MARC KELLY SMITH, founder of the Poetry Slam on Poetry Today TV show OCTOBER 2009

We taped our 12^th Poetry Today TV show on Sept. 15, 2009 – and my guest was Marc Kelly Smith – the man who singlehandedly began poetry slams around the world some 25 years ago. This show will be shown three times a week in October, 2009 on local cable on Channels 10 or 19 in Highland Park, Lincolnshire, Lake Forest and parts of Northbrook and Northfield, IL. It was a terrific show.

Marc was a kind and generous guest arriving early with some gifts for us. I was the one who did my best to give him the best gift I could: being very prepared for the show. I have zero dollars for this show but believe passionately that the public needs to know about the power poetry (reading and writing it) can have in all aspects of their lives. I tape the show once a month, book the guests, write my own script and do my own research on each and every guest. When I show up our volunteer crew and my producer do their magic to get the show taped and then the shows are on TV 3xweek the following month after the taping.

Marc and I sat together on our little stage and we talked about how he and some friends began poetry slams even before the Green Mill contract was signed. For two years he and friends performed at the Get Me High Jazz Club on Monday nights honing their craft. See the show – don’t forget – you will love Marc Kelly Smith.

Here is an excerpt from his website www.slampapi.com:

Here's the poem that began it all at the Get Me High Jazz Club. The Cat from the dark side of my personality. My moral outrage poem. My accusatorial poem. Marc Smith's indictment of the world! I have stunned audiences with this poem. Three decades of repressed anger and self-pity packed into it and spewed out to groups of people who have reveled in its umbrage. But there were also a few who heard something else -- hurt ... loneliness ... frustration ... confusion ... and ... a convulsion they (for some reason) needed to witness. One of my most self-serving, vengeful convulsions occurred at a place called "Somewhere ..." or "Someplace Else" in Park Forest South. A few years prior to my entry into the poetry world a friend and I participated in an open mike evening hosted by a fairly well- known feminist folk singer. I wasn’t here to do poetry. In fact, I never uttered one word. -- I tooted my trumpet. Yes! I knocked out "Five Foot Two Eyes of Blue" alongside my banjo-pluckin' buddy who sang sexy barroom lyrics to a disbelieving audience. We had seen our starry destiny one night when we pulled our axes out at a friend's wedding reception. The guests -- climbing peaks of delirium ... rising from the straits of boredom without spilling a drop -- cheered us on. "Play a nudder one. You're sens..sational. Da two-a-you ... or is dere four ... should go giggin' in one-a-dose clubs. "In clubs?" "You know, places like that joint down in Park Forest South. What's it called? ... Somethin' ... Someplace Else?" "Oh." So we did. And we were the worst act ever to climb up on a stage anywhere in the U.S. of America. The famous folk singer stood agape trying to convince herself that she wasn't hallucinating. My sixth sense (that knack I have for knowing exactly what an audience is thinking and feeling) was well aware of how awful we were. But I tooted on. Someone chirped out from the back, "One thing you guys got, is balls .... but that's about all." We took our seats. Me fuming. My friend chug-a-lugging. And then, as if predestined to twist the knife even further, a snooty woman got up and read her "Turtle" poems to a standing ovation. I was mortified. Two years later I returned for revenge. I had become very successful at the Green Mill Lounge and Get Me High Jazz Club. I was hot. And I knew I was hot. I had pulled the knife out of my chest and was ready to carve. The famous folk singer brought me up to the stage after a fuzzy rendition of "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" (They didn't remember me. I was just another open mike participant.) First, I asked for the houselights to be dimmed. They frowned but did so. Then, I stood back from the spots in the murk allowing the shadows to drape over me. A blot of intense blue light illuminated my eyes and another drip of red ran down my neck and when I let loose, the greater part of that audience thought that Charlie Manson had come to pay their sweet show a visit and let them know just exactly what the world is really like. They were stunned. It's you, Cat, Cat on the coffin Watching the pendulum swing, A paw up slapping, Trailing the unraveled part, Stalking the dead man's brains and finding a cold gray knot Looking up and out at the pallbearers' hearts. It's