Pros practice for disasters. If the mic cuts out, saunter to edge of stage & shout, "The powers that be always try to silence me!" Then, read dramatically so the busy sound teckie goes un-noticed.
How Do You Make It As a Performance Poet?
- POET:
- At first, I wasn't too thrilled about doing this interview.
- REPORTER:
- Oh? But I thought you...
- POET:
- I hate interviews. Hate reporters, no offense. Most are after the dirt, misquoting.
- REPORTER:
- Sensationalizing? Selling or propagandizing.
- POET:
- Exactly. I hate it when they want to fixate on something, anything- my hair, my clothes, my androgyny- things they think are strange about me.
- REPORTER:
- Are you strange? [cheerfully]
- POET:
- I guess sOOO-ho. [dramatic inflection]
- REPORTER:
- Well. I agree mainstream journalists are taught to spin it for the public. People, generally, just want to droll over and glom onto a performer. who they both love & hate. There is a terrible craving for dirt in the world, for gossip and misinformation.
- POET:
- I imagine my dirt is a big blob of bright orange clay. You sort of want to pick it up, sure, play with it, 'cause it has the wonderfully seductive smell of Playdough.
- REPORTER:
- I love Playdough!
- POET:
- Me too. But there's this other brand, a neo-con knock-off, being used to sculpt a plastic, spit-mortar image of performer as commodity. They shape people like me into the outsider, the freak.
- REPORTER:
- So, what changed your mind about doing the interview, you know, if you hate reporters and all?
- POET:
- First, your voice! I guess I liked the sound of your voice over the phone. Did you know you have a great reader's voice? It's so. real. and resonant. The word I want to use is cavernous -a classic, old-time radio voice.
- REPORTER:
- Thanks. Cavernous, huh?
- POET:
- Yeah, "deep" is how I mean. That fits you, then, doesn't it, as in "underground?" Didn't you say your news rag is alternative? I think you said "fringe-y."
- REPORTER:
- Did I? We like to think we are somewhat progressive, critical, aware of popular trends. The focus is local performance- music, Spoken Word. It's a monthly called The Open MiCron.
- POET:
- Owwh, clever. Open mic, chronicle, and I suppose it's a very small newspaper.
- REPORTER:
- Yeah, sweet huh? So what do you wanna say to our readers?
- POET:
- What can you say to a bunch of Micronites? [Lengthy silence; a listener might imagine poet & reporter grinning widely at each other]
- POET:
- I want them to know how special they are. And how there's a wonderful history of radicalism in this country. How it used to be the most American thing. How what we valued the most, once upon a time, was free thought & free speech.
- REPORTER:
- The great American experiment.
- POET:
- Yes. I think performance art & poetry has been a driving force for social change in this country- wordsmithing- crafting words that inspire the masses. Giving clarity and feeling to a truly democratic, populist consciousness. Spoken Word as an American art form, in ALL of its forms, preserves the idea of individualism. We have to respect the roll of free speech in solving social problems.
- REPORTER:
- You're sounding like a friggin' patriot!
- POET:
- [laughter] I know. it's an embarrassment for anyone, especially an artist, to even use the A-word these days. But I don't mind speaking up for free speech. It's Ahh.murra-cun! [imitating a Texan dialect]
- REPORTER:
- Well, I do think our readers would enjoy getting some juicy pulp on the history of Spoken Word in America. We could work that in, I suppose. But my assignment was an article on "How Do You Make It as a Performance Poet?"
- POET:
- I don't think I you can examine the question without hanging it on an historical background.
- REPORTER:
- Well, yeah but. maybe, for now, you can just say how you make it.
- POET:
- But how do you mean "make it?" Do you mean fame, fortune, how I feel about my accomplishments? I guess you want a blueprint, or something. Here, I'll just jot down the recipe. You want me to whip up a simple To-Do list that can turn anybody into a performance poet? [practically shouting]
- REPORTER:
- I didn't mean to. Well sure, that would be good, can you? [sarcastic]
- POET:
- Do we know what we mean by "performance poet?" Are we both talking about the same thing? Is this a general term, or a specific kind of artist? Is "performance poet" a professional position? What if you are an independent artist? If this performer has to work another job to support her self, does that mean her performing is just a hobby? [whispering] Is she a published poet who reads aloud? An open mic-er, a slammer. a rapper? Ohhh no, now she might not really be a performance poet at all, having crossed over into the music industry. Shouldn't we call her a rap artist? What image do you think your readers have of performance poetry? I came through the heady flux of the 70's. We all crashed into the Spoken Word Movement in the 80's & 90's, then, watched rap take the world stage. Things were always changing so fast. I'm not so sure where we are now. Have we made it? Where are the words going, I wonder?
- REPORTER:
- I see what you mean. We sort of need a framework & it depends on who's looking at it too.
- POET:
- Right. It's relative. Depends on history, location, age, peer group, personal experience.
- REPORTER:
- Your experience then. Let's stick to that.
- POET:
- I can tell you about my making it as a performer, sure, about me. But my story speaks to my definition of success. And, I am only one kind of word artist. For over 30 years, I've been floating in and through a large network of performers and writers, all with their own definition of their genre, each with an individual style or vision of the Spoken Arts. On top of that(!), within each of the genres, everybody's evolving, still evolving! This is the secret, dynamic nature of the Spoken Arts- as long as the words stay in the hands of the people, or mouths I should say, the rules stay pretty lose. There is always room to evolve! We draw energy and ideas from each other, keep inventing hybrid forms, doing collaborations, coming up with new ways to perform the words.
- REPORTER:
- It sounds.
- POET:
- Complex? Confusing? Impossible to define?
- REPORTER:
- Well, it's. I'm not thinking in terms of my article being a simple "artist's profile" anymore.
- POET:
- Sorry. Still want to do the article?
- REPORTER:
- No, no, I mean yes, I.
- POET:
- I don't mind if you want to forget it. I hate interviews.
- REPORTER:
- Yeah, you said that before. No, I'm down on this. You got me curious.
- POET:
- About?
- REPORTER:
- About the radical stuff. How poets inspire the just cause, and all that. That stuff you said about American individualism too. Is that even real anymore?
- POET:
- I don't know. Spoken Word, performance poetry- good old-fashioned aural-lyrical words- always leads the charge, expressing the voice of the common person. Goes back to the Modernist writers, then the Beats, wafts into the dreamy 60's & edge-y 70's; now, it's a crazy free-for-all with the uninhibited nature of Slam Nation. But, today. today, there's a danger, a growing trend- some people are pushing, pushing hard to commercialize Spoken Word. Some TV networks tried already, sort of flopped. Was it because of content, presentation, audience tastes? I have some ideas about that. But Rap, Rap already spun off. The smell of money.
- REPORTER:
- There's that neo-con Playdough again.
- POET:
- Ha, Yeah. Anyway. priorities change, content suffers. It's easy to lose your way when no one person is really leading the way.
- REPORTER:
- I'm confused, are you talking about Spoken Arts or America?
- POET:
- Ha(!) yeah, both, I guess.
- REPORTER:
- Sounds like the end of a good thing. Do you think we're going to make it?
- POET:
- There you go again- talking about making it. (laughter)
