As a former slammer from
wa(aaaaa)y back, I’ve experienced the
prejudices of “book poets” first-hand. My poems have been dismissed outright
(“That may be good for a slam, but…”) when I wasn’t writing slam poems at
all—when I hadn’t written a slam poem in ten years. It reminds me of that old joke:
“But you f*ck one sheep…”
Despite of, or maybe because of, my experience, I too
have prejudices against spoken word poets. Though I’ve seen many incredible spoken
word poets perform, I’ve seen far more bad ones—which, come to think of it, is
exactly the same experience I've had with book poets.
Rachel McKibbens is the
2009 Women of the World poetry slam champion. A ten-year veteran of the spoken
word scene, she has read her work on the same bill as Elizabeth Alexander,
Michael McClure, Nikki Giovanni, Paul Martinez Pompa, Martín Espada Nick Flynn,
Billy Collins, Ellyn Maybe, Eve Ensler, and Lauryn Hill, to name a few, at
hundreds of venues across the country. She has performed before a single
audience of over 1,200 people (the 2007 National Poetry Slam finals in Austin,
Texas). Panties were thrown at her in praise. Fans have tattooed themselves with lines from her
poems. And years before Kanye West did that bizarro thing at the
Grammy’s on behalf of Beyonce, he did it at a taping of HBO’s Def
Poetry Jam on behalf of Rachel McKibbens.
We met at a university literary
festival. She was 100%
bullshit-free. I knew I loved her when a blushing student
approached her during a break and whispered, “I’m going to introduce you." Rachel lit up, “You are? That’s great, honey!” Her
voice dropped an octave, “Let me see it.” “W-w-what?” the girl stammered. “Your
introduction. Let me see it.” The student slunk off to fetch a note card.
Rachel read it while the girl looked on. “OK,” she said flatly, and handed the
card back. The girl left skid marks. Rachel said at an unrepentant volume, “They
never mention the NYFA [New York Foundation for the Arts grant], my book, or my
teaching experience—only the tattoos.” She is covered with them, including a
teardrop in the corner of her eye, and the words “BOOK” and “WORM” on her
knuckles.
Then Rachel read her poems.
I heard a story on NPR once about country-western radio focus groups. The
test subjects were asked to rate the songs they heard from 1 to 5, with 5 being
“Most Exciting.” The songs that were deemed best for radio weren’t the 5’s, or
the 1’s. They were the 3’s, because 3’s didn’t interrupt people’s routine—they
didn’t create any overwhelming feelings. I see a buttload of bloodless poetry that
inexplicably seems to be shooting for a 3—there’s no big feelings in sight—no
vulnerability—it’s too-cool-for-school. And nobody’s f*cking! I don’t know
if poets are doing it on purpose, or on accident, or which, if either, is more
excusable. Opaque poems are a great place to hide your feelings—even
from yourself.
But all of the poems Rachel’s first
book, Pink Elephant, are 5’s, or, to
quote Spinal Tap, “This one goes
up to 11.”
Most are stories from her hellish childhood growing up in southern
California. The poems are wrenchingly gruesome, yet genuinely affirming,
and—thank the maker—very, very funny. There are no easy answers. The victims inflict
violence on other victims, animals, and so on.
Being that they were written by the Women of the World poetry slam
champion, it didn’t surprise me that the poems were impeccably-paced and
visceral. But I was stunned by her deft sound play and attention to structure
and form on the page. Her work completely defied all my own prejudices about
spoken word/slam poetry, and it made me remember why I fell in love with poetry
in the first place.
***
What are some experiences
that have stood out for you on stage—good, bad and otherwise?
The good
experience is always when I am leaving the stage and I know I didn't suck ass.
The worst experience was in a library in White Plains, New York. A woman got
upset about a poem of mine (“For Du'a Khalil”) and stood up and started
screaming and pointing at me. It was totally like when that snaggle-toothed
hunchback lady started booing Princess Buttercup [in The Princess Bride]. It rattled the hell out of me.
