Words In Your Face A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

Words In Your Face A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz

This book chronicles the history of a literary movement and performance scene. Slamming started in Chicago, Illinois and then spread all over the country. One of the most prominent scenes is in Manhttan, New York. There is not a whole lot of poetry in this book. There are a few poems from immediately after the 9/11 World Trade Center terror attack. This book focuses on the people, performance spaces, politics, and competition around slams.

Most chapters in this book have in depth interviews. These are complex, informal, and take quite a bit of time to read and think about. Paul Beatty, Beau Sia, Maggie Estep, Stacyanne Chin, Felice Bell, and many other prominent poets are interviewed. In addition, the interviews illustrate the connection between rap and hip hop and poetry slams. Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz interviews Bill Adler a journalist and prominent producer of hip hop records.

Words In Your Face is divided into four sections, the pre-wave, the first wave (1990-1996), the second wave (1996-2001), and the third wave (2001-2007). It also occurs in three primary settings, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, NYC-Urbana, and the Bowery Poetry Club all in Manhattan, New York. I have not been to any of these spaces. I might go some time. All of the spaces are quite famous; the most famous being the Nuyorican Poets Cafe which has become a major tourist destination.

Slam poetry is performance poetry read and judged in front of a live audience. Cristina Aptowicz brings out the performance aspect of the poetry. Many of the black and white photographs throughout the book are of poets performing or of announcements of poetry events. She also mentions television shows like Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam and United States of Poetry. There are films listed as well; Slam, Slam Nation, and Poetry In Motion. I enjoyed watching Poetry In Motion.

In the back of the book, there is a year by year list of New York City Poetry Slam Teams from 1990-2007 which were sent to compete at the National Poetry Slam. This book is poetry as a competitive art. There is quite a bit about politics in the scene. The most famous rivalry between Bob Holman and Miguel Pinero is talked about extensively.

This book took me a couple of weeks to read because of the density of the writing. It has a very informal, conversational tone. Every page is packed with information or personal statements by poets. The people in the book are a very diverse multicultural crowd.

This book would have been better if it had an index. There are a lot of different people mentioned and it is often hard to find the specific mentions without an index. I hope there is one put in for the next printing. I found the book to be unique and not at all like most books written about poetry. It is published in 2008 by Soft Skull Press. Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz is the founder of NYC-Urbana and was on the 2001 NYC-Urbana National Poetry slam team. Her website is http://www.aptowicz.com

Daily Thoughts 3/13/2009

John White Alexander: The Printing Press [showing Johannes Gutenberg] (from the cycle "The Evolution of the Book")Library of Congress (Jefferson Building), Washington, D.C.

Daily Thoughts 3/13/2009

This morning I read some more of Words In Your Face. This is taking a very long time to read. Also, in poetry mode, I watched a bit of Poetry In Motion. I really enjoyed seeing Charles Bukowski telling us that poetry needs more moxie. Also, hearing Amiri Baraka recite a poem to jazz music was quite entertaining. So far, this is a really good art film worth watching.

I am trying to arrange for the Sunday Matinee films committee to pick out films for May and June. Also, I have been trying to make sure all the flyers are ready for upcoming programs. Things have been extremely busy.

This afternoon, the new librarian shadowed me doing reference. They are putting in new carpeting in the reference room, so I spent most of the afternoon at the circulation desk. I also gave a brief tour of our storage area and showed her some of our rare books, government documents collection, fiction storage and nonfiction storage. We are a repository for the last copies in our county, so we have a lot of unique old books.

Web Bits

While reading through Library Journal, I noticed that there were four librarians listed as top twitterers, Jessamyn West, David Lee King, Michael Stephens, Karen Schneider, and Stephen Abraham. I also found out that the Ann Arbor District Library in Michigan has an Iphone interface for their library catalog.

Harlequin Romance books is giving away a set of 16 free ebooks on http://www.harlequincelebrates.com It is an interesting sign. I have been seeing a lot of publishers giving away free ebooks lately.

I registered on RedRoom which is supposed to be a site for authors. It is billed as Facebook for authors. I sincerely hope that it is not Facebook. I first heard about this group during the O'Reilly Tools of Change for Publishing conference. http://www.redroom.com

Daily Thoughts 3/5/2009

The 'Glasses Apostle' in the altarpiece of the church of Bad Wildungen (Germany).Painted by Conrad von Soest in 1403, the 'Glasses Apostle' is considered the oldest depiction of eyeglasses north of the Alpes.

Daily Thoughts 3/5/2009

Wings

Madame butterfly

Whisper your wings

Flapping breeze

I am looking at Big Bank Takes Little Bank by Paul Beatty. Paul Beatty won the first National Poetry Slam prize which was to get his book published. Words In Your Face talks about this process. Surprisingly, Words In Your Face, contains very little poetry, it is mainly the history and politics of the slam scene in New York.

It looks like Words In Your Face is going to take quite a while to read. The text is dense with interviews. I just read an interview with Maggie Estep who is considered part of the first wave of New York slam poets.

Today was another constantly busy day. I spent a lot of time at the reference desk this morning. I also did some more shadowing with the new librarian. I am mostly done with showing her where things are on the main floor. There are a lot of other small things which need to be redone.

I also spent some time decoding the circulation statistics. I am comparing circulation by specific dewey call numbers and trying to figure out what it means. I have figured out quite a bit of things after looking at the numbers. The most popular books in the art books section are on knitting and crocheting, oversize architecture books, graphic novels, and classical composers. Computer books are quite popular, so are Christian inspiration titles. People read Freud a lot in our psychology section.

