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Dear Sir,
Slammed round one at YWP Slams I. Tied with the boy for whom it was written.
You have one of those faces, you know, one of those faces that get stuck in my head, like the songs that you sing like the things that you said like the words that I read in the books on my shelf I keep neat and silent like bits of myself lined up spines facing outward and eager to please us poets all peering, appearing at ease recalling reliving our rememories for a remetaphor or a resimile all recycled reused and reduced to our knees on the floor for the sake of not wasting this day. I've gone twenty-four hours with nothing to say. Teasing rhymes from my head to my lips anyway.
It's hot in this room that I know all too well and it's not I assume you're relief from this hell but I'm caught up in lenses, perspectives unreal; I've been thinking so much I can't tell what I feel. I can't plan for this future. Won't relive the past. I refuse to return to regret for the last transgression, mistake, regression, outtake 'cause I'm learning to laugh not reverting to rage at the mad improv play on this planet-sized stage-- so far-- a tiny blue speck of what we think we are on a vast black expanse of what we are not, and who am I to waste time recording my thoughts? Like some gift to the world! like some way to prove I'm worth more than the energy it takes me to move, to write; seventeen years of recording the trite. Seventeen years spent like this useless day. Seventeen years I'd spend no other way.
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And it was ...
... a fine piece, a fine slam, delivered with such style.
Sometimes, though, I wish you truly understood the power of how you say what you see. Sometimes I think you belittle it.
But perhaps that is because you are 17.
And I am 59. And we both see things so differently as a result.
But it was a pleasure hearing this, seeing this, reading this. It has been a pleasure to watch you grow, explore, grow stronger, louder, funnier, riskier. I look forward to doing a few things with you -- a workshop for YWP and a workshop for teachers -- but what would be more fun would be a writing project, a journalistic foray. After the fall, as they say.
cheers and thanks for helping to make Friday happen. And sorry to hear about your ankle.
damned thing.
gg
Wow.
This is the first slam I've ever heard, Usagi........
But even this first one will probably stay my favorite.
This deserves an award.
*In lack of a better comment*
Usa
Um, wow. I am so unbelievably angry that I missed this that you cannot possibly fathom my supreme irritation at the inflexibility of field hockey schedules.
This is superb, and I so very wish I could have seen it slammed. Please, gg, video footage would be much appreciated.
Ͼirce
Re:
gg--
Belittle? Perhaps. Out of self-conciousness only, I assure you, and yes-- it's because I'm seventeen.
I haven't forgotten about the workshops. I'm currently in the final throes of a scholarship application, but once that's been wrestled into submission I'll drop you an email with ideas and possible dates. Is this journalistic foray your journalism-collaboration idea, the one on how schools should be?
Thank you. The ankle's okay, I just gotta be careful with it.
Circe-- Remember, remember, the fifth of November. I'll be MCing. No field hockey that day, I hope?
Actually, yeah, gg/Qwertz/Magz-- What happened to the video footage? Are the photos and sound posted anywhere?
usagi, et al...
I confess to taking the day off today and couldn't get to it on saturday...
will get the audio and images up soon.
gg
No worries.
No worries.
Usagi...
... you have sound.
gg