you, Cat, Cat felis catus catus Scrounging near the twilight for the already dead, Claiming the troth of the undertaken souls While the weeping acidic rain Taps hats forever. It's you, amoral children, Suppressing your fantastic fears, Bending to peer inside the shiny box Where a ludicrous shape Begins to arise -- The cat-head winks. Eyes grow wide. Lips shout faceless, "Be mine! Be mine!" It's you, Doctor Spade, Slipping your wiry brown fingernail down the hip of her jeans, Poking and dragging the egg yolk out. Tomorrow's baby, a grappled breakfast. It's you, cocaine fool, Sniff-snortin' to feel so good about so damn little when you got so much, Just wishin' your nostrils were stainless steel And your mind a Pillsbury cake. It's you, mid-morning American jogger, wearing the shelves of J C Penny's Like the stripes of your flag. It's you, bike-outlaw, Smelling of pig grease, Quaker State, and Gulf Supreme, Tattooing the buttocks of JoJo's little sister, Head-giver whenever you please. It's you, old veteran at the VFW Hall, wrapping your loose lips around another smudged glass of gin, Bemoaning Tommy Dorsey's demise, Foaming up a bromide lyric Before your bowed head makes a wrinkle on the rail. It's you, subscribers to a thousand magazines. And you, the writers for a thousand magazines. And you, the publishers of anything that sells. And you, the buyers of little children On super-eight film video-cassettes Color ! Sound ! It's you, hot-tubbers, Finding it easier to suck in the rush of a whirlpool Than to speak after the pleasure has passed. It's you, Pink Hands Pink Face White Ass, Screaming and stomping your feet. The Old Blues Picker in the red silk shirt taps his long flat toe And you want to screammmmmmmm him out of his addiction But he just closes his narcotic eyes. It's you, nigger, Bein' nigger, Callin' the nigger downstairs "NIGGER!" While you poke your nigger Roscoe, to his bride. It's you, actress With the commercial hair, com- Mercial lips, commercial skin, commer- Cial smile, commercial sin Cerity. It's you, Cowboy-Sailor-Skier, Player of football, basketball, Tennis, baseball, hockey. It's you, up there on the sixty-ninth floor, Drinking Chateau Au Briand From a newspaper thin glass, Listening to Rachmaninoff, Waiting for some Chicano sister To come lick your Chopin. It's you, Pork Chop firing your twenty-two caliber pistol at the front porch family from your buddy's beat-up wagon, avenging some asshole cousin's outrage over a dead dog bludgeoned by a blackjack pulled from his sister's purse. It's you, clowny politician cultivating your crawl space with the humus of little boys, while bouncing aerobic dancers fry Friday nights by the ounce dreaming of the morning when the dance will be over and the feeding Can 1 2 3 next begin! It's you, disco partners, counterpointing the wiggles of your hips in unison with a world that marvels at such profound rhythms. It's you, pumping iron in the basement, preparing for the fifteenth year when your Daddy upstairs will no longer pump your mother's face bloody. It's you shop-lifted children, Taken away to sodomized slowly And then slaughtered on the silver screen. It's you, all of you, Divided and sub-divided, divided again Split into units smaller Than the smallest pronoun. It's you The cat has dragged you in. He'll feast on you tomorrow. The Cat, the hardcase cat, Cat on the Coffin. You're string between his teeth.

LAUREL YOURKE, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON, POETRY WORKSHOP SEPT. 26, 2009

NEW The mechanics of metaphor: tricks poets can teach every writer

Metaphor isn't just for poets! Whether you're writing fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, a hard-working metaphor can reveal what we know but haven't quite articulated. Something clicks—instantly. For example, one of Margaret Atwood's characters says, "Time's a trap, I'm caught in it." In this half-day class we examine metaphor models and laugh over metaphorical disasters. Come to learn how to make metaphor work for you.

Instructor: Laurel Yourke
S, Sept 26, 1-4:30 pm, Pyle Center, 702 Langdon St, Limit 20, 0.35 CEU, $45, Program #7142
http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/classes/writing.htm

 

By all means, if you can go to this workshop GO! Laurel is a terrific teacher who can help you clarify your writing. The techniques she teaches work in any genre so this is a well-spent Saturday. The price is right for this marvelous teacher. I have taken a number of classes with Laurel and each time I take a class it makes the work I do in fiction or non-fiction better. Sign up now before the class is so full you have to wait until Laurel gives another class. And waiting that long is waiting just too long.

