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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

What ever happened to Surge Frost?

I met with Cristin last week for the interview for her upcoming book on slam and, after nearly three hours, we'd only gotten up to the 1999 Nationals! Hadn't thought in-depth about the early days in ages but sitting with Cristin, one thing led to another, one story uncovering another uncovering yet another, and I was both surprised at how much I remembered and, even moreso, at how integral a part of my life the whole scene had become in such a short time. The first two years in particular were some heady times, from my first slam in July…

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

It takes a clean break to heal right

Could it be that Spring is finally here for real? It’s beautiful outside.

Grabbed lunch from the little Caribbean trailer out front – jerk chicken, rice and peas and plantains with a mint iced tea – and sat over in Battery Park to eat. The tourists are out in full force and there was a loud rock band playing somewhere in the park. The breeze from the River was pleasant and my lunch was delicious. After eating, I read over my Anything Goes piece for tonight’s bout with Shappy. Ended up changing my approach and went for the whisper over the shout.

I don’t think a lot of people fully realize what I’m planning. Salomé was caught off-guard by the immediacy of it and took it a lot harder than I have. It’s kind of bittersweet for me but, at the same time, my sense of sadness is greatly overshadowed by my sense of hope, both for myself and for Monday nights. I’m hoping the newer people assert themselves and step up and take advantage of the opportunity. Unlike last time, there’s not going to be any transitional meetings attempting to smooth out differences. Quoting myself: “It takes a clean break to heal right.” In regards to the slam, I’ve got faith in Oscar, as long as he doesn’t burn himself out working on two-and-a-half series. I think there’s a few others that will find their niche in my absence as well. Of course, there will be others that will probably find themselves further removed from things. That’s the unfortunate side of things but the reality is, with me there or not, that’s going to happen.

I’m looking forward to getting out to other places again, hearing different voices and connecting to new scenes. Definitely be able to do every Acentos now, check out some of the other reads in the Bronx and catch some of the offbeat stuff at the Bowery here and there. This will be the first time since December 1997 that “host” isn’t attached to my name!

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A guillotine, a Sister of Battle, and a scrapbook picture from the 2001 National Poetry Slam.

But I’m not the least bit excited

Ditched the morning sessions of the conference yesterday and wandered the streets for a couple of hours, getting some air and clearing my head. Finally checked out the Pokemon Store in Rockefeller Center. Good thing I never went in there when I was actively collecting the cards! Had lunch with Salomé at Bread from Beirut and then struggled to stay awake through the afternoon sessions.

The slam ended just before midnight on Monday and I didn’t get home til nearly 3am. I’m still feeling it today, both the exhaustion and the mixed emotions from how things turned out. It was an interesting night to say the least. Shappy got eliminated in the first round on a time penalty despite having the advantage of going last in the first round. My prediction for the second round was on point as Claudia fell victim to score depression midway through, delivering yet another awful variation on “the slam is bad” poem. Third round saw Shawn take a dive, dedicating yet another lame anti-slam poem “to the person who said in their online journal that I’d come up short this round” (that’d be me!) and going way overtime with it. Remaining six were, in order from low-to-high, Dawn, Omar, Lynne, Marty, T’ai, Roger and that’s how things stayed at the end with Roger, T’ai, Marty & Lynne making the team.

And that’s where the mixed emotions come in. They all performed wonderfully, as you’d expect from a bunch of seasoned veterans, but I’m not the least bit excited about them being on the team. Excluding T’ai, who I AM excited about and feel a little sorry for, I’ve got no interest in seeing Roger, Marty and Lynne at Nationals yet again. This is Roger’s fifth year competing, Marty’s fourth and Lynne’s third. Roger’s won the Individual Championship and coached a team to the Championship. Lynne won a team championship. Marty’s toured the country three times over. I fail to understand their need to continue competing in the slam especially in light of my very public stance that the slam should be about encouraging and developing NEW voices.

Honestly, it’s just selfish.

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Guy LeCharles Gonzalez Slam Poetry

The Revolution Will Be

NOTE: This article was originally published in POETRY IN AMERICA, Poets & Writers Magazine Special Issue, April 1999, and republished in The Spoken Word Revolution, Redux (Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 2007). It was posted to my old GeoCities site in 1999 and was recovered from the Wayback Machine on 10/29/21. Links to Amazon were replaced, everything else is as originally published. the Academics have much to fear and they will not die without a dirty fight. -Charles Bukowski Faced with the surging popularity of spoken-word and the poetry slam, The Academy of American Poets, long known for its gala reading series, was forced…

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