Balancing

I have way too much poetry stuff to be doing. Fortunately, little of it requires actual memorization of poetry, but I still have to be prepared to read it with passion. Let give me you an idea of what my next couple weeks look like in terms of poetry.

2/23 Next Wednesday I am reading some poems for the faculty. My "Oda a Los Calcetines" poem is what got me this gig, but now that I have it, I decided I would take advantage of it. So I am reading a poem about my aspirations as a teacher, and a Taylor Mali poem (Not the one I read here, one with more "appropiate" language) I also need to get some more images together so I can create visuals. Most of the faculty don't speak Spanish, so they need visual cues.

2/26 This is the biggie. The slam finals. Twelve poets will compete in a three round, no elimination slam. The top four poets go on to represent Tucson at the National Poetry Slam is Madison Wisconsin. I have my three poems in mind, and I am going on page that night, but I still need to practice. I also want to order some business cards with my email and this blog address on them. That way I can point them to the "Recordings" link on the left, so they can hear more of my wonderful poems.

5/2 I am performing some poems in Spanish, at my brother's cultural festival. My original plan was just the "Oda" poem, but I decided it might be nice to be ready to do a few more. But this has somehow morphed into a requirement. The poems I have found will not be enough. I need to find a Puerto Rican poem, longer than six lines.

This should be fun.

Poetics

I'm at the language fair now, desperately trying to upload and scan and post and read, all while people read over my shoulder. Here we have a poem about poetry, which is rather appropriate for today. I'm still not sure whether I'm going to the performance, or the open mic tonight because funding is still complicated. Anywho, today's cookie goes to the first person who can tell me the name of a poem, by one of the poets I mention in this poem.