Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Welcome to through the mill. This is the podcast on poetry slams and Mark Smith. Did I say Chicago?
[00:00:11] Speaker B: I kind of write it.
[00:00:11] Speaker C: That's enough. That's enough.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: And of course, we have a special guest here for our podcast.
[00:00:16] Speaker C: Right. She was at the mill recently, and she's my great friend, sin Selaj.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Hi, sin.
[00:00:25] Speaker D: Hello. Hello. I'm so excited to be here.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Yay.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Good.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: So part of the podcast is that we've been doing kind of a timeline of Chicago, like what it looked like in the eighties when Mark kind of started Wicker park specifically. And then we went through the history of. Actually, we started with the history of Mark and his education where he grew up. Some of the wives were in there, as mentioned as well.
Even got into the first book he read and how he read it. And then we went into, like the get me high.
Then we went to. We're kind of in our timeline. We've been at the green mill for a little bit.
[00:01:03] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: So this would be like 19, 96, 97.
[00:01:07] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: And what comes to mind, we had Tony Fitzpatrick, the famous artist son, for our last podcast.
[00:01:12] Speaker D: Yes. Yes.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: And he said something that struck me. He said he learned how to be a poet by going to the Green mill. And one of the great things that Mark, the Chicago icon, did was he opened up these doors to allow people to come in who are outsiders, who are looking for how to become the artists that they already were. But what does that mean? So when do you first get to the mill? When do you first meet Mark and does any of that kind of thing?
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Oh, I was trying to. I was trying to resurrect it.
[00:01:42] Speaker D: Well, I was like, by 96, we'd been there for a little while.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: We're really at 1986, late eighties.
[00:01:49] Speaker D: Yes, late eighties, late eighties. I definitely, because I had, let's see, I graduated college in 85.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Where'd you go to college?
[00:01:57] Speaker D: I went to Champaign. U of. I.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: So are you an Illinois Chicago person?
[00:02:01] Speaker D: I am an Illinois Chicago person, yes. I always thought I would be a Hawaii person or a Canada person or a New York person, but Chicago is a great city to be a poet in.
[00:02:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:14] Speaker D: So. And so I walked. Well, so I was. Had my first job, right. A job in advertising, working at Spiegel catalog. But I always wrote poetry. My whole life. I just always wrote poems.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: So wait, did you. You grew up in Chicago?
[00:02:27] Speaker D: I grew up in Schomburg.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Schaumburg.
[00:02:28] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:02:29] Speaker C: That's Chicago. I was holding back on that Wednesday.
[00:02:32] Speaker D: Just to make that distinction. My parents grew up in the city. Okay. I lived here for the. Like, I think we moved to Schomburg when I was like three, which at that point, you know, this was mid sixties, it was all farmland and, you know, Whitfield Mall was not there. It was just really wide open, wide open space.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: So then when you went to the University of Illinois, was it to study, to write or.
[00:02:53] Speaker D: It was to study. I studied advertising. I got a b's in advertising, which I was thinking, just so appropriate.
I didn't know that you could go to school to study.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:05] Speaker D: It's somehow. And I blame that on Schomburg. Sorry, Schomburg. No one said, hey, you know, you could do this. You could go to school. My father was a businessman, and I remember very clearly one class in high school, we were playing, we were putting words to pictures, like we were making up captions for pictures. And I loved it. And then that idea that advertising, I could just be writing words to pictures. I love to write and I love to make money. I like the idea of making money. And so I went and studied advertising. I took a bunch of poetry classes while I was there. And I worked on the literary journal. Yeah, but I loved it. I mean, I loved advertising. I loved poetry. And I got my first job at Spiegel catalog.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Big deal.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: Yeah. Writing words to pictures, you know, and I picked up the reader because that by that point, after college, I ran back to the city. I was not going to move back to Schomburg. Got my little studio apartment, you know, in Lakeview, picked up the reader and saw this ad for the poetry slam. And I was like, what is this like? And I imagine, like people just hitting each other, you know, with poems and books. And so you had just moved to the green mill. So I called up my best friend, said, hey, there's this poetry slam. Do you want to go?
We walked in. I will just never forget that feeling because we walked in and you were at the door then you were taking, what, however much it was a dollar two back then.
[00:04:28] Speaker C: I was at the door not taking the money, but I was introducing everybody, greeting everybody.
[00:04:33] Speaker D: Yes, yes. And you had a top hat. You wore a top hat.
[00:04:36] Speaker C: I still had that hat.
