Eleven years ago next month, in Austin, TX, I took one of the most life-changing thrill rides ever when I attended my first National Poetry Slam, as a member of the 1998 team representing the Nuyorican Poets Café that would go on to become their first (and still only) team to win the Championship. The victory itself was amazing, but what really struck me and lasted much, much longer was the diverse community of poets in attendance, and their passion for the event that brought them together every Summer.
The competition was fierce, and there were some who took it way too seriously (myself included!), but late at night, after all of the bouts were done and people gathered in groups of old and new friends to talk, drink and trade poems, the true spirit of the slam always shone through: “It’s not about the points, it’s about the poetry.”
I came back from that first NPS inspired and on a mission, and in September of 1998 added a regular slam series to my fledgling reading series, a little bit louder, and the rest is history.
In a just world, at the end of a season that featured the most raw talent they’ve ever assembled, Kris Allen would be this season’s American Idol in a landslide and authenticity would be hailed as the new black.
Period. And shut up. (Especially you, Kara DioGuardi!)
Of course, we don’t live in a just world — if we did, it would be Kris vs. Allison Iraheta — and Adam Lambert is supposedly the prohibitive favorite going into the finale.
Here’s three reasons I think Kris will pull off the “upset” that really should be a no-brainer:
It’s been a while since I judged a slam (publicly, at least!), especially at 13 where I know several of the regulars personally, so I was surprised when Lynne asked me to judge last night’s open slam. I was happy to do it as a critical listening exercise, though, because I think my ears have become much less sharp ever since I launched Spindle, and my focus has shifted to the page.
Way back in the day, I used to believe in never giving anyone less than 7 points for their work, respecting the effort it takes to simply get on stage and perform in front of an audience, but that floor dropped to 5 points last night for a terrible rhyming poem in the first round. Overall, it was a solid slam with no real standout performances and my scores were almost always the lowest or second lowest of the night with one surprising exception.
I wrote notes on each of my scores and here’s some of my favorites:
Jack and Jill Politics has an excellent post entitled “The Clintons, Black Folk and America – A Reckoning” that takes the Clintons’ bait about how great the 90s were and feeds it back to them, barbed hook and all:
All folks, not just black, start to publicly dig into the past and challenge the assumptions of Bill’s blackness and his greatness.
Here’s what they find.
The mass incarceration of black men, due largely to a failed “War on Drugs”…
There was the deregulation of the banking industry…
There was the expansion of media consolidation…
There was the missed opportunity to set us on a path of a sane energy policy…
There was “welfare reform”…
There was the sitting by and watching millions of people get butchered in Rwanda
There was the set of trade deals that lowered our standards and helped gut America’s ability to provide for itself…
I’m glad the ugly has come out. I’m glad Bill Clinton’s face is glowing so brightly and so red; the better to see this campaign by. I’m glad Bill Clinton is getting down and dirty and using his considerable political capital to smear a great presidential candidate. I’m glad The Clintons are calling in favors from their black beholden elected officials and power brokers. Because every time they do, we get to dig up another little nugget which has us questioning the entire premise of “The Clinton Administration.”
And I’m glad Hillary keeps moving closer and closer to Bill, closer to that co-presidency. Keep running on “experience.” Just don’t get mad when we help remind people what that experience really was, and why many of us never want to see it return.
The whole post is worth reading, not just for black people who are on the fence about Obama, but for anyone who’s still falling for the okey-doke that Bill Clinton was a great president and that Hillary is a shoo-in in November.
ETA: TPM’s Josh Marshall, a self-professed Clinton fan, has an insightful post about his own concerns surrounding “Bill 2.0“.
