Superstar Futon and beautiful Kaos
I had poet this weekend. Arguably one of my favorite poets came for a quick little visit this weekend. I say that like I caught the flu or had Italian for dinner.
" Why yes I had the poet, it was quite good thank you."
13 of Nazareth from Norfolk VA came through, and we had a really, really good time with him. 13, is the kind of people I try to surround myself with and once you get to spend time with him and see what a genuinely good man he is you realize whether or not you are the kind of person you want to be. For the first time however, in my self reflection I did not come up nearly as short as I would have expected. I still hold a lot of loss and hurt with the poetry scene but I was able to vocalize my feelings on that with so much more clarity than I had previously. And its funny J will ask me after reading that - how come I couldn't talk about that before?
The words just came like a revelation over the BEST Italian dinner I think I've paid for in fifteen years, and that's saying a lot since I was a waitress in a Italian restaurant for four years. St. Louis has a area near my south city home called the Hill. Apparently if you are an Italian American and wish to open a restaurant you MUST do so on the hill. I have heard rave reviews of many places on The Hill, but we ended up at Cunetto's House of Pasta. Oh. My. God. So off the chain. Me, J, Super Joe and 13 were all like -WOAH. Jerry took the day off and hung out with 13 and they had a good time. They got to watch some movies and talk - Jerry never hangs out with the poets like that.
Poets can tend to be very clique-ish and as of late that is causing more headache than I am willing to deal with. Typically spoken word artists come off as arrogant - self centered - and or condescending and J doesn't respond well to any of those so normally he tires of poets once they hit those - and more commonly than not they do. Correction alot of those who do it (spokenword) for a living come off that way - you must have certian level of arrogance to be like I'm gonna make my living seeling poetry cds. what the !?@#!#@? Exactly.
Lately I have become embroiled in the very poet behavior I hate. Hypocritical I know but it happens to the best of us. A very dear friend is being excluded from the group - what appears to be systmatically and I can't understand why. I admit my bias as I think he's great, and can't see why anyone would want to exclude him. And he said she said has started to rear its ugly head, and I did momentarily step into that despite my best intentions. And I find that I don't want to be friends with people who would exclude my friend for no decent reason. And then smile in his face about it. And tell me they don't like him - like he's not my friend. I feel conflicted because I almost thought these people were my friends, associates... sure, but almost friends, but then again so did he. And there was a time - have been several times where I have been excluded on personal events, business and performance opportunities, anything and everything and I know how he feels. But I have just ignored the slights - try to chalk it up to head and not hearts but its harder to do when its not you catching the slight but someone you care about. Jerry thinks I should just stay out of it all. I know he's right but doing that is way harder than just saying it.
Besides I'd want someone to be on my team. My friend says hes striving to be the best Christian he can in this situation and I think I'm gonna try and follow his lead on this one - That can never lead you wrong - I don't think.
Anyway - I'm almost finished revamping my website blaquepen.com I need some folks to write some articles and I'm about to start soliciting my friends and poet family to help me out with this. No I'm not making any money - No I'm not planning an anthology or anything - I just want this to be active in the poetry - I repeat POETRY community. Where we strive to become better writers, as well as performers. If I haven't said it before - I believe that a strong writing foundation has to be the base of where spoken word should be built. Badly written poems are badly written no matter how theatrical the recital is. Nothing more offesive to me than bad poetry being touted as great because someone took a drama class instead of creative writing. We should be teaching young - new - spoken word artists to respect phenomial writing as well as performing. I'm not at all saying don't take the drama class, I'm saying take them both. (okay really I'm saying take all the writing classes and one drama class) anyway I don't think you can become better if you are not reading and exposing your self to other poets and writers and excercises ect. I respect poetry so much and I hope that I can use this platform to convey that and foster more respect for our craft among my peers. The new header is up on the site (blaqupen.com) just as a coming soon graphic - let me know what you think. Will write again soon.
" Why yes I had the poet, it was quite good thank you."
13 of Nazareth from Norfolk VA came through, and we had a really, really good time with him. 13, is the kind of people I try to surround myself with and once you get to spend time with him and see what a genuinely good man he is you realize whether or not you are the kind of person you want to be. For the first time however, in my self reflection I did not come up nearly as short as I would have expected. I still hold a lot of loss and hurt with the poetry scene but I was able to vocalize my feelings on that with so much more clarity than I had previously. And its funny J will ask me after reading that - how come I couldn't talk about that before?
