competitors

How would you describe your writing style? Spur of the moment...I gotta feel to write

Do you consider yourself more of a writer or a performer? Both I suppose

Who are you looking forward to/nervous as hell to compete against? Looking forward to all, nervous about all (don't know all :D)

What is your goal for this competition? To bring new work to the stage, to connect with other poets, to win

What is going through your head before you get on stage? "What poem am I doing again?"

How does poetry function in your life? Is it a hobby? Church? Job?

Well I was introduced to spoken word poetry through a group called Project 2050 in middle school when my mom took me to one of their shows. Based on what I learned poetry was in school up until that point, I definitely didn't think poetry was the way for me to articulate what I was going through as a young black immigrant who, until boobs grew on me at age 12, everyone thought was a boy, until I saw that spoken word show. Poetry, specifically spoken word was introduced to me as a safe space for Queer youth and for Youth of Color to learn and grown in their identities and activism through art based expressions (poetry, hip hop, Djing, breakdancing, stepping) Through this program, I became a youth activist and found that my greatest tool was my tongue (it was definitely not my two feet dancing), and I began identifying as a poet and activist. This was a crucial stage of my life when I discovered that activism was really what I felt passionate about.

  After high school, I took a year off and moved down to New Orleans to work at a local high school. It was overwhelming and I would write my way through my struggles sometimes that year, but I felt that I had found a home in NOLA so I started college there the next year. I attended Tulane University (class of 2014) which was really REALLY hard for me even though no one really knew it. On the surface, I was one of the University's most decorated graduates, but inside I was miserable. Tulane Univeristy was a very white space. A very rich white ignorant space. It was the literal definition Ivory Tower and I felt like a dredlocked Rapunzel whose locks was too short to escape. I made friends, but overall, I felt really alienated and disconnected from the campus, so I went into a very well hidden depression and basically just existed for my first 2 years of college. I didn't write for that whole two years. 

  I decided how I was existing on campus was probably not sustainable or good for me, so I decided to make a change and explore what was going on with myself. The fall of my junior year I went to Study Abroad in Kenya which is actually where my family and I emigrated from so it wasn't really a "traditional study abroad" it was a "study-while-not-having-to-deal-with-the-overwhelming-ignorance-and-whiteness-at-Tulane-and-connect-back-to-yourself-so-you-can-start-to-heal-abroad. I had a very interesting time there because even though my mom, dad and brother (and the rest of my extended family) were living in Kenya and I had been there since moving to the US, it was the first time I had gone to Kenya without my family and did things that weren't based on what my immediate or extended family was doing. I really grew into myself as a Kenyan and also as an American (since 2012 baby) during the 6 months that I was there and I felt a fire that I hadn't since high school. When I came back to the US with my one of the first significant things that happened was that my co-worker (white dude from the South) called me a 'Nigger'. Mwende in the first 2 years of college would probably have gone off on him them gone back to my room and cried or something, but this time, and every other time after on campus after that when some suspect stuff happened, I refused to back down and internalize it and instead began demanding that people and the institutions around us be accountable. It was like I was in high school all over again. I don't think its any coincidence that this was also the exact time I began exploring the Spoken Word scene in NOLA. That spring (2013) was really when I began realizing and remembering how much poetry was a part of myself as an activist and as a human being who sometimes struggles to articulate why I am so pessimistic about the world. For lack of a better word, poetry is my church. I see it as a healing space, a community gathering space, a safe space to confess my sins and all those other churchy connections that I can't remember because I haven't been to church in a long time.

  That was a little over a year ago. Right now, poetry still very much functions in the same way for me, but it also has gone back to being what it was introduced to me as which is a processing tool for me for the personal/political and social interactions I have. Usually I have no urgency to write poems until I feel myself becoming overwhelmed with feelings (I HAVE ALOT OF FEELINGS). Then, I disappear and I can't be bothered or concentrate on anything until my poems/feelings are out, which is when I reappear and life gets in the way of my poetry.

  How do you mix your politics and your poetry? For instance, in the poem you sent me, you refer to a classic feminist text for women of color (Ain't I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth). Is poetry a vehicle for activism in your life?

I have two answers to this.

  1.

