04/14
not who i want
poetry theory for san franciscans

ok, so maybe it isn't the poetry. maybe it's just the poetry people.

after the show thursday, everyone was trying to get me to smoke up. yes, MARIJUANA smoke up. did i *not* already go through this in seventh grade? no means no, no matter how many times people whine to make you change it to another answer.

but i really do love poetry. i mean, maybe i have been a glutton about going to open mics, but i still love doing it. freezing a moment of my life inside a poem, and doing it over and over again. it sounds one-dimensional. but every time, you see your passion from another angle. and if a poem's as good as i can make it, then it never gets old.

like the really good beatles songs. or ani difranco on "dilate," where the words mean something different each time, and the choruses are still catchy (but subtle) so you can belt them out and never get tired of listening.

i love it when poems have choruses. i love poems that still rhyme. i hate poems that are about poetry, or about other poets, or especially poems where most of the words are "you" and "i" and they don't tell stories. you can describe feelings all you want, but i think even the really good feelings are stories, too.

i like cover songs. i really like poets covering songs. either without music, or when buddy wakefield gives shout-outs to '70s power ballads in the middle of his slam poems.

i still don't like poems about someone in the audience. unless it's part of the poem and if it's funny or flattering. declarations of love make everyone uncomfortable. and 90% of all the crushes anybody has on anybody else should never be spoken.

ok, i'm really sorry for loading you down with the poetry theory. no more bitching about people who don't count. tomorrow i'll tell you about good kisses or something, ok?

ok.