Come support your classmates as they read their poetry and short stories on the second floor ledge.
Thursday, March 25: 2010 Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam Finals
The final round of the 2010 Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam will feature the 32 poets who have made it through the semi-final rounds at Huron, Community, Pioneer and Skyline high schools. Poets will compete for a spot on the 2010 Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam Team that will attend the 2010 Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival in Los Angeles, CA this July.
Clare Riesterer, the winner of the 2010 Pioneer Poetry Slam, reads at Poetry Night in Ann Arbor earlier this year. Photo via Neutral Zone
Pioneer’s slams are traditionally the largest, most energetic slam of the Ann Arbor semifinals. The little theater is filled, Jeff Kass does the usual breakdown of the slam process, and the fun begins.
This year, the crowd didn’t just have to deal with the usual hang-ups of going to a slam: last night, the theater was hot and stuffy, and, although the Pioneer slam is always big, it had twenty-seven poets this year–pegging it at almost three hours.
Mike Moriarty
Mike Moriarty is a local Ann Arbor writer. He is the president of the collegiate poetry troupe Ann Arbor Wordworks. This entails running meetings, organizing Wordworks instructors for the VOLUME Youth Poetry Project, and making final decisions on content for their big upcoming show, Homegrown, which is this Friday, January 29.
A bag of pretzels
a lack of mustard
a stag he wrestles
he cracks a cuss word
he knew the beast
would win the round
the two would cease at the bells sound
Scott Beal
What projects are you currently working on?
Oh, who knows. Last summer I started a weekly-ish blog on parenting for AnnArbor.com. The whole blog genre never really cried out to me, but I got invited to do it, and I find it hard to turn down an invitation. It’s been a fun challenge, mostly, and I like the pieces I’ve produced. It’s like writing poetry in that I don’t get paid, but it’s different in that people in the community may read it.
Meanwhile there are always new poems to work on, but the pace slows when other things get busy, as they have this fall. I wrote a ditty the other day riffing off the phrase “Too legit to quit,” of all things. I’ve got others in mind, half-jotted down, waiting to take shape. Actually, I’ve got a whole roster of unfinished things to get to: a story, a couple of children’s books, one sprawling poem I started 5 years ago based on a heavy metal song. And I promised myself that I’d revamp my book manuscript in September. I still haven’t. Now I’m aiming for January.
This week I’ll participate in a write-a-thon for Dzanc Books, the nonprofit publisher who sponsors my residency at Ann Arbor Open School, among other things. So I’ll come up with something for that.
“Everybody look up at the sky. Look at the alien ships as they fly. Why must they come? I don’t know why, but humans must prepare to die.”
The Aliens
are coming back to attack again
so protect the children
and prepare all the men.
Bad shit is going to happen
so hide when I count to ten
because the Aliens are playing hide and go seek.
This ain’t no little kid shit like little bo-peep.
Mothers are gonna weep
and it might be hard to sleep
but just put down the tissue
issue everyone a jeep. More…
CHS senior and member of the 2009 Ann Arbor Youth Poetry Slam Team Glenna Benitez reads a new poem.
On Friday, December 11th, Jeff Kass, creative writing teacher at Pioneer High School and director of the Literary Arts programs at the Neutral Zone, celebrated a decade of Poetry Night in Ann Arbor.
In honor of this being the tenth Poetry Night, Kass decided to bring back Ann Arbor’s good friends and favorite writers Kevin Coval, Roger Bonair-Agard, and Lauren Whitehead, who all have an enormous investment in Ann Arbor youth.
I found in the forest
that I couldn’t ignore this
if Boris’s fortress is
snortin’ more than the florists
Of course his divorce is needed
she even conceded
his greed did lead to defeat
even eatin the cheeze-whiz
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