Comcast Wants to Close TV Studio in Highland Park, IL canceling Poetry Today TV Show

For some time I have heard about how Comcast wants to close a fully functioning TV studio in Highland Park, IL designed to allow public access to filming local cable TV shows. Closing this studio would shut down production of many popular shows including my Poetry Today TV show. As I mentioned in my last post, I am delighted to have Marc Kelly Smith, the poetry slam pioneer and celebrity on my 12^th show which will be filmed in this studio next week. My show is shown three times a week in five suburbs on the North Shore of Chicago during the following month (October in this case).

Poetry Today has had some great guests: Cate Wallace PhD http://www.catherinemwallace.com talking about how writing and reading poetry helps writers in other genres, Tom Roby, President of Poets' Club of Chicago about sonnets http://www.illinoispoets.org/bio.htm, Jennifer Dotson, highlandparkpoetry.org a leader in promoting poetry on the North Shore, Judy Tepfer east on central Editor, along with Dave Gecic, Editor, Puddin'head Press http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/puddinheadpress/ and Natalia Nebel, Chicago Quarterly Review, http://www.chicagoquarterlyreview.com/ talking about poetry publishing, Margaret Dubay Mikus PhD, www.FullBlooming.com and Highland Park, IL poet/therapist/teacher Anne Rossen MA, LCPC Kaleidoscope LifeWorks LLC, talking about using poetry to heal and comfort and much more.

I have heard from viewers who love the program about how much they have learned about poetry. How they now feel comfortable reading and sometimes, even, writing it. How they see how poetry has many uses and is part of our world daily through advertising and the rhythm of the very words we speak.

If anyone out there feels we should have shows like Poetry Today on public access TV – that our shows, done with zero dollars, contribute to the common good, to the arts and to increasing awareness of our humanity over the ages, please write or call Comcast asking them to keep public access studios like the one in Highland Park, IL open. Imagine: the studio is completely outfitted with cameras, lights, equipment of all sorts and willing volunteers happy to produce great shows. Why not keep it open – it makes Comcast look like a positive member of each community it serves, we produce shows the public likes and we use only our talents to do it. It seems to me we can't get better than that.

 

Marc Kelly Smith on Poetry Today in October, 2009

I wanted to do a couple of shows on spoken word/poetry slam poetry for a long time. Around the world poetry slam is performed often in colleges, at coffee houses or bars, at special occasion functions – events designed just for a poetry slam. Now Marc Kelly Smith has, be still my heart, agreed to be on my Poetry Today show, taped in September 2009 and then shown on local cable via Comcast three times a week in October 2009 in Highland Park, Lincolnshire, Lake Forest and parts of Northfield and Northbrook, IL. This will be my 12^th show and this one with Marc Kelly Smith allows viewers to learn about poetry slams from the source. I am told my show has developed quite a following over the past year.

I am sorry to say the show isn't national. Marc is the man who single-handedly began the movement called slam poetry 35 years ago. Earlier this year I heard him perform at the Cliff Dwellers in Chicago in a "face-off" with Kevin Stein, the Illinois Poet Laureate. It was a terrific show.

Marc Kelly Smith is a dynamic performer with more than 300 poems memorized, a teacher, mentor and the dynamic force in the poetry slam world. He has published a number of books and CDs – you can find them on Amazon et al and they are listed on his website www.slampapi.com

Did I say I am beyond delighted? I have always focused Poetry Today shows on educating viewers about poetry with the goal of erasing any negative associations they might have toward poetry. Poetry is often introduced into our education system as something difficult to read and/or write - something too complex for the ordinary person. That just is not true. Poetry can comfort and heal, poetry can be exciting as written by established or emerging poets, poetry can lead to better writing for those writing in other genres and we have explored all of these in previous shows.

