A blacksmith courted me / Nine months and better
He fairly won my heart / Wrote me a letter

With his hammer in his hand / He looked quite clever
And if I was with my love / I’d live for ever

But where is my love gone / With his cheeks like roses?
And his good black Billycock on / Decked round with primroses?

I’m afraid the scorching sun / Will shine and burn his beauty
And if I was with my love / I’d do my duty

Strange news is come to town / Strange news is carried
Strange news flies up and down / That my love is married

I wish them both much joy / Though they can’t hear me
And may God reward him well / For the slighting of me

Don’t you remember when / You lay beside me?
And you said you’d marry me / And not deny me?

If I said I’d marry you / It was only for to try you
So bring your witness love / And I’ll not deny you

No, witness have I none / Save God Almighty
And may he reward you well / For the slighting of me

Her cheeks grew pale and wan / It made her poor heart tremble
To think she loved that one /And he proved deceitful

A blacksmith courted me / Nine months and better
He fairly won my heart / Wrote me a letter

With his hammer in his hand / He looked quite clever
And if I was with my love / I’d live forever

Slamming Slam Poetry

Jul6

I like traditional and literary poetry if it is not too self-conscious and cryptic.
I like song lyrics and other rhythmic forms of versification. I like dub poetry.

slam poet

But from what I have seen on the web exemplifying “Slam Poetry” I can’t enjoy it. It seems, at first, second and third glance to mainly be about self-aggrandizing, posturing, agitation and racial/ethnic/gender complaining. It is delivered with a lot of swagger and bombast but it seems weak on substance. I like reading poetry and meditating on it in tranquility- and the best place I ever enjoyed poetry (Oxford Anthology) was living in an old bus in the Arizona wilderness for 6 months. I don’t want to hear poetry in an atmosphere like an urban-issues council meeting at a comedy club. To hell with that – give me rarefied verse from 2 or 3 centuries ago in a quiet comfortable place. Any day.

Embittered empowered women screeching about themselves and why they are ticked off gets old very fast. Not very DIVERSE, I might add..

Give me some wit, some transcendence and some subtlety please. You all go to the poetry slam – I’m staying here with the anthology. In a clean, well-lighted place.