From now on...I'm DATING MYSELF!

I discovered slam poetry accidentally at about 2 am one morning several years ago while doing online  research on entrepreneurship/ start-up competitions. I stumbled into the winning Business Case of a Microsoft-sponsored competition- written and recorded as a "slam" poem by the Mayhem Poets outlining a plan to create a slam poetry teaching and "spoken word" performance centre for youngsters in New York City. It was the cleverest thing I had ever seen.

I kept digging....and then I found him. Taylor Mali. I fell in love on the third line of his first poem that I watched on YouTube. It was called: "What Teachers Make"

I had to have more of it. I wrote to Taylor and a few months later met up with him in New York, but alas, he was too expensive to buy and keep for myself. As a poet-in-residence, of course! (He has a very lovely wife whom he loves very much and writes the most beautiful poetry for.)

I have visited the well-known New York Slam Poetry clubs, The Nuyorican Cafe in Alphabet City, The Bleecker St and Cornelia St Cafe in Greenwich Village and the Bowery Club in the East Village, and even the Green Mile Club in Chicago- birthplace of Slam Poetry. I have books and CDs and I have even tried to get a chapter going at work. (Watch this space!)

Now and then I dip back into YouTube and it always delivers just the right poem for the occasion. Here's one on finding happiness through dating yourself!




So what did you think? Like it?