FollowToday while watching the absolutely amazing youth slam and judging, I thought again how fulfilling I find poetry.
I was listening to George Hamm on the Lounging with Lannalee podcast last week and he talked about how laughter and stand up is an addiction for him. Something he just craves. While I enjoyed stand up I never felt this way about it. I found it fun but very lonely and awkward. Of course, probably would have helped if I wrote some good material and didn’t improv it.
Kind of ironic when you think about it that I stay on page so much for poetry, and fear breaking away from the script, when I didn’t even write it for stand up.
But, I find poetry so much more fulfilling for my heart and my soul. I hear open mikes at Local Sprouts/Port Veritas or Slainte/ Rhythmic Cypher and I like and enjoy most of the poetry. I hear open mikes for stand up and Slainte and a lot of it is frankly painful.
Poetry just speaks to me deeply. But, I have lots of respect for stand-up. It’s much, much harder than it looks.
And I hope to be as good someday as some of the insanely great high school students at the youth slam tonight. 2 already made the team from winning monthly slams, Kelsey Kehoe and Arianna Northrup, and the other 3 women who qualified for the team tonight all slammed well enough I think to win monthly slams too. The youth in Maine are fierce, #PortVeritas’ work in school is succeeding. This is amazing. I feel so happy to be a fan and put out my words, even if they are just some fun haikus.
Edmund