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More Fan Mail

Marc Kelly Smith - Slampapi — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:33:38 +0000

Dear Marc,

I am very concerned about the letters you have been posting on your website and other places on the Internet. They are not representative of the Slam at the Green Mill or elsewhere. It discredits the movement when such extreme and distorted views are given credence by anyone, most of all the founder of the movement itself . It may seem funny for you to post them. (Maybe you think it makes you appear open and inclusive.) Not to us who still have to overcome the prejudices academics have stacked up against slam. Please think again before posting any more of these extremist views.

Sarah Wane P

Sandburg’s Birthday Revisited

Marc Kelly Smith - Slampapi — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:34:17 +0000

Last night, as I do each year on the first Sunday in January, I paid homage to one of my favorite poets, Carl Sandburg. I was only able to recite and perform a couple of his poems because we had a special visit from two slam greats Matt Cook and Rob “Ratpack Slim” Sturma. Last year, however, the Rootabaga Band and I devoted a whole set to Sandburg’s work. Here’s what a lovely fan had to say about it:

I WAS THERE

January 7, 2008
Smith has done it again devoted almost an entire evening to himself under the guise of celebrating the anniversary of Carl Sandburg’s birth. Hah! It was all about Smith as it is most of the time with most slam poets. Look at me! Listen to me! I know what’s wrong with the world and I know what you should be doing about it. The slam icons don’t do anything but talk. You don’t find them freedom fighting in Nicaragua. You don’t even find them voting.

One very fine poet was jeered off the stage for daring to talk about the stars instead of screaming about rape or verbally avenging her ancestors who were supposedly brutalized two hundred years ago. Don’t speak about something sensitive at a slam, oh no, if you’re not shouting obscenities or flailing the obvious you’re boring and reactionary.

God help the poet who can actually write but has no aptitude for performing. Sometimes she’s tolerated but most times she’s sneered at and then booed off the stage.

And by who? Ultra-cool psuedo-writers dressed up in the fashion of their favorite pop idols. They haven’t the time to maybe learn something from the other writers reading on the stage, a stage that’s supposedly the most democratic forum of poetic expression in the world.

What bull! Slams, all of them (and I’ve been to many) are self-indulgent mass blatherings of the obvious. And this Sunday exposed Smith and his self-focused Sandburg show as the lead ego of the whole movement he says he created.

Signed,
I was there

Another Happy Slam Fan — From the Mail bag

Marc Kelly Smith - Slampapi — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 21:31:44 +0000

LOOK OUT MISTER SLAM MAN,
I’m coming for you. You won’t know where and you won’t know when but I’m gonna be out there one day when none of you protectors are around and we’re gonna find out just how tough a steel mill guy you are which I suspect you’re not.

And why? Are you asking why? Are you reading this and thinking why somebody, me, is putting it out there that one night walking back into the fenced in lot behind the big brick wall of the Uptown Theater (oh yes I know where you park) you’re gonna be surprised to find someone who wants to see just how hard ass your ass really is.

I’m betting it ain’t. I’m betting it’s soft putty. That’s all I’m going to reveal at this moment.
No name No face