Poetry Slam

I totally forgot to post this after the Poetry Slam. I apologize, I am a poor excuse for a poet. My forgetfulness aside, I thought that the Poetry Slam was a pretty good time. Eight contestants, sweet ass rhymes, could a better time be had? I think not. The atmosphere was pretty laid back and I was pretty surprised with how many people showed up to support their respective slammers. The crowd was pretty silent, not deathly quiet though, but everyone seemed to be enjoying the poetry to be had. They were certainly not eager to flee from the scene, which was a nice gesture, considering I was convinced to participate in the slam only moments before it began.

Everyone's poetry was pretty good. I wish that kid, the one who did the rap thing without any music, had brought a boom-box or something with him, if only for the pure aesthetic bliss that I would have experienced as he inserted a mix tape and struck a pose. Regrettably, this did not happen. He did however, employ slant rhymes quite effectively throughout the course of his poem (the content of which I, unfortunately, cannot remember beyond the fact he swore a few times about his "baby"). The first person to read whose name, like most of the others, has escaped me, seemed to be very into that dark, menacing type poetry that speaks a lot about loneliness and starlight. He was a bit timid, so I wish he had felt more confident in his poems, but I give him kudos for just going up there and reading stuff he had written himself. Original work is, in my opinion, much preferred to reading someone else's. Reading someone else's poetry in a competition feels dishonest to me, as if you are hiding behind someone else's emotion. There is no real feeling there, only the simulation. My Techniques peeps and I cleaned up spots 4 through 2 in the judging, so that was pretty exciting. Jess and Kevin gave some pretty ballin' performances, and I was happy to come in alongside them as representatives of the Poetical Juggernaut that is, Techinques of Poetry 242.