The words just came like a revelation over the BEST Italian dinner I think I've paid for in fifteen years, and that's saying a lot since I was a waitress in a Italian restaurant for four years. St. Louis has a area near my south city home called the Hill. Apparently if you are an Italian American and wish to open a restaurant you MUST do so on the hill. I have heard rave reviews of many places on The Hill, but we ended up at Cunetto's House of Pasta. Oh. My. God. So off the chain. Me, J, Super Joe and 13 were all like -WOAH. Jerry took the day off and hung out with 13 and they had a good time. They got to watch some movies and talk - Jerry never hangs out with the poets like that.
Poets can tend to be very clique-ish and as of late that is causing more headache than I am willing to deal with. Typically spoken word artists come off as arrogant - self centered - and or condescending and J doesn't respond well to any of those so normally he tires of poets once they hit those - and more commonly than not they do. Correction alot of those who do it (spokenword) for a living come off that way - you must have certian level of arrogance to be like I'm gonna make my living seeling poetry cds. what the !?@#!#@? Exactly.
Lately I have become embroiled in the very poet behavior I hate. Hypocritical I know but it happens to the best of us. A very dear friend is being excluded from the group - what appears to be systmatically and I can't understand why. I admit my bias as I think he's great, and can't see why anyone would want to exclude him. And he said she said has started to rear its ugly head, and I did momentarily step into that despite my best intentions. And I find that I don't want to be friends with people who would exclude my friend for no decent reason. And then smile in his face about it. And tell me they don't like him - like he's not my friend. I feel conflicted because I almost thought these people were my friends, associates... sure, but almost friends, but then again so did he. And there was a time - have been several times where I have been excluded on personal events, business and performance opportunities, anything and everything and I know how he feels. But I have just ignored the slights - try to chalk it up to head and not hearts but its harder to do when its not you catching the slight but someone you care about. Jerry thinks I should just stay out of it all. I know he's right but doing that is way harder than just saying it.
Besides I'd want someone to be on my team. My friend says hes striving to be the best Christian he can in this situation and I think I'm gonna try and follow his lead on this one - That can never lead you wrong - I don't think.
Anyway - I'm almost finished revamping my website blaquepen.com I need some folks to write some articles and I'm about to start soliciting my friends and poet family to help me out with this. No I'm not making any money - No I'm not planning an anthology or anything - I just want this to be active in the poetry - I repeat POETRY community. Where we strive to become better writers, as well as performers. If I haven't said it before - I believe that a strong writing foundation has to be the base of where spoken word should be built. Badly written poems are badly written no matter how theatrical the recital is. Nothing more offesive to me than bad poetry being touted as great because someone took a drama class instead of creative writing. We should be teaching young - new - spoken word artists to respect phenomial writing as well as performing. I'm not at all saying don't take the drama class, I'm saying take them both. (okay really I'm saying take all the writing classes and one drama class) anyway I don't think you can become better if you are not reading and exposing your self to other poets and writers and excercises ect. I respect poetry so much and I hope that I can use this platform to convey that and foster more respect for our craft among my peers. The new header is up on the site (blaqupen.com) just as a coming soon graphic - let me know what you think. Will write again soon.
posted by Raquita at 9/19/2005 09:33:00 AM
1 Comments:
Queue-Sister, I think that you have said so much. It can be hard coming into the scene and new, you do see the cliques and it can be hard. I dont do drama, what you see is what you get. I dont like drama..I just want to love and admire good poets with beautiful poetry. I agree, that sometimes the performance can outwiegh the piece. I would say that for our group, most all of the Neo Souldiers are good solid writers and most all of us try to learn to be better. We hold writing labs when we can, we do collaboration pieces together and I feel like for the most part, we help each other if we ask for it. Yes there are some folks you trust more than others, some folks you get closer to than others--but that is mostly on a personal level. And I would be a liar if I didnt say that sometimes the clique stuff comes into play--again personally. but overall, I feel like when it comes to the poetry part, we pull together. I have yet to see a time or way where we dont support each other in the art part of what we do--advertising for each other, providing opportunities if they are available...and I have been lucky that way. Even wonder if what I need and get from Neo Soul isnt exactly why I havent found a way outta here. That I still have growth and work to do here.
Queue-I have seen your writing and heard you read. I dont know the specifics of what is going on for you, but those of you who are there and write for the sake of writing, band together and support each other. Dont let people's personal drama take away from what you get going to Legacy or wherever..because remember it is the words and the feelings that feed your soul, everything else is frivolous. I know it's hard esepcially when you care about them or feel that you have done nothing for folks to feel that way about you. Maybe this is God's way of telling you you need to get your butt back in there so you dont need OTHER people to invite you to a performance but rahter you already know of them and/or are holding your own. You know? Ask yourself what you are learning from this and what are you to do with the information. ya know? Just keep on wiriting and it is DAAAMN good to see you back! I LOOOVES YA!
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