Goodbye Chicago!  I love you! 

Advantage in a cumulatively scored slam can be measured by the relationship between the difference in total scores and score creep.  In a clean-slate scoring system, advantage is measured solely by reading position.

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In Happier, Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar's self-help book and reading material at Harvard University’s most popular course, he discusses how the relationship between accumulated wealth and happiness does not follow the linear relationship we expect it to. That is, people and societies are not happier when they are wealthier.  This is not a surprising ( Read more... )

After five time penalties between prelims and finals, I still managed to squeak out a win by cheating* in the last round of finals.  But still.  Five time penalties?  What's that?!?

EDIT:
10th place  Aaron Johnson   (because he went for a food run and got disqualified.)
9th place    Johnathan Standifird
8th place    Kat McCoy
7th place    The Klute
6th ( Read more... )

Last spring, Ed Mabrey, Will Evans, Dave Nicholas, Spike and I drove down to Black Mountain, North Carolina for the Lake Eden Arts Festival (LEAF), a large money slam that attracts many regional competitors, including slammers from Columbus, DC/Baltimore, Atlanta, and the Carolinas. With a prize payout of $2.4k among the top 10, I threw my hat ( Read more... )

In preparation for my tour with Katie FS this fall, I solicited dozens of poetry venues for feature availabilities. After sending a polite query to Kimberly Simms, a slammaster in my hometown of Greenville, I received the following reply ( Read more... )

Dec. 8th, 2007
State Theatre
Modesto, CA


( Read more... )

If it's true that the better a writer you are, the harder it is to write, then I am the best motherfucking poet in the universe.

Dear Alvin,

Of course we will begin to investigate this matter as you request, but I must confess that I do not see any prima facie evidence of racism or racial discrimination.

For anyone who is not familiar with the term, prima facie is a legal term rooted in the Latin "on its first appearance," which usually describes the evidence required to ( Read more... )