I don't really know how to separate my politics and my poetry because of how spoken word was introduced to me as a political art form. Also, I don't want to/think I can separate my politics from my poetry because as Claudia Jones told us long ago in her dope piece "An End to the Neglect of the Negro Woman" (1949) the personal is political:

"This means ridding ourselves of the position which sometimes finds certain progressives and Communists fighting on the economic and political issues facing Negro people, but 'drawing the line' when it comes to social intercourse or inter-marriage.  To place the question as a 'personal' and not a political matter, when such questions arise, is to be guilty of the worst kind of Social-Democratic, bourgeois-liberal thinking as regards the Negro question in American life; it is to be guilty of imbibing the poisonous white-chauvinist 'theories' of a Bilbo or Rankin." 

2.

Since I've always been interested in and studied politics and culture (I graduated with a dual degree in Political Economy with International Perspectives and Africa & African Diaspora Studies), I've grown up knowing how hard it is to have these conversations with people who don't actively think of them or don't have to because of their identities. What I've found is that there are people who are willing to challenge and beat me down when I present a political or social argument, but for some reason, when I take the same damn argument and put it into poem form I have been able to reach these folks. I remember when Trayvon Martin's verdict came out (I was still at Tulane) and I was having the craziest conversations with (white) people trying to explain how messed up the whole thing was from Trayvon's death to Zimmerman's trial and people really pushing back against me. I got to a point where I wrote a poem called "The 7 Deadly American Sins" about his death and the verdict and people who I had vowed never to speak to again because our conversations left me so bewildered were messaging me like "Wow this really made me think in a way that I wasn't when we were talking"

  ...I don't understand it, but I'll take it.

  How does the atmosphere of your home venue shape your writing and performance?

I'm just getting into the second year of my home venue/scene so I'm not sure if it has had too much time to shape me. Being on Team Slam New Orleans (Team SNOOOOOO) has made me alot more in tune with the editing and performance process in spoken word which I have no training in, but the larger New Orleans poetry scene which I am a part of (the WHODAT Poets) is like a family to me. A few of them even refer to me as their little sister...but I think that has more to do with me looking like a 17 year old than anything. 

  When I first entered the scene a little over a year, every single poet I met was nothing but kind, generous with the stage, and encouraging to me. They put me on their shows even though I was a noob, they came out to support my shows once I started putting them on, and they voted me the Rookie of the Year at their 2013 awards ceremony the Golden Mic Awards. It's a beautiful scene and some of my most treasured relationships in the city were borne it it.

  What is your all-time-favorite line of poetry?

This can't be a real question. One line?!?! That's messed up, I can barely even settle on one poem -_-

  Right now though, Sunni Patterson has really been speaking to me. It's funny, she's been the only poet who I've known and followed since I started, and she has kept speaking to me for years. She is still the one that comes to my mind when people ask me what poets I admire and those kind of questions because I think her poetry is where I want mine to be someday - beautifully written, unapologetically black and woman, and with messages not just stories. I had the chance to open up for her as part of a showcase in New Orleans last year and really got back into her work after that.

  Currently, I'm having alot of trouble with being vocal about issues and folks in dominant cultures and identities pushing back on me and me being all in my feelings and feeling like they're not even being affected, so this line from one of my all tie favorite Sunni pieces We Know This Place has really been speaking to me to trust that the universe/the ancestors/SOMETHING more powerful and better hidden than oppression and pushing back against them for me

"In these spaces we hold each other up. We hold up the truth. We don’t shy away from things just because they are hard to carry. And in doing so, I think we lighten our load. We walk the earth less encumbered though we carry great burdens. That’s the magic. We have more hands."

__________________________________________________________

There is no simple metaphor

for the way our eyes do not meet.

I have tried everything:

ricocheting bullets,

uncooked spaghetti slipping down the wall,

trains from Chicago and New York

traveling at different speeds on tracks

that, it turns out, do not actually cross.

You said, “It’s a shame.”

I looked at my hands, and nodded.

__________________________________________________________

Name: Gloria 

Stage Name: Glori B

Age: 27

Years Active in Slam: 2.5

Teams You’ve Been a Member of: Neo Soul 2013, Austin Poetry Slam 2014

Place from which you are traveling to get to TGS: Austin, Texas

Top 5 influential poets: Barbara Hamby, Carrie Fountain, Naomi Shihab Nye, Martin Espada, Adrienne Rich, Gertrude Stein. That’s six. I have a hard time picking favorites.

