Never Found Out Who Called

It was not a teachable moment. Perhaps it was a lesson. At the very least it was a very stern lecture in the form of a rant.

Let it not detract from what was an awesome evening of poetry at Writers' Block's Poetry Slam last night.

Open mic was solid. Patrick did a new poem that had me gasping for air. To heck with zombies, that guy is your Poet Laureate of all things apocalypse.

The slam, which was the final IWPS qualifier, had nine poets competing. I drew second, got on stage and was doing well with a new poem when it happened.

Someone's cell phone went off.

I even asked Rachel, who was hosting, to mention to people to turn their cell phones off. This person was even in the room when she make the announcement.

It was not a short ring either. It was one of those ringtones that never end. It was quite loud, and went two maybe three times for fifteen to twenty seconds. I was told the person just sat there, not realizing that it was, in fact, their phone that had gone off.

Have to admit it messed with my flow. Would have been less distracted if people had thrown some of the tomatoes Joel brought at me.

Managed to finish the piece, and muttered more than a few obscenities as I left the stage. The points do not matter, but I managed to finish sixth in the round.

There was still another round to go and I abandoned what I was going to do in order to use a poem for just this type of occasion.

Earlier this year, I wrote a poem about cell phones going off during poetry readings thanks to being next to one that started blaring Rod Stewart's "Do You Think I'm Sexy" (really, Tyrone? Really?) in the middle of someone's poem.

It's a three minute poem I took most of the end of round one to edit down to two minutes.

I still was not entirely sure whose cell phone had gone off, but once I started reading I found the culprit, and made them cower. Read quite a bit of the piece, looking directly at the evil doer. It's a rather nasty poem, but not one that wishes the person to die in a fire or develop brain tumors.

Poetic revenge? You bet your sweet ass it was. As my wife said, I took slam lemons and made slamonade out of them. Ended up finishing in fifth. Made my point.

It was one of those McLuhan in the movie line moments.



But life is not like this, is it? Simply the right poem at the right time.

At the end of the night the offender reached out and apologized. I accepted, and said to not let it happen again. You know how poets are.

Congratulations to Scott Woods, who won. Rose Smith came in second and Dain Michael Down came in third. A new poet named Gus did very well in his first WB slam. I think he's from the Atlanta slam scene and he's going to college up at Ohio Wesleylan. Hope he comes down frequently.

I'm not entirely sure I'm in next week's Grand Slam but I'm leaning toward yes.