In my opinion, poetry slams are one of the most misunderstood poetry types in the world. I heard various poetry slam poets at the Geraldine Dodge Poetry Festival – you know, the semi-annual event usually held in Stanhope, NJ. In 2008 I heard Patricia Smith quite by accident. It was a rainy day and I was slogging over the gentle hills of the festival site at Waterloo Village, an old canal port town begun in 1831. The late September chill hung out in my bones, and the other 18,999 visitors determined to hear the many poets from all over the world in the white tents set up over many acres made me, for a moment, a little tired. Not to mention that the zipper on my too-thin rain jacket had broken and I was clutching my jacket to keep it closed and managing a bulging cloth shoulder bag slung over my shoulder with too many poetry books stuffed into it.

I was on my way to a tent that required walking through mud and some puddles for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes when I just gave up. There was a white tent right in front of me. So I thought, why not? I didn't have a clue who was speaking but it didn't matter. I was out of the rain and the cold for a while and whoever is speaking at the Dodge Poetry Festival is worth hearing.

The poets in this tent turned out to be slam poets. Sure, I knew about poetry slams and spoken word poetry – they are celebrated at various festivals and at the Green Mill every Sunday in Chicago. I give writing workshops and am a Piven Theater trained actor and slam poetry fascinates me. Early in 2008 I gave a workshop on "Using Your Voice: Getting Your Poetry Heard". Now I sat on a metal folding chair with the gentle rain creating a beat on the tent roof. But warming up the place with a performance of her poetry was Patricia Smith http://www.wordwoman.ws/ Go to her website and enjoy what you find – her work is wonderful, the stories carefully thought out and the presentation riveting.

Since 1986 the Green Mill in Chicago has been a welcome site for the Sunday evening poetry slam http://www.greenmilljazz.com/poetryslam.html. A poet named Marc Kelly Smith negotiated the deal with the Green Mill and then set off around the U.S. and the world introducing the poetry slam in so many locations one cannot even begin to name them all. Remember to go to his website for more about him www.slampapi.com

If you can, watch for our Poetry Today show in October 2009 – I think you will find it fascinating and learn a great deal from Marc Kelly Smith. You can tune in and I guarantee you won't tune out.

Poetry Today TV Show

I will be taping my 12^th TV show on September 8 and this time will be talking about spoken-word poetry. The show is shown locally in Illinois in Highland Park, Lake Forest, Lincolnshire and I have been told, parts of Northbrook and Northfield. We have developed quite a following since the show is shown three times a week for a month. I am trying to get it on to other local cable channels and then find a home for the series on PBS – either locally or nationally.

Our topics to date included: "Using Poetry to Comfort and Heal", "Emerging Poets", "Sonnets", "Poetry Publishing" and much more. I want to syndicate the show to other local cable channels because we have had so much success in bringing poetry into the homes of our viewers. From what I hear they love seeing the show and it has stimulated ordinary folks to pick up a book of poetry, to give poetry to others and to feel comfortable with poetry as they have never felt before. Yeay! You know, we are surrounded by poetry every day – you hear bits of it commercially through advertising, through our speech patterns and through snatches of poetry read and quoted in newspapers, books or online.

Nothing captures an event, a feeling, a desire, a loss, a celebration like poetry. It can be funny, poignant, happy, sad and everything in between. We have poets who love the forms of poetry – witness the re-emergence of sonnet writing. We have poets who can weave a bit of humor and irony into their poetry like former Poet Laureate Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry". Poets who can make remember something we would rather forget like Sharon Olds "The Clasp", or reflect on our family with former Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser's poem "Depression Glass" and much more.

I can't think of any other mode of capturing our humanity than through poetry. It is the Mies van der Rohe "less is more" tradition in architecture played out on the page. As we look at poetry and its physical presence we see it resembles a structure, sometimes wider, thinner, taller or shorter, but a structure. Within the structure, as within a building, are all the components we need to live within this word building. Each idea, each word or phrase in poetry tells a story or captures a universal feeling or event. The lines move us along in the rhythm the poet uses to get us to the next line. Sort of like reading a thriller novel and you are flipping pages to see what will happen. In poetry you just slip on to the next line.