And there's actually a picture, Sun Times picture that captures that goofy, goofy costumes.
[00:04:45] Speaker D: I just walked in, though, like. And while you were saying hello, Terry Davis, who is now Inga Elisha Day, was on the stage and she was just dancing a poem.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:04:57] Speaker D: That was the way I thought about it. I was like. And the audience was just enthralled. She finished just roaring applause and I was like, okay, where am I? So we got seated at full house.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Full house at the green mill. Jazz.
[00:05:13] Speaker D: We got seated at the very first. The farthest back booth by Mona. The statue by Stella. Stella. Not Mona. Stella. I'm sorry, Stella by Stella. And my friend and I got sat with Sheila Donahue, who I later went on to do lots of work.
[00:05:29] Speaker C: So you were seated together with Sheila and you didn't know her?
[00:05:32] Speaker D: We did not know each other, and it was her first time at the green mill, too.
[00:05:35] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:05:36] Speaker D: So we were both like, so Betty's.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Mouth was formed by accident.
[00:05:40] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:05:40] Speaker C: For the radio audience here.
Sheila and sin went on to do many collaborations together.
[00:05:47] Speaker D: Great. One of my favorite collaborators.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: First time?
[00:05:50] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: Was that her first time?
[00:05:51] Speaker D: It was her first time, too.
[00:05:53] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:05:53] Speaker D: So we were just sitting in this booth, like, with our mouths dropped open, going, where are we? And I went home, and I will never forget it. I'm, like, dialing because I didn't have cell phones, right. I'm dialing friends. Like, you're not gonna believe this place that I was just at, it's this. There's poetry, and it's so Sunday night, and I was just. I was alive. And so I went back the next Sunday and I had a poem, and I was a sign up for open mic, and I'd never done this before. And I got on stage and the poem was called truth.
[00:06:20] Speaker C: I know, I remember it.
[00:06:22] Speaker D: I remember truth. Like, if it was up to me, I wouldn't spell truth with a you. With you. I wouldn't spell truth with you. And I read this poem, my hands were shaking, and I looked up and you, Mark, were right on the left corner of the stage, and you were just nodding and smiling. And I finished, and the people clapped. And it was like, I call it a spiritual chiropractic adjustment, because it was like the light went through me and I was like, oh, this is where I'm supposed to be. Wow. And you were just nodding like, yep, we got her.
[00:06:57] Speaker C: You know, I. You know, it's kind of boastful to say this, but, boy, back in those early years, I had a knack to know who had it when they started up there, you know, and who wasn't going to go anywhere. And I, in my mind, I said, she's got it. You know, she's got the juice.
[00:07:17] Speaker D: I felt it. I went and I quit my job.
Now, to be fair, though, I still like money and health insurance. So the woman that I was, my best friend who came with me that first night, she had just moved to another, to Marshall Fields. She said, hey, I know you're loving doing this poetry thing. If you want, you can come and write for me three days a week, and then you could do poetry the rest of the time. Now, when you're, what, 22? Advertising money like that, three days is all you need. Like, I didn't, you know.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: But you're professional poet. After that, you get off the stage and you're professional poet.
[00:07:50] Speaker D: Exactly. I was professional poetical.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: It's interesting because I've heard Mark say it took him a while that he was the shy guy and then the construction guy, and it took him a while to find out that this is where I was supposed to be. And Tony kind of said the same thing Fitzpatrick, in his podcast said. You know, when people ask me about being an artist, I keep telling them, no, no, no. Unless it's the thing you have to be. And to hear you say it like that, like, standing there feeling it and being confident enough to go, yeah, this is it.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: It's a rare thing. You know, when you say that, it. It clicks to me that, you know, when we talked about my first time with Ralph sin clapping, it was the same thing. Like, oh, this is it. And Tony, you know, said the same. Same kind of thing.
[00:08:36] Speaker D: Yeah, it's not. It wasn't like an ego thing. Like, oh, how people are clapping. It was like, oh, this feels aligned. This feels right. What more could I find about myself?
[00:08:47] Speaker A: I still think that's a rare thing for not just poetry and the arts, just in general someone.
[00:08:51] Speaker D: I think you're right.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Being invested in something, being like, oh, this is it. This is what it is.
