I made sure my keys could scratch the sky

What is winning anyway? About to participate in the BBC Fringe Slam. I really don’t like poetry competitions, but I really do like the opportunity to share with and connect to an audience. I am not so sure poetry fits the idea of a Gladiator, one we watch in an arena to spy our might (what we might be, what muscle we might have, what fierce warrior there is in us)…to see them wrestle with great and grand ideas and kill every other poet off with their mighty brilliance. I am not sure poetry breathes best when rallied into a ring like a sport in which we feel inspired pitting poem against poem, performer against performer. Most of the ‘slams’ I have been to seem to be less about the ideas or craft of the writing and more about what can immediately make an impression with clarity and ease: either a rabble-rouser or a comic piece will usually do the trick and fly past into a ‘final’. 

We compete too much, with compare too much: one facebook scroll and we feel ourselves tightening. Having said all that, I can’t wait to speak up. I enjoy connecting with people. And I am grateful for the opportunity…and that there is actually a venue like the ‘Pink Bubble’ in which inspiring and inspired people will congregate in the name of poetry, or take a peek in the name of curiosity. 

 

before I left…

 

EXTRACT FROM “I’LL DO A BUDGET”

 

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/93245880]