All you poets out there keep on writing – everyone else keep on reading poetry – it helps like meditation helps during these difficult economic times. Poetry can soothe and celebrate and all you have to do is read it.

 

Off Campus Writers Workshop

As the new President of OCWW (www.ocww.bizland.com) I am looking forward to the 63^rd season of hosting our weekly speakers on some topic pertaining to writing. We meet each Thursday morning from 9:30AM to noon at the Winnetka Community House. Our membership is about 200 members and our members work in all genres: poetry, freelance, fiction writing, memoir, thrillers, children's lit and much more.

As we gather each week I look at the faces of those who come to learn something new from our speakers. They attend our lectures to be educated about what makes good writing, to learn about the business of writing or to be encouraged to send in that edited piece and see what happens. There are so many successes the air is filled with celebration of each and every writer no matter if they have published or not.

You have probably figured out that writers are a sensitive bunch of people. Often shy they are often self-doubting more than other professionals. Working in a creative field, like writing, is quite different from working in a corporate or entrepreneurial field. Sure, you can sustain yourself as a writer, and many do, by writing pieces for corporate publications – that is pretty straightforward. You need to write about a process, a widget or how to sell something. You gather information and write the piece. End of story, so to speak.

In creative writing there is creating a story out of virtually nothing except your own experiences. Breathing life into characters and situations that lead the reader to want to know more is a very special art form. I work as a script doctor and editor and have edited any number of manuscripts – each of them quite different stories and each one an aggregation of the writer's experiences projected on to their characters. Nothing can be more complicated to write than good fiction.

It is all the same: short stories, children's/adolescent fiction, adult fiction – there must be a theme, plot points, good sentence structure, no superfluous words blocking the reader from flipping the pages to see what is going to happen. There needs to be not too many characters and we readers need to be clear who we are rooting for as the main character. Some writers put in too many characters and it is difficult to sort them all out.

Keep on writing your first drafts – don't worry about run on sentences or too many characters – but as you get to later drafts get to paring down characters and your words so your stories shine like the diamonds they are. Most of all, keep on writing.

Spoken Word Poetry

While it is hard for just about everyone to get up and give a talk in front of an audience it is harder for poets. By nature poets live in their heads and hearts and are on the shy side. Last year I gave a workshop on Teaching Poets to Perform Work. It was a white-out blizzard evening in Chicago but some hardy attendees and myself worked for an hour and a half. I pushed and pulled and suddenly the poets emerged from themselves and were just plain wonderful. These are skills they took home with them and I saw them later at open mics and they were animated, loving their own words and conveying that to their audiences.

As an actor trained by Piven Theater Workshop in Evanston, IL I know the value of getting out of yourself – allowing you, the performer, or author, to dig down deeper within oneself. At the very same time get out of one's head, into the character, or, in improv, to allow yourself the delight of seeing what happens uncensored. Not thinking just doing. In the beginning it was hard - I felt silly or like I was exposed doing the wrong thing. Maybe someone would laugh at me.

At Piven everything is seen as an opportunity for something else to happen - there are no mistakes in improv. In performance (for a play) we work for relationships to happen on the stage - connections to another acting partner - connections to the script - connections to ourselves.

Poetry is supposed to be spoken out loud – to others – whether in a small or large group. In the speaking of poetry out loud you feel the rhythm of the words, the meaning of the lines become alive, and the intent of the author becomes something physical in the room. Working with poets to get them to feel what they have written then to speak their very own words with energy and enthusiasm, softness and understanding is great fun. Especially when poets begin to get it – when they get out of themselves and realize this is a gift they are giving to their audience.

So speak either your poetry – or others poetry – out loud – to your dog, cat, partner, the wall. Enjoy the energy of the words. Try it at home today – this is something you can do developing a little more courage and skill along the way.

**Marc Smith began the Poetry Slam many years ago – the Slam is essentially a competition with the audience signaling it's like or dislike of the speaker by snapping its fingers. He and Mark Eleveld have a book out called "The Spoken Word Revolution". There are open mics in many places check out Borders, Highland Park, IL, first Friday of every month, http://chicagopoetry.com/, http://www.poetrycenter.org/, http://www.poetryfoundation.org/ and much more.