e-poets Plain Text: Poetry across frontiers (13)

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Poetry across frontiers (13)

response from Victoria, Canada

Hello -

Interesting post, Heather. Another Canadian's response:

I agree with your objection to poetry as a contest that somebody wins. The few slams I've seen have been, um, winningly rhetorical and ever so slightly disengenuous but not fully in control of the BS irony bluffing poker game thang.

But I haven't seen Chicago slams, either. I gather some of them are something else.

I remember when I was working in Seattle and one of the managers asked me to write something that was more or less a sales thing. I told him I wasn't in sales. He pointed out that it was quite technical, what he was looking for (I was the Tech Writer, at that point), moreso than sales could write. I told him I wasn't a salesman. He went further to point out that doing this sort of writing was really quite important to the company, being more directly related to revenue than typical tech writing is, and that the company needed me to do this. I said, listen, I'm not a salesman, understand? He stopped and looked at me like I didn't quite get the obvious. He bent into his remark in an even tone, explanatory and firm: 'Listen up: we're all salesmen here.'

It's kinda funny to me in retrospect. It is true in Canada, too, but only during business hours?

I wrote the paper and actually it helped the company get a few million dollars and that felt good, to contribute in that fashion. Wrote a few more like that too.

Slams in Chicago might make sense and be fun, and people'd play the game with style, like a good smoky poker game. Slams in Victoria are a foreign import. Hope I get to see a good Chicago slam. Maybe they're culturally specific? Can you smoke cigars?

Or not?

Enjoyed my stay in Seattle, by the way.

- Jim Andrews

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