when asked to think about how we arrive where we do( I don't believe in checking for spelling)

 When I started my collegiate career, like all little boys that watch too much T.V., I said I was going to be a Criminal Justice major; for the life of me, I look back now, knowing that I wasn’t on a significant amount of mind altering drugs, still cant Imagine what I was thinking. For one thing, I don’t like cops (a fact that has only increased as I’ve grown to know a few personally), and I would never have the focus to be a lawyer, I would definitely find a way to ruin someone’s life beyond recognition. So if we had to start somewhere in my life with English it would be there. I failed my first Criminal Justice course in a miraculous month in a half (you know you’ve failed when the teacher “It’s commendable that you still attend class”) and the only course that I actually liked going to was my poetry class. I had always dabbled in poetry, mostly due to boredom in other sciences and found it to be a wonderful release from the constant consumption of knowledge that happens in your first two semesters with general courses. But I think I finally pushed over to becoming an English Major when I attended my first poetry slam.

            We have to attend an outside event sometime during the semester, so I recruit my friend J.P. and his succubus girlfriend, Amy to go with me to the Neurolux lounge. I’ve never been to this bar before and it is initially quite apparent that J.P. and I, Two large Black men, are a little out of our element when not on the corner of 6^th and main. Everyone around us was either sporting spectacles and a scarf or jeans that would suffocate my unmentionables to the point they might fall off and run away.

That point in a party where the record skips, well, that happened to us as we walk in. We could hear the necks pop from turning so quickly to spot the intruders head towards the bar. We order the regular pitcher of Shock Top each and head for a booth on the north-side wall. We sat down and could instantly feel the plywood through the thin layer of polyester. J.P. Being a large mammal looks at me with the severe distaste of someone who got shorted one hot wing at Applebee’s. I avoid his glare by eyeballing the contents of the stage. It was bare and black aside from the sparse gaggle of props that held in the corners. The random streamers that no one could reach from last years Christmas party dangled in front of the lights; it looked like a strip club with no poles.

            I remember thinking how very out of place we were. But what scared me more, was the idea of the wretched thing that J.P. would make me go to in return for this. All I could think of was how I had always seen poetry slams, as they were depicted in movies, as being these over dramatic displays of performance art that didn’t really speak to me; other then the fact that there was normally a strange reference to a vagina somewhere in the materiel. So needless to say the expectations that I had for this event were low.

            We sit in our spots for about 30 minutes, and then out of nowhere a cute little blonde girl with a bob haircut stands in front of me smiling brandishing a rotating score card. I look at her with a confused face as she shoves it in my hands and walks away without a word. I scan over to  J.P. to see the same look right back. Then the corky little blonde popped up on the stage, lowered the mic with a furious twist to adjust it to her level. Next thing I know, we are in the middle of a sing along. She said something and the crowd would reply as if they had practiced it minutes before when I slipped off to the bathroom. I was pleasantly surprised by the back and forth and quickly tried to join in as I learned the little nuances. The crowd was into it; even J.P. was making noise though it didn’t seem to be words. Eventually she quieted din, shouting ‘shut the fuck up’ and we followed orders. She explained the rules of the party and then how I was to score it. I’m excited now o see what this was like, if it’s anything like the introduction I’m going to have a great time.

The first man came to the stage he had barely shaggy hair, looks like he’s definitely over 35. He stood up there, did the microphone shuffle; raising and lowering it till it met his perfect height. After its at the right frequency, he steps back takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. Suddenly he attacks the mic with words; he’s screaming and speaking as fast as I’ve heard anyone talk. He startled me, though he was speaking fast the scare sent my sense on edge and I could make out every line. I could hear the metaphors I could feel the emotion, and I realized that he was using common language in an uncommon way. He went on, changing his physical and vocal appearance throughout the piece. I was shocked as it ended. I want him to keep going. Everyone claps and whistles as I through up a ten in response to his score. I look around top see “8”s and one “7”. “Bullshit” I say to J.P. who casually sips the last of his beer and gives me a nod.

I was entranced from that moment on. Every one of the people that followed him changed there subject matter but the truth of the situation was, I wanted to hear more of everyone. I loved the way that they put the entirety of the emotion into these two to five minute poems that connected to me like nothing else I had heard before. I have always been a enormous fan of all kinds of music (except for country, of course), but this was amazing to me cause they could sing it if they wanted to or speak it in a monotone that played on the fun of the word. It was poetry the way it was meant to be heard read or said the people that created it.

I think the true aspect of the poetry slam that spoke to me, that has always influenced my writing, was speaking the way you would if you were telling the story through you own words or orally; the importance is in the voice that you use to narrate and this experience solidified that ideal in my head. As I look back at it now I can identify the style reflecting the oratory styling that was used in slave narratives, a fact that made J.P. laugh when I told him. As is I still think it is the best way I write.  While fresh off the experience, I started writing with a more similar voice to my own everyday language. It started out a little rough, drifting over to the overtly vulgar, which wasn’t a piece of me really but more an over compensation for my formerly ridiculously romantic styling that seemed to separated from me at the time when I really started to get into poetry and fiction writing.

That trip to the Neurolux gave me so many Ideas and still fuels my creative juices today. I haven’t gone back to another slam, not by choice, but simply hasn’t been room in my schedule. But one of my regrets in my writing career here at Boise State is that I haven’t attended a lot of the readings and outside events that could have really (in a very self-centered outlook) could have helped me grow. I think about how this one experience helped me , and cringe at the possibilities that could have been if I would have done more. My work today reflects a mixture of the two spots in my writing at the University; the romantic enticements that still have me when I read the classics and a voice that reflects me as a writer that’s voice reflects his soul. (that right there is the truth in a sexy negligee)

I am the Ocean

Ebb and flow Wild love, Thick Anger

Dynamic depths blend sand, bones, weeds

And undiscovered (?)

The transparent placidity; smooth, slow, wide, warm

Lure those weary wanderers to venture the calm

To taste the salt,

Drowned under low smiling waves,

So as the liquid fills hungry lungs,

They sink to the bottom of me.