There are a few odd and unexpected things. James Patterson is the most popular fiction author in our library. People like to read books on perfume. The circulating law books are the most popular books in the social science section. The most popular history books are on World War II. People read a lot of english grammar books. In the sciences, math is the most popular subject followed by biology in our library. People read more engineering books than cookbooks. Shakespeare is the most popular subject in literature, and Othello is the most popular subject in Shakespeare in our library. In biography, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther, and Saint Augustine are the most read about figures.

In the computer books, Windows is the most popular subject. For test books, accounting civil service tests are the most requested. I am about half way through the statistics sheets going towards the less used material. It is quite interesting.

Daily Thoughts 3/4/2009

Advertising poster by American illustrator Louis John Rhead (1857-1926). "William Caxton made his own ink, but you can have yours made by The Ault & Wiborg Co., Cincinnati." c1896

Daily Thoughts 3/4/2009

Know Thing, No Thing, Nothing

I know know thing

The thing I know

Is not something

Do u know something

That I don't no

That Some Thing u know

Must be something

Full of my knows

That No Thing matches

I read some more of Words In Your Face. There is an interview with Bob Holman the founder of the New York City Poetry Calendar which is a weekly listing of poetry readings. It used to include all of the readings in the city. I would pick it up at Shakespeare and Company books when they were still open. I used to read it to find out when the science fiction and fantasy book readings were happening.

Today has been a fairly busy day. I spent some time having a new librarian shadow me at the reference desk and showing her where the different things were in the reference room. I showed her a few things which are kind of interesting. We keep a big binder with flyers from all the different community service agencies, several different files for career material and an annual reports drawer.

I also spent some time with Westlaw. Apparently a lot of libraries are restructuring their law collections. Computer databases are replacing a lot of the law digests. Keyword searching in Lexis and Westlaw are much easier than in the legal encyclopedias. Westlaw is finding itself in a facing lots of library budget crunches. My understanding is that on average the cost of law books goes up 12% per year or more and law databases go up in price 3-5% per year. Westlaw is making the books less and less affordable. They told me that they were cutting prices everywhere.

Other than Westlaw, I have been looking at places that offer grants. I thought this was interesting. This place sends free art books to libraries. http://www.ducprogram.org/orderform.php

Random House is opening a free library for science fiction books. I rather like this. More for me to read, and a little competition with the Baen Free Library. http://www.suvudu.com/

Daily Thoughts 3/3/2009

In the frontispiece to Voltaire's interpretation of Isaac Newton's work, Elémens de la philosophie de Neuton (1738), the philosophe sits translating the inspired work of Newton. Voltaire's manuscript is illuminated by seemingly divine light coming from Newton himself, reflected down to Voltaire by a muse, representing Voltaire's lover Emilie du Châtelet—who actually translated Newton and collaboratored with Voltaire to make sense of Newton's work.

Daily Thoughts 3/3/2009

On the train to work, I finished reading The Sword by Deborah Chester. It is the first part in a three part series. I requested the second and third books in the series, The Chalice and The Ring. Towards the end of my trip, I started reading Words In Your Face. They mentioned a film in the book called Poetry In Motion which I will hopefully get to borrow by this weekend.

I am putting together a multi format display for noire mysteries which includes films, paperbacks, hardcovers, and graphic novels. The film that immediately comes to mind is The Maltese Falcon, L.A. Confidential, or Chinatown when you think Noire. In books, there is the paperback series, Hard Case Crime. There is of course Dashiell Hammett, James Ellroy, Max Allan Collins, and Raymond Chandler. In graphic novels there are Secret Agent X-9 by Raymond Chandler, Frank Miller's Sin City, Steve Canyon, Ms. Tree, Whiteout, and Jinx. The movie, Road to Perdition was also made into a graphic novel.

While I was looking at the noire graphic novels, I pulled out, Will Eisner Life, In Pictures Autobiographical Stores Introduction by Scott McCloud. It is a nice big new hardcover printed in 2007. There is an introduction by Scott McCloud and a foreword by Denis Kitchen. My favorite story so far is The Dreamers, an autobiographical cartoon about opening a comics studio in Manhattan, New York during the 1930s when comic books were just starting and the pulp magazines were dying out. The story is annotated by Denis Kitchen. It is in Will Eisner's unique black and white style. Will Eisner is credited with creating the term graphic novel. His writing and artwork are superb.

Daily Thoughts 3/2/2009

Joseph Skelton (1888-1893)
A Forgotten Author
Oil on board

Daily Thoughts 3/2/2009

Today it was snowing very hard outside. I took the train up to the White Plains Supreme Court Law Library to do a tour. A gentleman there showed me and my new colleague around the law library. It was a very interesting experience.

Recently, the size of the White Plains Supreme Court Law Library collection was reduced. They had to move from having a full floor for their collection to a section of the floor, one third the size. To do this, they now have twelve workstations for patrons with Loislaw, Lexis, and Hein for their subscription. They seriously reduced the number of federal print books and focused on keeping their New York law books in print. They also only keep the most recent copies of the print journals and rely on Hein for most of their journal subscriptions on the database. Keeping lots of paper is not an option for them anymore.

I found the collection to be fascinating. It shed a new light on our collection. There was also the Office of the Self Represented which was in the same office as the White Plains Supreme Court Law Library for New York state. They were there to help people with legal information for people who did not have a lawyer. This was not legal advice, but forms for things like how to change your name, file a motion, register your case and similar things. We took a set of forms for our library to keep. One of the forms listed many of the agencies which provided pro bono work for people.

Two books were waiting for me when I came in, Haunted Heart The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak and Words In Your Face A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz.

On the way home, I read some of The Sword by Deborah Chester. It is a fantasy novel. I almost finished reading it. The trains were very slow because of the snow.