I’ve been running a poetry show for almost two decades. It’s an irreverent bit of nasty business, but we mean well and want the best for the poets who come through the door. That said, here are five things you can do to improve as a poet today, from one of the most sensitive hearts running…
People have been asking what I’m really like. This video of me on stage in Vancouver is probably the best current example I have to offer. It’s a poem about white people and black people and the truth between us, which is chicken.
(Note: I’m informing you out the gate that this one is a bit inside, a little shop talk with the Poetry Slam community at large. Feel free to keep moving if you need to have any part of the previous sentence explained to you.) In an online discussion by a poet who was taking white…
Listening to NPR the other morning, I caught Scott Simon interviewing 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gregory Pardlo and became incensed. Pardlo availed himself admirably. No surprise there: he has been professional and warmly erudite in every clip of him I have seen to date. The interview, short as it was, was plugging along just fine. And…
I love running a poetry show, and that passion is infectious. I’m regularly asked about what it takes to put on a successful poetry show, and after 18 years of organizing locally and nationally, I would hope I have something to offer. In an attempt to answer some of the more frequent questions, here’s a…