  Have you been to TGS before, & if so, what are you hoping is the same/different from your previous experience? Yes, I was in Texas Grand Slam in 2012. I was woefully unprepared for it that year; I’d only been doing slam for six months, and in the span of a month I went to IWPS and TGS- these were my first two times doing poetry outside of Austin and I was shocked by how different the audience was- how they respond differently than the home crowd, and how unfamiliar the spaces were. I hope that now, as I’ve gained experience, that I’m better able to read a crowd—which is all about being more concerned with the way you are received than what you are transmitting. So often we perform in a bubble and forget to invite the audience into the poem. I hope that this year, I feel people up there with me. I hope I keep, however, that same gut wrenching nervousness. I don’t ever want to feel totally confident; I want to shake in my boots a bit.

  How would you describe your writing style? Anxious. I have two modes of writing: practice and inspiration. In practice, I set aside time for writing. I sit in a chair and don’t get up until something is written. It’s like brushing your teeth: you hate to get out of bed for it, but you feel so much cleaner and complete once you’ve done it. There the anxiety is in the turning over and over the same line, obsessively, knowing there’s a facet that hasn’t caught the light yet. Inspiration is differently anxious—the call to write interrupts my day. I compose while driving or while grading papers. I scribble things on post-its at work or record a voice memo on my phone. Then when it’s time for practice I gather the strings and try to make sense of them. Sometimes "practice" is spending three hours researching sushi or thermodynamics so I can get the metaphor right. I wouldn’t say that inspiration is always there when I want it, but I’ve never sat down to write and not had a half dozen or so memos or ideas to choose from. It’s like harvesting wildflowers.

  Do you consider yourself more of a writer or a performer? I have been, at different times, one or the other. I have a background in theater and spent years performing and directing in plays and a couple short films. Then in college I stopped performing and started writing. And about the time I graduated from college I found slam, and now I do both.

I’d say that my background as a performer certainly helps me be comfortable on stage, and helps me to think like a performer once I’ve written something and want to showcase it.

All that being said, I consider myself much more of a writer these days. If I go a few days without writing, I get tense and disrupted. Performing is a game I like to play. Writing is essential to the way I live in the world.

  Who are you looking forward to/nervous as hell to compete against? New Orleans poets! I have been blown away by these poets every time I’ve seen them and also they are nice and cool and I want to be their friends and hello and I’m not awkward, you’re awkward. What?

Also! Outspoken Bean from Houston. He’s been a friend and an inspiration for years. He’s so precise and on point, always. I’m a fan.

  What is your goal for this competition? To have a smile on my face when it’s announced that I’m not moving on. Also! To hug everyone that wants to be hugged, in general or also specifically by me.

What is going through your head before you get on stage? This is actually, magically, one of the only times in my life that my head is not exploding with anxiety. Adjust the mic. Take a step back. Breathe. Step forward. Breathe. Look up. Everything melts away. My mind goes totally blank. I have a hard time, later, even remembering what happened on stage. There’s no there there. It’s probably why I keep coming back. I have such a hard time quieting my brain, and an even harder time feeling comfortable speaking up. But that moment when the music stops, once the crowd stops calling out random things, you can feel the room waiting for you to engage it, and all you can see is the halo around the microphone… That’s the only place in the world that feels truly peaceful.

  What do you think were your strengths and weaknesses were at TGS 2012? And how do they differ from your strengths and weaknesses this year?

In 2012 I had the strength and relative weakness of being totally new at slam. I knew exactly which of my poems I would do because at the time I only had two or three that were really any good. I didn’t understand how to read a room, but that was also a strength in that I just did what I was going to do. When I try to point to my limitations, I see also how those things made it all easier.

What I do know now that I wish I’d learned sooner is that there is no such thing as a ringer in slam. At this point I’ve been to so many slams that I know on any given night anyone can win. I hear a lot of people, especially people who have been in the game a long time, say things like “slam isn’t fair” when the person they thought should win didn’t.

But the way I see it, slam is fair. We all know what we’re getting into: random people off the street judging. An unpredictable room. You rarely know who you’ll compete against, or what they’ll do. You can plan, you can prepare, you can write poems that are more accessible, hone a performance style that invites people into your poems, you can win slam after slam and be generally regarded as one of the best… and then get last place in the slam one night because the random, unqualified judges found you too esoteric, or too rehearsed, or too anything. It can happen to any of us. It can elevate just as easily as it destroys. While that looks like a lack of fairness to some, I think that is a great equalizer, and that the slam is as fair as any sport.

It’s hard not to feel crushed when you lose. In this world, we are asking people to assign numbers to the art we create out of our most sacred moments. When you receive low scores it’s easy to feel as if that’s a reflection on you as a person, or even as an artist. It isn’t. It’s a reflection on that crop of judges, whether you gave them what they needed. But even on the nights when I can’t do that, I usually find that there was someone in the audience who did need what I put up. That’s the win I look for.

