I like this. totally on brand Bucky. But I love the Bennet book too. He talks about Spoken Word as a collective, cultural phenomena beginning with Miguel Algarin and the Nuyoricans, Amiri Baraka and Ntzoke Shange and their legacy. I can get with that. Honestly, it's more interesting than the slam. Your story is also a powerful one of 1990's poetry scenes in SF.
Here's the thing: it began much before that. How do you completely skip over The Last Poets? How do you not mention John Giorno and his record label? And to the point of my post, Gil Scott Heron, though repeatedly stolen from in the slam scene, is absent from his text—I just looked at the index again, if I'm wrong tell me. And this is just the NYC scene. There's no mention of the Six Gallery reading. Nor New Alliance Records. Look, if he had just called it "A Personal History" that would be cool. But he tells it as a "cultural history." It's not.
Wow wow, what a well informed piece! This is an interesting history, and one I had no idea about! That the poetry slams were making so much money and perhaps could have become something big today is wild!
I like this. totally on brand Bucky. But I love the Bennet book too. He talks about Spoken Word as a collective, cultural phenomena beginning with Miguel Algarin and the Nuyoricans, Amiri Baraka and Ntzoke Shange and their legacy. I can get with that. Honestly, it's more interesting than the slam. Your story is also a powerful one of 1990's poetry scenes in SF.
Here's the thing: it began much before that. How do you completely skip over The Last Poets? How do you not mention John Giorno and his record label? And to the point of my post, Gil Scott Heron, though repeatedly stolen from in the slam scene, is absent from his text—I just looked at the index again, if I'm wrong tell me. And this is just the NYC scene. There's no mention of the Six Gallery reading. Nor New Alliance Records. Look, if he had just called it "A Personal History" that would be cool. But he tells it as a "cultural history." It's not.
I'm going to add The Last Poets as poets who were often stolen from for group pieces specifically.
Wow wow, what a well informed piece! This is an interesting history, and one I had no idea about! That the poetry slams were making so much money and perhaps could have become something big today is wild!