5 + 2 Performances =

Oscar Bermeo blogged the best list of influential works that I've yet seen. He went beyond the typical confines of the meme that made its rounds a while back, choosing not only influential poetry books, but nonfiction, recorded performances, and live performances. I won't try to one-up him here, but I would like to present 7 performances, live or recorded, that resulted in the version of me that gets up on the stage.

These first five occurred while I was an undergraduate. They set the stage (har har) for the style I developed in earnest later on at Revolution Cafe.

1. John Firefly. Open mic at the Underground at Illinois Wesleyan University. Various poems. John was/is a local homeless poet in Bloomington, IL. He was also the first person I saw really invest himself in a performance, really give life to the words on the page. I have a few poems of his that he mailed to me, including the one that got him banned from campus (let's just say he really, really insulted the then-head of the English Department). But it was that first open mic at which he cut loose that made me go, "Hmmm. Sound." What I most got from John was a sense that he was channeling words, even if reading them off the page, and using himself as an amplifier. It was a far cry from the staid readings I'd encountered before.

2. John O'Leary. Walking around IWU campus. Various poems of his own, plus passages from Milton and Shakespeare. Whereas John Firefly opened up the possibility of sound to me, John O'Leary brought home the concepts of memory and tradition. He wrote these fractured sonnets, as he called them, and revised them in his head. They worked on the page. They also worked out loud. Not only did he know his own work, however, but you could walk up to O'Leary, say "Paradise Lost, Book IV," and John would begin reciting it from memory. It was impressive, not gimmicky at all. I still haven't memorized as much work as I now know I ought to. You can listen to an interview with John on Cross Cultural Poetics #60.

3. John Firefly. Barnes & Noble Bloomington, IL. I invited both of the Johns to read at the Barnes & Noble at which I worked part-time during my undergraduate years. They arm wrestled to see who would go first, which drew a crowd. One poet, homeless, and another, looking homeless, about to burst blood vessels in the Starbucks. Firefly ended up going first, and proceeded to lead off with a poem about watching himself in the mirror as he had sex. Little old lady gets up and leaves. Followed by another. Followed by another. We had more complaints that night than any other in the history of the store. Lesson learned: words have power. Not always that lovey-dovey, power-to-move-you-positively power. But people will react even to poems.

4. Taylor Mali. Poems from the Like-Free Zone. "The the Impotence of Proofreading" and "What Teachers Make." Playful and smart, in the way that a young George Carlin was. Combine this with his attention to teaching stories (by which I mean both stories about teaching and stories that teach), and this wannabe-teacher was hooked on phonics. Or at least the presentation of potentially arcane material in such a way that the audience accepts and even appreciates it.

5. muMs da Schemer. Def Jam Poets at IWU. Everything he did (just kidding about the last of those three links - there was no classical music at the performance in question). muMs was a revelation. His theatrical style, use of persona, and the smartest sound poetry I'd heard to that point all made this guy my #1 influence when I started developing seriously as a performance poet. I don't give him enough credit on Arts & Crafts, and for that I'm genuinely sorry. He did one piece, whose title I can't recall, that ended with him miming an eagle, screeching, and slowly the screeching became beeping and the eagle an EKG meter flatlining. It was amazing, and "ADD TV"'s ending owes a lot to the ending of that piece. Actually, all of the four or five pieces I do that specifically explore opening and/or closing poems owe a lot to that piece.

These last two are performances that struck me not only for their incredible quality, but for the inspiration they gave me to create two of my most well-received poems.

6. Flying Words. Slope. "Language" (to see/hear it, check for the judges in the Slope issue). The first American Sign Language poem I'd ever seen that wasn't an interpretation of written/spoken words, but actually devised from the start to work with both spoken and signed language. Peter Cook and Kenny Lerner stand one in front of the other (Cook, the deaf member, in front) and co-sign a poem, while Lerner speaks from the back (his head is covered). Everything about this poem was intentional, from the way Lerner's and Cook's hands formed the sign for language (because you need two people to have communication), to the banter with the audience (at one point, three hands are engaged in playfully signing "poetry" over and over - while this is going on, Cook uses his free hand to point at someone in the audience and ask whether that person wants to get a drink later). It was kinesthetic, or better yet, kinaesthetic. "Sign of the Turtle" owes its specifics to Genelle and KellyLynn, but the manner in which I deliver it comes from Flying Words. I have a three-person ASL piece I want to perform some time that was inspired by "Language" as well. Some day...

7. Shira Erlichman. Famecast.com season 2. "Daddy's Parking Lot Sermon." I'll keep this one short, simply because I bring this poem up so often. The first time I saw it, I was checking out my competition in Famecast.com's Spoken Word contest (incidentally, I came in 10th out of 80 poets, but learned to seriously dislike Famecast's model - I recommend never, ever competing at that site). I immediately reacted to not just the delivery, but the poetry, calling fellow graduate students to come watch. I remember Roger Reeves pursing his lips and going, "Ohhh she's a real poet." This poem inspired "There will be no reinvention of the wheel." The bad male figure is the obvious link, but here's the real connection, the epiphany that I had that made Shira's poem more than just a good-creepy persona piece. You ready for this? Listen to the poem again, and realize that the "daddy" is using the exactly same kind of langauge as the son. Perhaps even more poetic language. There will be no reinvention of the wheel, indeed.

If you can find any of these people, live or in recordings, you owe it to yourself to listen.