When I
was filming for Def Poetry, some hip-hop fella whose first album was about to
be released went up after me and started berating the crowd, telling them how
"dope" my poem was and how they didn't "get it," and then
he pulled out a piece of paper and recited an actual line of mine. I was
flattered, but more embarrassed, because he was being filmed and the producers
were pretty strict about "wasting their time." I found out later who
the guy was. Kanye West. It all makes perfect sense now. So now I just tell people I am The
Beyonce of poetry.
Are you saying that
Kanye's been pulling that stunt for years? What am I talking about? Of course
he has.
I
inspired Kanye's bitch-assery. Yes.
Do people recognize you from Def Poetry Jam? Has
anyone ever quoted you, to you?
When the episode first aired, people would come up to me on the subway and tell
me they liked my poem on DPJ, and I'd be like “What the hell were you doing
watching poetry that late at night?” I didn't realize how many people tuned in.
These days, I get a lot of recognition from young poets. And tons of speech and
debaters want the poem “After School, Special” for competition. Cuh-ray-zay!
A girl
once sent me a photo of a line of mine tattooed on her back. “My prince
charming will pick me poison apples and kiss me to death” is a tramp stamp.
People
cover my poems every once in a while, which is bizarre, especially considering
the subject matter is often, like, invasively personal.
Most poets will only dream
of having their poems “covered.”
morning, I started crying several times and missed my stop on the train. It is
so heart-breaking, and yet very affirming. How true is the book?
I did a few minor tweaks here and
there (for example, in “814” I have my brother and I find a dead body when it
was actually a neighbor boy whose name I can't recall.) And poetic license
steers my language. I write of my hungry children [note: Rachel has five
children] that I “feed them my thumb for breakfast” instead of saying how I
chopped off the tip of my thumb and bled into their home fries.
I consider the book to be memoir,
which is why the poems are, for the most part, presented chronologically. I
allowed elements of magical realism to coincide with the hard truths to temper
the burden of the more difficult stories. In “Tomboy,” I torture a mermaid, and
even though that is not possible (because I have never caught one), I think it
is one of the most honest poems in the book. My mother left when I was two. I
spent a lot of my childhood hating little girls. Hating females, entirely. I
hated female teachers. I hated my female friends and their mothers who hugged
them when they picked them up from school.
I am in the process of writing a
memoir which covers my relationship with my mother, but Pink Elephant was the necessary first step for me. I tried my best
to provide an arc, to give the reader relief points—a reminder that yes, these
things happened, but I have never stopped living because of them. I am a mother
with five incredible kids. I haven't stabbed anyone in the supermarket. I don't
leave dead animals on my ex-husband’s porch. I am not what happened to me.
Amen. How have
you experienced book poets’ prejudices at you for being a slam poet?
In the past six months, I've read
at book festivals, conferences, panels, etc. and in all but one, my bio in the
program mentioned my slam title, but nothing about my book. A couple times my
book wasn't even ordered with the other presenters’, and that smarts. I spent
four years on that book, and it was by no means an easy book to write. Writers
with slam backgrounds tend to get booked as the “entertainment.” There have
been a few instances of snobbery, but I consider that to be more of a
reflection of that writer's overall character as a human being—not their
literary prowess.
You say Pink Elephant was "the necessary
first step." What has poetry allowed you to do in order to move into
nonfiction?
Poetry is a lot like drag.
Its flamboyant language and sideways approach allow the tucked, taped-down
truth to sneak in. I didn't write a word about my childhood until I was 24,
when I “discovered” poetry. I recognized how metaphor and ambiguity, etc.
granted me endless permissions. I could write about everything without feeling
like a snitch.
I'm only three chapters into my
memoir but I've probably had about six full-fledged anxiety attacks. There are
so many triggers, which is why I spent a this morning going back over each
chapter, enhancing the prose with poetic elements to help bring my heart rate
down. For me, the movement of truth between confessional poetry and memoir has
always been more of a waltz than straightforward confrontation.
