Autograph Penis: An Adventure in Competitive Performance Art

Check-In

The hotel lobby is very pretty, beautiful in a nondescript way. Already the poets are milling around, a human example of Brownian motion. ("Brownian motion" just means random motion, but there is math to describe it, so, you know, it's more useful. But you would never say, "that's so Brownian," because some meanie might make you write out the equations.)

There are 72 teams of four or five poets here, from all over the country, and sometimes Canada, and sometimes France. With slammasters, coaches, hosts, bout managers, door persons, and scorekeepers, there are around 450 poets total. In most cities, you can pick out the poets from the locals very easily, but Boston, Cambridge actually, turns out to have a norm of couture and racial diversity that is very close to the larger slam population. Let's call it "business cool," like "business casual" except instead of Hawaiian shirts and khakis, it's like the whole population's business is to be cool. Sensible shoes, some bangin' accessories, easy confidence. All week I am constantly readjusting to the fact that my instant-poet-recognition sensors are flashing false positives.

It's a little overwhelming to get into this pool of interaction. When I was a rookie, I knew all the Bay Area poets (San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Santa Cruz, sometimes Modesto, and sometimes Sacramento all often send teams), and why would I want to meet anyone else? I was rolling with a crew five teams deep and we were soooo dope, yo! (When you come from a metro area with a strong poetry scene, you feel really superior to everyone else. Also, you might use the word "yo.") When I moved to Boise, I got correct with expanding my circle pretty quickly. At this point, I know a lot of folks. That's a lot of social skills to try to flow out of the mouth area. And, I have laryngitis. I am the world's friendliest mime who is trying to get away from you. I can just imagine not being able to make a sound onstage tomorrow because I'd told 350 people I had laryngitis and couldn't talk.

When I do say words, quietly, I try to introduce Rookie around. Imagine arriving at a nationwide clique of people whose main skill was writing things down, memorizing them, and then saying them to an audience who is safely on the far side of a microphone and came specifically to listen to you. What we do has very little correlation with normal social niceties. It might be anti-correlated. Why would you need to communicate from a stage if your actual interpersonal interactions were really working out for you?

Hi, so good to see you! Have you met our rookie, Rookie? I rasp.