Lately I’ve felt myself losing my voice
Like, maybe I’m not cut out for spoken word
Since I didn’t grow up in the tradition
~
Cause I was raised on Mother Goose
Shakespeare’s sonnets kept me loose
Inspiration? was the ditty on my Juicy Juice;
and these threads would recapitulate
Into a ropeburning, rhyming noose;
Reasons why I might seem to emulate
Richard Scarry or a less sagacious Dr. Seuss.
~
I knew where the sidewalk ends.
It was just past Wayside School falling down
and left of Where the Wild Things Are.
So now I know why I grasp at 4/4,
Why I might cling to the meter,
but yearn for something more,
something sweeter.
~
I’ve gotten a really bad case of sore throat lately
Trying to raise my voice as high as I think slam poets usually do.
~
I don’t know why I bother
I’ve been writing poetry since I was 12.
Really, really bad poetry.
That you are never going to see.
~
But I wrote it.
And now, it’s like somewhere, sometime, some really embarrassing experience along the way,
I forgot that poetry is just the lyrics to my life.
~
I have someone come up to me after every performance I do, saying, I wish I could do that. I should come out to spoken word sometime.
~
Do it. I started halfway through my freshman year.
Spent my first few meetings mewling in fear.
But I did it, and look at me now
I look silly, but at least I know how.
~
The most important lesson I’ve ever learned
Was like cough syrup for my throat.
If I had taken any more, I would’ve been arrested for making meth.
~
The Audience ain’t Shit.
~
You’re not writing for them.
You’re writing because you’ve got a hunger for expression.
You have a need to lyricize your affections
And your affectations
~
I’m a very hungry caterpillar
Yearning for my day to take wing
Cause if you give a mouse a cookie,
He thinks he’s a slam poet.
~
And if we’re going to battle,
Imbue your words with might,
Or they won’t break through to me.
If your epistles are pistols
Then thoughts problematic
Are my words semi-automatic
~
So people please, get out a pen,
Go out and inspire,
Be introspective dragon,
Spit hot fi-yah
~
And even if I lost my voice,
And I could no longer be a rhymer
I’d still have my words
I would still be a signer.
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This is dedicated to Rachel Julie Rosengard, who talked me through part of it, and who I owe the inclusion of the butterfly metaphor to.
~
Uhm… I was going to debut this at Brown’s first competitive slam. But I did not make it to the final round. Although I am arguably now among the top 10 poets at Brown (very arguably – I will fight you). Combines the nice thread of Ars Poetica with feelings of inadequacy and compensation. Liner notes: some references to Mark Doss and Chris Seung-hweezy Baek. Also the last line and the fading voice are stripped from my vagina for V Day piece. When performed, the last line is said in conjunction with some sort of hand sign (usually a heart for peace and love or a “W” for Word!)
