BY BEN FOGELSON
Poetry Slamwich
Eugene’s poetic wit competes for national showdown.
P
oetry. Sublime descriptions of sadness
souring the corners of your mouth below
the tongue, and you fight back tears.
Maybe motivational elation on swifts’ wings, tak-
ing flight from stretched smile to twirling micro-
phone, causing you to shake your fist and silently
promise that tomorrow, dammit, you’ll mow the
goddam lawn. Or a poet, shouting sexual elations,
searing, sating frustrations, might awaken a stirring
in yer’ loins, and make you squiggle, yelp, look
around for help.
Slam! Announcing, Saturday, May 15 at
Foolscap Books, a competitive conflagration of
wordsmiths among you, a bare-bones, blood-
thirsty battle of maximum verbosity, or sometimes,
poignant silence, from some of Eugene’s finest
poets.
Last year, Foolscap owner Marietta
Bonaventure put together the first-ever Eugene po-
etry-slam team. It went to Chicago, placing 36th
out of 64 teams, a remarkable accomplishment for
a first-year squadron of quill-wielding romantics.
This year the competition’s on steroids, featuring
80 teams, all going mic-to-mic, Aug. 3-8. in St.
Louis.
But first, Eugene poets gotta duke it out
amongst themselves. Hence, the finals: Six poets,
three rounds, each poet reading one poem a round,
and the four poets with the highest total at the end
of round three, well, how do you spell St. Louis?
The evening begins at 8 pm, featuring an open
mic and performances by Seattle-based poetry col-
lective, ORATRIX.
This is Foolscap’s final event. From now on
Foolscap will move to internet sales, at
www.foolscapbooks.com Books before May 15
are 75 percent off. Head there for your literary lusts
and page-turning thrusts. Support local bookstores.
And now, on to the finalists!
Cassie Sorenson
Sorensen a 21-year-
old queer female studying
English literature (which
reminds her not to write
like pretentious dead white
guys) and women’s and
gender studies (which informs her poetry with pol-
itics and women’s issues). Her best work comes to
her in the wee hours.
Do you have any sneak attacks for winning the
slam?
My secret technique is that I plan to flash the
audience.
Kitt Jennings
Jennings has been a
firefighter and muralist, a
riverboat deckhand and
snake handler. She strives
to tell an entertaining story
through specific experi-
ences, with the belief that the more personal a thing
is, the more universal underlying feelings become.
If you could have any super power?
The ability to control bugs. If you could just
control three flies in a room, you’d pretty much
have free reign to do what
you wanted.
Shea Shattuck-
Faegre
She has been a janitor,
a tutor, a mime, a forensics
data assistant, a stripper, a
vegan baker, a waitress, a painter, a tutor and an or-
ganic farmer. She’s marched in the streets of
Boston and New York, and claims that she writes
especially for her 6-year-old sister.
Do you have a special technique for slams?
Most people want to be mad. They’re mad
about something but they can’t put their finger on
it. I try to connect people
to their intuition.
Jahan Khalighi
Originally from the
Bay area, Khalighi has
been active in the slam po-
etry community for about
three years. Khalighi was a member of the first
Eugene Slam Team to compete at the 2004
National Poetry Slam in Chicago.
What makes a poem work at a poetry slam?
It’s got to reveal something about the poet’s
personal experience, and in that uncovering, the
rest of the room can partake.
Samuel Rutledge
Growing up in a mid-
dle class development in
northeast
Eugene,
Rutledge struggled with
his identity as a white,
middle-class male from a
young age. This struggle
has been thematic in his writing from the begin-
ning.
Any secret techniques you have to winning a
slam?
I try to be as blatantly honest as possible, with-
out going overboard into self-indulgence.
SUMMER
EVENTS
ISSUE5.27.04
We’ll take a look at all
MUSIC FESTIVALS
from SF to Seattle
and points East and West
WINE TASTING
Events and Tours . . .
MICROBREW FESTIVALS . . .
FOOD FESTIVALS
and anywhere people gather to
CELEBRATE SUMMER AND LIFE!
DEADLINES FOR RESERVATION ARE MAY 21, 2004.
PRODUCTION ADS DUE FRIDAY, MAY 21.
CAMERA READY ADS DUE TUESDAY, MAY 25.
CALL NOW 484-0519.
sleater-kinney
with
Quasi and The Grails
McDonald Theater
Tuesday May 25
All Ages
ticketswest.com
503.224.TIXX
First in Line All the Time ™
MONQUI.COM
WIN TICKETS @ WWW.MONQUI.COM
TICKETS SUBJECT TO SERVICE CHARGE
Olivia Pepper
Pepper is a 21-year-
old novelist hopeful who
has vivid dreams about
Frida Kahlo stealing her
cigarettes while they get
matching tattoos. She’s a
mixed-blood pirate-queen
descendent of Penahwapskiek Indians, Roma gyp-
sies, Irish Farmers and French Jews. She hopes to
go on a slam tour, move to San Francisco, publish
novels, marry her best friend, have babies and settle
down into some form of radical feminist domestic-
ity.
What is poetry slam?
Poetry slam is a horrendously nerve-wracking
experience of tragic bliss and horrifying beauty.
If you had a super power?
Invisibility. I’d find out what people secretly
want, and then I’d do whatever I could to make that
happen for them.
ew
FUTURE SLAM EVENTS: Eugene vs. the Universe 2003 Eugene
Slam Team documentary, 12:30 pm, Bijou Theatre; Slam, Saturday, June 12,
Downtown Lounge; Slam, Friday, July 2, John Henry’s; Slam, Saturday, July 3,
Saturday Market; Slams, July 9, 10 and 11, Oregon Country Fair; Slam, Friday,
July 30, Sam Bond’s Garage; 2005 Eugene poetry slam season kickoff, October
23, Territorial Winery Pressing Room, 907 W. 3rd. Ave.
Percussionists CHARLES DOWD and W. SEAN WAGONER conduct
THE OREGON PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE
“Diabolic Variations”
Avant-garde Works for
Percussion Orchestra
featuring TRACY FREEZE, solo marimba
Compositions by:
Schuller, Smith-Brindle,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Helble,
Levitan, Lang and Hennigan
Monday, May 17, 8:00 p.m.
Beall Concert Hall
961 E. 18th Ave. • Eugene
University of Oregon Campus
TICKETS AT THE DOOR: $5 GENERAL, $3 STUDENTS/SENIORS
Info: 541-346-3761
MAY 13, 2004 29