[Backstory below]
Bob Hamilton [Language Warning]
In early 2005, Bob Hamilton stood in front of a group of slam poets in the pot-smoke filled basement of a local art studio. He explained that the poem he was about to read was a piece of satire, and then read a silly allegory of highschool drama and the Jewish holocaust. The crowd felt awkward and barely applauded when he was finished. I thought it was a dumb poem, myself.
2 weeks later, Bob was sitting in a straight jacket downtown at the local correctional facility. Apparently, one of the poets in the room called his school the next day and said that he had written a poem about shooting up the school. Bob was immediately taken into custody, and because of his family's history of depression and bipolar disorder, was labeled psychotic almost immediately. He was barred from graduating with his class, and ended up having to get a GED after the court finally decided that he wasn't a danger to himself or anyone in the society.
I wrote this poem in response, and read it at the slam finals in the area later that year. It went well over my allotted 3 minutes, and ended up costing me the points I needed to go to state. (Which didn't matter, because 3rd place bowed out, I ended up going, only to take a kneel there because the judges were rewarding the most pitiful readers, as opposed to the most skilled.)
Last night I got drunk and recorded the piece again, and I really liked it, so I figured I'd share it with you all.
Bob Hamilton [Language Warning]
Quote:
Thought it was all puns and games,
Punch-lines, poking fun, calling names,
Making jokes, gaining poetic fame.
But the slam atmosphere we have here takes it to another level.
Writing poetry for this place is playing some advocate of the devil.
You’re not a slam poet if you can’t throw it the audience’s face.
Form a presence of a pissed of poet or some ****ed up mental case.
Somehow a social acceptance is made for anything under the sun.
We can say ******, retard, ****, or baby rape and it won’t offend anyone.
But these exceptions don’t seem to extend to teenage anguish.
Where emotions are tenfold and rhetoric sounds like a true wish.
It’s shock factor that gets you tens on the scoreboards,
gets you embarrassed uncontrollable laughter and foot stomping on the floorboards.
It’s saying the unsaid and building bridges over gaps all too unoften crossed due to the social rapids sweeping away anything we say that offends.
Sending out messages that bounce off the walls and calls to something inside that gives an ironic tug, uncovers what’s swept under your rug, and makes you think.
Knew it was true when feelings grew to a written piece of ourselves to reach out of the hells that we so often trek through.
Our well of flames and hate dissipate after energy is sucked straight out of the adrenaline to pen and then to paper.
Our anger tapers off to a soft glow of satisfaction in this simple action of personal expression.
A lesson so many others have lost among crosses and political recessions.
Bob is your scapegoat to insecurities.
Because of his impurities, Bob fails because you fail to accept his method of self sacrificial art.
To start off his poem he literally defaced the idea of pre-placed notions associated with the emotions of hate.
Poets kill with language.
With wit, these master craftsmen wordsmiths rip and tear holes in social canvases painted with the blood of political correctness.
Pacifism pronounced through poetry;
Violence with pen pistols and word missiles;
Sticks and stones with overtones and veiled attacks through use of almanacs.
Yet there’s some sort of social line?
Some sort of fine for feeling strongly about being wrongly treated in life?
What true family of poets would shun the words of a poet so wronged?
So obviously thrilled with his willed attempt at dramatic offense?
There is no fence to sit on here, you’re either accepting words as words, or you’re taking a stance only to prance around the oh-so-closely-kept silence.
This poem itself fails to reach the level of treason my fellow poets have committed.
Bob had to be acquitted!
Fitted with his own social harness and garnished an angry, suicidal, homicidal poet.
You have defaced our place in society and become just like the people we write trite lines of personal anguish against.
You have shaven and stamped one of your own for the society’s taking;
And you’ve done nothing for our stance.
Nothing for the stereotypes
And nothing for the value of poetry.
Bob took a bullet for your selfish conscience.
But you know what doesn’t make sense?
After all of this treason, after all of this unreason,
Bob is sitting at that table over there, back for the next Poetry Season.
Punch-lines, poking fun, calling names,
Making jokes, gaining poetic fame.