If there’s a strength I have this year that I didn’t have in 2012, it would be that, understanding this, I no longer find anyone totally intimidating, nor do I totally dismiss anyone. I know that any of us could come out on top, any of us could be out in the first round. The only way to guarantee success is to define success not as winning, which you do not control, but as something which you can control, like the quality and importance of your work, the passion which you bring to the art, and the connections you make to other artists.

How does your day job affect your poetry?

I’m a teacher, so I don’t have a day job—I have an always job. I have a hard time turning myself off. I’m always thinking about my students, or the poem I’m percolating. I find it hard to be doing one or the other. I keep a notebook on my desk at work and I grade papers or sketch out lesson plans at the slam. I always have at least half a dozen word documents open on my laptop and I alt-tab between a worksheet on subject verb agreement and a poem about objectifying women.

Teaching does make slam hard, though. A lot of sleep has been lost trying to make both a major part of my life. Late nights, early mornings. 

Do you write for anything other than slam? 

Yes! Only a small percentage of what I write ever makes it to the stage. I write constantly, and once I know where something is going I decide if something is for the stage. What I bring to slam is usually more direct, something that precisely communicates something. I have a lot of shorter poems, poems that I think work better on the page. 

The intoxicating thing about slam is that when I write something that feels right for the stage it has an immediate home. I know how it will be communicated, and what I am going to do with it. My other writing is a little neglected, just because I don’t have that immediate home for it. I also have written and published a couple short plays, written and produced a few short films… but again, slam plus teaching plus motherhood has sort of pushed those things to the back burner.

Shout-out to most of your influential writers being women and people of color. Let's talk about why their poetry is important to you and how their writing has shaped you as a poet.

Oh god. I am impossible of shutting up.

Carrie Fountain was my mentor in college. I was lucky that she became a professor at my university just as I began writing. I took two workshops with her, and while she made me furious and miserable on a number of occasion, it is because of her I have a dedicated writing practice, because of her I take my writing seriously, because of her I read more poetry than I write.

Barbara Hamby is a poet who plays with sound and language and really just showcases how mutable words are. In high school I competed in speech and debate, and used some of her poems. Her poems have such energy and attack to them. When I feel like my writing is in a rut, I pull out her books.

Naomi Shihab Nye came into my life at a very important time. Carrie Fountain spoke so highly of her that I went out and bought her book, Fuel, that weekend. I sat and read it in a stupor. When I met Naomi at an event in Austin, I was in awe of how graciously she handled all the people who wanted a piece of her. She speaks as if she has time for every person. Her poetry is the same way: it invites you in, offers you an unexpected vision of the world, and sends you away to think on your own.

Martin Espada… Just read his poem “Advice to young poets.” Also, “Blessed be the Truth Tellers” and “Isabel’s Corrido” I can’t even speak on Espada, I just want to keep showing you poem after poem and say “This! This is what poetry is.” “Here, this is how you tell a life.”

Gertrude Stein is one of the few poets I studied that I really held on to. I love the way she broke the language open, the way she wore her identity in a time when it was not safe. I read her work and my head hurts and I remember to play when I write. 

Adrienne Rich I read first in high school for speech and debate as well, and then I studied her in college. My professor (who was male) told this brilliant story about going to see her read when he was young. He said that she began her reading by addressing the men in the audience, and telling them that while she did not mind that they were there, she was not speaking for them, and that they could leave and she would not mind. I admire the strength it takes to stand up and say “This is what I have created, I know whom it is for, and if you are here to find fault and defend yourself from me, then get out.” So many of us come to the slam for validation, and we compromise ourselves to get it.

On a less positive note, Rich has recently been outed as being highly problematic and transphobic. It hurts my heart to learn this, and I’m struggling with what this means for my experience of her work. I don’t have time for a feminism that is not intersectional. I don’t want to continue listing someone among my influences that associates me with beliefs that disgust me. For now, I think bringing up and talking about Rich is important for that reason: it pushes me to ask these questions: Can I have a relationship to a poem without having a relationship to the poet? Does my work exist separate from my self? And in all my efforts to be dedicated to positive change, what disgusting habits of opinion am I still clinging to that I have not yet been called out on?

What do you think it is about poetry, and more specifically, performance poetry, the spoken word, that is sacred?