Ann Arbor Poetry Slam

Tuesday night is the unstoppable Ann Arbor Poetry Slam at the Heidelberg. We will be featuring Blair. If you don’t know who Blair is, I’m sorry about your horrible and sheltered life. Please let me alleviate your pain by introducing you to the hottest poet in these parts. Don’t MISS IT!

Blair’s bio courtesy of BlairMusic.com:

D. BLAIR is a poet / singer-songwriter / performer and spoken word artist whose work, in the words of Metro Times “focuses on the hope that rises from the ashes of despair.” Blair is a National Poetry Slam Champion (2002 Team Detroit) and Detroit Grand Slam Champion (2003). He’s been named Best Solo Artist by Real Detroit Weekly Readers’ Poll and has been written about in periodicals around the country and overseas including Performing Songwriter Magazine, Hour Detroit Magazine and The Bay Area Times. His new one man show Burying the Evidence is new ground for Blair. The new and rewritten material for the theater piece is already receiving great reviews at previews in Detroit and Chicago and being written about in Detroit’s Between the Lines Newspaper and Northwest Airlines World Traveler Magazine.

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We had a great show on Tuesday. After many trials involving getting to the correct airport, being put on standby, and sitting at JFK airport all day. Jive arrived and made it to Ann Arbor unscathed.

His set was funny, heartfelt, crafted, and a lot of other adjectives that add up to awesome. If you were in Ann Arbor and you didn’t come to the Heidelberg, well, you owe yourself an apology for missing Jive Poetic. (Fun fact about Jive, he once took Susan Lucci to the Emmy Awards, true story).

The Slam was, interesting to say the least. I have never seen Mike Moriarty get such a low score on such a great poem. The final two were Logic and Callie Helen, a newcomer to the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam, and in the final round she won! Welcome to A2Slam Callie!

Thanks to the great crowd that came out. Don’t forget that next month our feature is Blair!

We have a fantastic feature for you in November. Jive Poetic is coming to us straight from New York. I have had the opportunity to see Jive perform on more than one NPS stage, and I have never been disappointed.

His Bio, courtesy of his website:

From his hometown in Buffalo, NY to London, England JIVE POETIC has ignited microphones with humorous wordplay and thought provoking verbal display. During a lengthy deliverance of revolutionary regression to teen suicide and sex, JIVE POETIC opts to teach the masses a lesson in life. His incentive? Watching the reaction of his listeners.

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This coming Tuesday, October 2, the Ann Arbor Poetry Slam continues it’s 2nd decade on the scene. Because of a horrendous scheduling error by yours truly, Blair will not be featuring, (Don’t worry, he will be here in December I promise!). Filling his place will be a Kalamazoo poet named Uncle Drunk. He approached me not too long ago looking for this feature, and well, I couldn’t say no. Kalamazoo poets are always different.

Uncle Drunk’s bio:

Uncle Drunk grew up in a poor section of Palm Desert Ca. Writing his first piece of poetry at the tender age of 8 years old. From that point on his live was a downhill slide of literature and vice. Spending time around the street punks of Ventura/Santa Cruz Ca got him the perfect basis for his brand of street punk infused words and memories of childhood.

After getting clean and helping other punks in the Grand Rapids area get clean he attended his first Slam. He once again fell onto his rhythmic toboggan with a new dream.
In 2007 his dream was realized and he competed at National Poetry Slam in Austin, Tx. He was a member of the Kalamazoo Poets’ Anonymous team.

His first book “Life in the Doghouse: Memories of a Street Punk” has sold over 30 copies. All proceeds from his newly found ability to feature will go to fuel selling even more of these books so he can afford all of his techie supplies like Doritos and Jolt Cola. Mmmm Jolt Cola.

Of course, there will be an open mike, and the world famous poetry slam. See you there!

The National Poetry Slam was last week and I have barely begun to recover from the great poetry. Ann Arbor made the Semi-finals for the first time since 2000! There are not enough exclamation points available for how cool that is.

Our intrepid poets faced off against some of the toughest teams around in their semi-final, including the home team Austin, and the team that would win the whole thing, Slam Charlotte.

Mike, Matt, Karyna, and Logic performed wonderfully the entire week. In a few weeks you will have the opportunity to see them yourself, when they feature at the Heidelberg on the first Tuesday in September. With any luck, I’ll be able to get one or more of them to write up their adventures in Austin for you.