I have a list of specific moments I
want to include in my manuscript. I write out the facts as I know them, and a
lot of these things bring me close to meltdown. Then I go back over it and
meditate on who I was at that time, the things I thought about, wished for,
believed in…the literal poetry of my self. I have a ridiculous memory. I
remember clothes I was wearing. What I was eating. This is the relief I need.
I'm going to southern California next month, and I plan on getting copies of as
many court documents as I can to help fill in any holes. Sweet lord, I'm not
sure if I'm ready for what I'll find, but I know it’s where I have to go.
What do you mean by “For
me, the movement of truth between confessional poetry and memoir has always
been more of a waltz than straightforward confrontation”?
For me,
the truth in confessional poetry is a different kind of honesty. It has a
lawlessness that allows it to take on as many shapes as it wants, whereas the
truth in memoir must come from a sharply-defined place, or it will be asked to
explain itself when it gets bent. A memoir cannot survive on facts facts facts,
just as poetry, of any kind for that matter, cannot survive on pretty language
alone.
Do you have guilt about
writing about your childhood? Because, to me, your voice in the poems is fearless,
but I bet you hear that a lot, and of course, nobody is fearless.
I can't say that I have guilt, but
anxiety, absolutely. With the exception of maybe two or three of the poems, the
events in Pink Elephant could only have
been written once I had reached a level of amends with them, which means I
am really far from the person I was when I experienced them. Sometimes I'll get
wacky-brave and write about something that has recently annihilated my heart,
and then I end up having a nervous breakdown in front of an audience when I try
to read it.
There are plenty of poems I've
written out of guilt, though. But that's a whole other jar of snakes. As for
the fearlessness. Well. I lived my entire life either bullshitting or being
bullshitted. And now I'm older and I'm a mother of five really outstanding
human beings and I just don't have time for bullshit.
When did you start doing
slam? And do you think slam gave you permission to get down and dirty into your
childhood?
I started slamming the same year I
started writing poetry. 2001. During the third or fourth open mic at The Ugly
Mug in Orange, California, someone announced that a slam was opening up in Long
Beach. The Mexican in me assumed this had something to do with masked poets and
wrestling. Boy, was that a letdown.
I wouldn't say slam gave me any
permissions in terms of the content of my writing, but it certainly taught me
a lot about cadence, rhythm and sound. I've been a syllable counter since the
day I understood words. Sonics are extremely important to me. And timing. I
don't think you can really learn these things in their entirety unless it’s on
a microphone. Reading it aloud to yourself in your home is not the same as
knowing how to honor your poem by reading it to an audience properly. Many page
poets don't read their poems correctly. I've heard brilliant pieces of writing
fall flat because the reader didn’t learn the poem's voice.
around a table, and someone leafed through it and said, "These
don't look like slam poems." And they don’t. 1) They lack that
stereotypical need to lift/rise/resolve at the end, and 2) everyone is
three-dimensional—people hurt others as they've been hurt. In standard slam
fare, people are good or bad/victims or perps. And when we met, you told me,
"I got a lot of haters." Have people criticized your work at slams
because it doesn't fit the mold?
After I read, a friend once said,
“You’ll never win at this game ending poems the way you do. If you had some
happier endings, you'd be a champion.” Which didn't really matter to me because
I have never played to win. Winning in 2009 was an absolute accident. I was
stunned. Confused. I've only ever played to change the game. Slam has grown a
lot in the last decade. Many poets are willing to simplify, which is
refreshing, and there are a lot less anthemic, wrapped-in-a-bow poems
happening. In slams, I approach a poem exactly as I do at readings. I stand at
the mic, and I read my poem. That's it. I don't have a hook (unless it's a
pantoum) and you're right, there are no resolutions in my poems that would make
an audience feel better. I've slammed 75% of the poems in Pink Elephant, and two of them (“Weather's Here, Wish You Were
Beautiful” and “Central Park Mother's Day”) have received perfect scores in
national competition, and neither one could ever be accused of being a “slam
poem.”
