The December edition of Hot Damn! at Buddies in Bad Times, didn’t waste time with chimneys or stockings before it got directly down to the naughty and nice with Charlie Petch hosting a slam of writers who were anything but sugar plums – though some were fairies (& damn proud of it). By the end of the night it was Bop Dionne Samuels The Bird of Paradise Paradise who proved to be fairyest of them all 🙂
The Hot Damn!’s December brought fine open mic-ers & eager slammers to the Buddies cabaret stage. First up was Kyle Andrews who read from his piece in the anthology Making Out Like A Virgin. The book collects writing by survivors of childhood sexual abuse – true stories of how they have healed and moved forward. A powerful, but not heavy-handed, collection of hope and purpose everyone should read.
From the first round slam: if there is no such thing as the passage of time, rocks the shape of every one of our disappointments, my voice is running out of steam, I come out to people but it doesn’t get easier, all of the people were white … all the food was banal … mistaking my kindness for interest, I don’t ask those questions back, you can’t promise not to hurt me by accident, teach me the words of my next poem, you expect me to take all the risks, kicking people out will be his first priority, have a moment of silence for that lesbianna … make a sandwich for that lesbianna … she is hungry’
Feature Thepoet Mona returning to Toronto from Winnipeg, gave a well-constructed set of personal pieces about relationships, race, politics, family and self-awareness. She was accompanied at time by Daniel (with a fine moustache) on guitar. ‘red wine whispers a planned whisky escape, I am built of exit strategies, seeking penance and permission, it hurts me now but it was right to leave, that’s sounds like a bad idea – what time?, (about Trump) racist America was already her y’all, my skin tone is a narrative I don’t understand, sometimes getting out of bed is a political statement’
Somehow my notes for the last set of open stagers & the round 2 of slam disappeared 😦 Someone not wanting to be quoted? So I have no lines from it to share with you. I make notes of lines as I listen, using one side of the page, so maybe someone needed a blank side of a page & mistaking my hen scrawl for scrap paper took it for their own vital work.
Six strong poets performed in the slam. Funny. emotional, challenging and in some cases rambling. A couple of them lost points for going over the slam time limit. As host Charlie Petch reminds us we applaud the poet not the points but when one of the points of slamming is to discipline the imagination to a structure poets suffer for flaunting the rules. Save the full version for your feature 🙂
Hot Damn! will be spreading the queer gospel to Peterborough in January, then Hamilton in February before returning to Buddies on March 1.
I read Venus Selenite’s 12 griefs on the open stage. It’s from her book Trigger. I changed one line in the final iteration of the 12 days to read the chalk outline of a thirteen-year old on my sidewalk. News of the suicide of a Tyrone Unsworth bullied for being gay brought me memories of my troubled thirteen-year self.
While Enjoying A Grape Popsicle
‘it’s the sookie
the gutless wonder – get him’
three pairs of feet rushed me
Dave Parsons, his brother Stinky
and kid sister Mag
with a bruise on her arm
Dave a year older than me
Vic in my class at school
at 12 I knew what helpless meant
there was no way out
sometimes they were suddenly there
shoving and pushing me
‘yah yellow crybaby’
Dave had me in a head lock
handed my Popsicle to Mag
‘can’t even fight a girl’
he pushed me at Mag
she hit me in the face
‘go on – you useless gutless wonder’
she hit me again
I tried to stop her third smack
the others piled on me
‘hit her would you – we’ll teach you’
kicking shoving me to the ground
I tried to stop crying
‘sookie baby you tell
and we’ll say you did that bruise to Mag’
looking back
I can place these kids
in small town unhappy drunken homes
where Dave learned
words like ‘gutless wonder’
booze-hound Dad working mother
older brothers in and out of jail
acting out as they were acted upon
abuse that I didn’t experience in my home
which doesn’t change the fact
I didn’t know how to protect myself
I believed that I was gutless
my useless word against theirs
Dave broke an arm rolling a stolen car
Stinky got busted for dealing
Mag had her first kid at 16
I suppose they suffered for their actions
yet even as I put them
in this sociological context
I still wish I had the power then
to beat them
weeping for me to quit it
as I eat my grape Popsicle
and piss
on their bruised
powerless
faces
on going 🙂 when new podcast are posted: Disability after Dark iTunes
http://www.queerslam.com/season-3-dates.html
Early 2017:
my first local feature in over a year: location date TBA
April season 3 FINALS – Friday April 15th Buddies in Bad Times – early show – 7pm start
http://www.queerslam.com/season-3-dates.html
June 2-4: attending: Capturing Fire 2017 –
check out these poets from Capturing Fire 2015 & 2016
August 31-Sept.3
https://www.facebook.com/events/526940540845331/
November 1 – 30 Participating NaNoWriMo
Hey! Now you can give me $$$ to defray blog fees & buy coffee in Washington – sweet,eh? paypal.me/TOpoet
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