But the slam atmosphere we have here takes it to another level.
Writing poetry for this place is playing some advocate of the devil.
You’re not a slam poet if you can’t throw it the audience’s face.
Form a presence of a pissed of poet or some ****ed up mental case.
Somehow a social acceptance is made for anything under the sun.
We can say ******, retard, ****, or baby rape and it won’t offend anyone.
But these exceptions don’t seem to extend to teenage anguish.
Where emotions are tenfold and rhetoric sounds like a true wish.
It’s shock factor that gets you tens on the scoreboards,
gets you embarrassed uncontrollable laughter and foot stomping on the floorboards.
It’s saying the unsaid and building bridges over gaps all too unoften crossed due to the social rapids sweeping away anything we say that offends.
Sending out messages that bounce off the walls and calls to something inside that gives an ironic tug, uncovers what’s swept under your rug, and makes you think.
Knew it was true when feelings grew to a written piece of ourselves to reach out of the hells that we so often trek through.
Our well of flames and hate dissipate after energy is sucked straight out of the adrenaline to pen and then to paper.
Our anger tapers off to a soft glow of satisfaction in this simple action of personal expression.
A lesson so many others have lost among crosses and political recessions.
Bob is your scapegoat to insecurities.
Because of his impurities, Bob fails because you fail to accept his method of self sacrificial art.
To start off his poem he literally defaced the idea of pre-placed notions associated with the emotions of hate.
Poets kill with language.
With wit, these master craftsmen wordsmiths rip and tear holes in social canvases painted with the blood of political correctness.
Pacifism pronounced through poetry;
Violence with pen pistols and word missiles;
Sticks and stones with overtones and veiled attacks through use of almanacs.
Yet there’s some sort of social line?
Some sort of fine for feeling strongly about being wrongly treated in life?
What true family of poets would shun the words of a poet so wronged?
So obviously thrilled with his willed attempt at dramatic offense?
There is no fence to sit on here, you’re either accepting words as words, or you’re taking a stance only to prance around the oh-so-closely-kept silence.
This poem itself fails to reach the level of treason my fellow poets have committed.
Bob had to be acquitted!
Fitted with his own social harness and garnished an angry, suicidal, homicidal poet.
You have defaced our place in society and become just like the people we write trite lines of personal anguish against.
You have shaven and stamped one of your own for the society’s taking;
And you’ve done nothing for our stance.
Nothing for the stereotypes
And nothing for the value of poetry.
Bob took a bullet for your selfish conscience.
But you know what doesn’t make sense?
After all of this treason, after all of this unreason,
Bob is sitting at that table over there, back for the next Poetry Season.
In early 2005, Bob Hamilton stood in front of a group of slam poets in the pot-smoke filled basement of a local art studio. He explained that the poem he was about to read was a piece of satire, and then read a silly allegory of highschool drama and the Jewish holocaust. The crowd felt awkward and barely applauded when he was finished. I thought it was a dumb poem, myself.
2 weeks later, Bob was sitting in a straight jacket downtown at the local correctional facility. Apparently, one of the poets in the room called his school the next day and said that he had written a poem about shooting up the school. Bob was immediately taken into custody, and because of his family's history of depression and bipolar disorder, was labeled psychotic almost immediately. He was barred from graduating with his class, and ended up having to get a GED after the court finally decided that he wasn't a danger to himself or anyone in the society.
I wrote this poem in response, and read it at the slam finals in the area later that year. It went well over my allotted 3 minutes, and ended up costing me the points I needed to go to state. (Which didn't matter, because 3rd place bowed out, I ended up going, only to take a kneel there because the judges were rewarding the most pitiful readers, as opposed to the most skilled.)
Last night I got drunk and recorded the piece again, and I really liked it, so I figured I'd share it with you all.
ᵗʰᵉᵇˢᵍ๒ᵍᵐᵃᶥᶫ∙ᶜᵒᵐ
ᴸᶥᵛᵉ ᴼᵑ ᴬᵈᵃᵐ
ᴸᶥᵛᵉ ᴼᵑ ᴬᵈᵃᵐ