As for my “haters” comment, I have
several in the slam scene because I'm pretty forthright about what I think is
terrible and I have openly criticized slam champions (or popular slammers) for
being clichéd, one-trick ponies. I spent four years teaching poetry to some of
the most disadvantaged kids in New York City, and I saw first-hand the positive
affects that spoken word had on them—they gained confidence in their own voices
and wrote extremely gutsy poetry. Some of the kids were kicked out of their
homes for what they wrote. So when grown folks get up on the mic with careless
writing, it pisses me off. You're teaching up there, whether you like it or
not.
Your
ear is excellent, and you said honed that on stage. Who are the poets you like?
I consider so many people poets,
even if that is not their specific medium. I love Lorca. Sexton. Espada. Simic.
Howe. Dobyns. Clifton. Cisneros. Olds. I think Gerald Stern kills it on the
mic. Jack Gilbert's electric. Erica Fabri's “Dialect of a Skirt” makes me
swoon. Daniel McGinn, Samantha Thornhill, Lucy Anderton and Regie Cabico need
to have a full-length book of poems already. John Patrick Shanley is my
favorite playwright, and his work, which is like having a mouthful of blood and
grit, influenced my approach to writing, absolutely. The strategic mess of
Basquiat. Khalo's regal and knowing women. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, full-blown
jedi. And Arundhati Roy is clearly from some pure gold planet.
experience, but no MFA. Ever think about getting one?
I have never set foot in a college
except to read my poems. I was homeless for a year after high school and never
thought about school again until this year. I recently applied to two MFA
programs, but a family situation put all of that on the back burner. I'd like
to get an MFA. I've been teaching in-school workshops since 2002. I started
teaching adults in 2005 at Bellevue Hospital. ACS. Needle exchanges. Shelters.
I also have a blog on my website where I post writing exercises. I try to
update it once or twice a month.
Why do you think more universities don’t offer
performance poetry classes? They're in demand, right? It seems to me like
there's gold in them thar hills.
Spoken word is considered
extra-curricular—just a bunch of flakes on a microphone. And nine times out of
ten, the shittiest examples of a genre hit the big time. A lot of academics
think that the spoken word poet in a McDonald's commercial is all there is to
it, so why the hell would they want to teach that? The best of spoken word
poets, Cabico, Shira Erlichman, Blair, Shappy Seasholtz, Daphne Gottlieb and
Jason Bayani, to name a few, should be taught. What they do is by no means
easy.
***
Three poems by Rachel McKibbens
How It's Done
To forgive my father means to uncover
the value of my own life. To admire
what had the guts to be cruel, to lie down
with it at the smallest hint of kindness
and donate this body to house
the few sweet things
that could come from it.
The Day After the First Time We Ran Away From Home
My brother came into the bedroom
and told me he'd found our neighbor's turtle
on our patio, and he told me he lured it
to the back door with some lettuce,
and it ate out of his hand until the lettuce was gone,
and my brother didn't know what to do next,
so the turtle started to move on,
and this angered my brother, so he kicked it,
and it skidded across the pavement on its back
and it cracked against the garage door
and my brother felt bad but by then
there was no going back, so he sprayed
the turtle's head with Raid
and wrapped it up in a bath towel
and threw it into the garbage bin behind
the parking lot, and then he threw
more garbage on top of that, and then
he climbed into the bin and stomped the trash
down, and then he came back inside
and watched some television.
What I Never Wrote
was how you begged me
to keep it. But you were never home
and I was, but didn't want to be.
And by then you had become a man
smaller than a man. So I thought it away.
Closed my eyes and dreamt it out of me.
The next morning, you knocked
on the bathroom door, then charged in.
I stood and pointed into the tub.
I said, Look at that.
And you asked, Is that—
And I said, Yes.
And you said, Oh
and shaved off your beard.