Newsletter #3: Midwest Poetry Mash-Up and The Ghosts of Tournaments Past

Hi everyone, and a happy National Poetry Month! 

Me and my friends Zach and Tanesha at last year’s Midwest Poetry Mash-Up! We run the tournament together, and they are truly the best.

WHAT’S GOING ON:

We won a grant!! I feel so humbled and honored to have this support; it is a huge step towards sustainability in this passion project I love with my whole heart.

Midwest Poetry Mash-Up: April 25th-26th at Open Book in Minneapolis, MN

I am indescribably excited for the 3rd year of Midwest Poetry Mash-Up! In just a few weeks, 10 teams of incredibly skilled poets will go head to head in an epic battle of poetic prowess. At the end, one team will be crowned the winner and awarded a cash prize!  Being in community is one of my favorite things ever, and this tournament is literally so fun. If you’re nearby, grab your tickets now to see some of the best poets in the country (and England and Canada)!

Tickets are on sale now, and you can grab yours here: https://midwestpoetrymashup.square.site/

If you’re interested in competing next year, you can get on the Mash-Up email list by sending an email to midwestpoetrymashup@gmail.com

If you want to slide into a bout for free, we’re still looking for a few volunteers to run concessions, and you can email us at midwestpoetrymashup@gmail.com to volunteer!

PROMPT

Here’s a prompt, if you feel like writing!

POEM

Here’s a brand new poem, about how much I love the woods, and about how much I want to protect our remaining natural spaces.

PETE

My darling boy, applying the “work smarter, not harder” adage to the treadmill.

OLLIE’S THOUGHT CORNER

think, think, think, think….

All of the scary shit in the world is feeling very present to me right now, but I’d like to take this month’s newsletter to talk about the joys of community and to reminisce a little bit about some of my favorite memories from the Ghosts of Poetry Tournaments Past.

I used to compete at a lot of poetry tournaments (hopefully this is not too much of a brag). In college, I would compete in the collegiate slam poetry circuit (CUPSI) as well as the adult circuit (NPS) and often throw in a regional tournament like Rustbelt as well-- at least 2-3 tournaments per year. As you may or may not know, the national slam scene has faced decimation after decimation, and there are now way less performance opportunities than there used to be. CUPSI used to gather 70+ college teams from across the nation, and now there is literally no collegiate circuit (we fought so hard to keep it, folks, but the parent organization just didn’t want to do the work to bring it back after the initial years of the pandemic).  Side note: if you know of any college students who want to compete or create/resurrect a slam, send them my way! Filling in some of the need left by CUPSI was one of my main goals in creating Midwest Poetry Mash-Up, and I feel really passionately about college students having access to slam.

So back to the stories I promised: 

Enter: me, an 18-year-old goth kid who grew up in the country, driving an hour and a half south to live in a city that felt like an entirely new world. I was super traumatized, newly out as both queer and trans, an opinionated Aquarius, and constantly wearing cargo shorts with duck boots no matter the season. If you haven’t guessed it yet, slam poetry was the perfect space for me. 

I couldn’t afford therapy, and honestly didn’t have a good enough understanding of what had happened to me in high school to even have the idea that I needed therapy (doesn’t everyone have debilitating breakdowns, panic attacks, and feel safest behind the coats in the front hall closet with the door closed?) So slam was what I had! Normally, whenever I’m teaching a class, I’m very clear that I don’t believe that poetry is a substitute for therapy-- therapy involves a trained professional that can be your emotional guide, and poetry is just you. But that doesn’t mean that poetry isn’t one hell of a processing tool-- and couple that with a supportive community of people with higher-than-average emotional intelligence? Bingo: sad weird kid is still sad and weird, but with a support network! Slam was exactly what I needed, and it helped me feel connected and valued when I was, quite frankly, drowning.

Trying to describe the energy in these slams and tournaments to someone who hasn’t experienced it feels almost impossible. Imagine, a group of fifty, a hundred, five hundred people, truly listening to you. And not just with their ears, but with their entire bodies-- being able to hear and feel their support, their snaps and murmurs, their inhales of fellow-feeling, their engagement, their witness of you. That feeling of being so thoroughly and blessedly seen, for all of the parts of myself that I was taught by society should never be seen-- well, it healed something in me that desperately needed tending.

I don’t have a single memory of any specific slam where we won (although we did, for the record, ahem), but what I remember most are the after parties, being in community (and sometimes in bed-- ha!) with other poets. If you’ve got the idea of a poet as a quiet mumbler who barely whispers into the bookstore podium mic, get that idea right on out of your head. Slam poets are (scientifically) the sexiest people on the planet, and the giant post-bout parties we had reflected that, passing a bottle and staying up routinely until four or five a.m. In fact, some poets were so rambunctious that several hotels straight-up kicked all of the poets out (this happened more than one year). Of course, there was conflict and bullshit and boredom, but mostly, to me, these post-bout festivities felt like a giant super cool adult summer camp, where everyone there had the same niche interest as you and wanted to hear you talk at length about your mean dad (the sixth love language). We would leave the last bout of the night, after several hours of performing and listening to poetry, and then form unofficial circles on the lawn or in someone’s hotel room and perform more poems. These cyphers weren’t scored, they weren’t competitive-- they were for the love of the art form, for the muchness that we were. The chosen poet would stand in the middle of the circle and perform 360 degrees, and then close their eyes and spin, pointing to the next poet randomly a-la-spin the bottle. Some of my favorite performances are memories from these cyphers, where the energy fucking crackled through the night air, and we were free. 

If I could copy and paste those experiences directly into your brain, I would. My wish for all of you is that, at some point in your life, you get to feel so thoroughly seen by a group of people (and maybe take a cutie home afterwards for a smooch or two). 

Oh, and get your tickets for the Mash-Up! Can’t wait to make this magic with you for the third year in a row!

Love,

Ollie