[00:08:55] Speaker D: I think you're right. I mean, we know clarity is priceless. Clarity about anything in our lives is priceless. And that moment was a moment of clarity. And I immediately started adjusting my life around that knowing. And the green mill, I mean, it was sun. It's. No, no surprise it was on a Sunday. It was church. It was church, and it was grad school. Like, I feel like I always thought, oh, should I go back to school? Should I get a. You know, should I get my master's? Should I blah, blah, blah. But the green mill taught us how to be poets, because at that time, I would say that the audience was probably 90% poets and 10% people that were just there to see the show. I don't know, maybe.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: No, no, that's.
[00:09:38] Speaker D: That's what it felt like.
[00:09:39] Speaker C: It probably felt like that. But what was great about the show back then was that, unlike other poetry readings where it's 90% poets. The show was made up of probably more than two thirds. It's just people there to see it, and that's what made it work, you know, and that was purposeful too, because I'd been to so many poetry readings when it was just poets reading the poets, so boring, and nobody would listen to anybody else. They came to the show back then, and still now, the reopening after Covid, there's a lot, I have to accommodate a lot more poets than I used to. But back then, back then, because, as you know, the Chicago poetry ensemble was a mainstay in there. I had to recruit them to get in the open mic sometimes to fill the spots for the open mic.
[00:10:36] Speaker D: So that makes sense.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: Yeah, but it was people, truly people, that were poetry readers, interested in poetry. And maybe, probably many of them wrote poetry too, but they were there to listen to other people and see what.
[00:10:55] Speaker A: Was happening and to see Mark get in a fight with somebody.
[00:10:58] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:59] Speaker D: All I remember is that I went every Sunday, and it was the first place that I felt safe going to alone, like, by myself, like, it was not self conscious. I was not. And there was no, I would just go open to whatever that night was gonna bring and whoever it was gonna bring, and that we, we were inspired by each other. Like you did go to listen to everybody else because you were inspired. And I would just sit there and write while they were, while they were performing. And.
And you hoped that certain people would come back, you know. Julia Cameron, have you talked about her?
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Julia Cameron.
[00:11:34] Speaker D: Julia Cameron would get on there.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: Well, artist way was there at the.
[00:11:37] Speaker D: Early years, the early years, and she would get up there and she read this one poem, and it was like her signature. I wish I could take language, and I would wrap it around you like a cool cloth. And I just, I mean, these things were like songs that you got. Like, poems became. They entered your body and they were.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Like, it sounds too that. So Chicago poetry ensemble is doing many things on stage with poems. It sounds like you were turned on by the dancing and the song quality that you mentioned. Yes, and I'm sure we're gonna get back to it. But one of the things that the slam does too, you know better than I do, but the group's pieces. So when the slam takes off, it's the individual poets at the competitions, but it's also the group pieces.
[00:12:21] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: And you formed, in my mind, what is still the best group in poetry that I've ever seen. Betty's mouth, which Gila Donahue, you already mentioned.
[00:12:29] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: So I want to get there, but. So when you start as a professional poet, working three days a week at the ad, what is that? So what's that path? Is it the green Mill every Sunday, or are you looking to branch out? You're looking for other shows you're going to publish in magazines?
[00:12:46] Speaker C: Well, they're big. The big transition there that you made. And it's interesting that you say that, because I didn't really know that you. I knew she would quit her job, but I didn't know that you quit. Quit your job.
That was. And I understand it now, because you have been a professional poet since that time, which is very different, you know, working with the ensembles I've worked with, when they're young, they want to do it, but then they make a decision. No, I've got to go the straight and narrow, and this will be my hot. My hobby. It wasn't for you. And I always make that distinction, because the same thing with me, I made it my life, which is hard because the bread ain't there, and you got to come up with ideas. And the first. The great idea that you came up with, which the story. You've heard it so many times.
I booked cin said she had this act with Mark messing. Lufa method.
[00:13:51] Speaker D: The Lufa method.
[00:13:52] Speaker C: Can we have the guest spot?
Okay.
And then they start coming in the side door with all this equipment, movie screen instruments. And I'm like, oh, my God. Because I've always already had the experience of the poet coming in with too much tech, and it's terrible. I thought, oh, my God. My friend sin. What is she doing?
And it was. It was sensation.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Wonderful.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: I'm on the. I'm on the stage. This gun is. Go to New York. Take it to New York now.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: This is so great.
[00:14:28] Speaker C: Tell us about.
[00:14:29] Speaker D: So the loofah method came about because I was going to the mill every Sunday, and then I met this musician, fell in love with this musician, Mark messing, and he just said, hey, would you record some poems for me, and I'll put music to them? And I was like, all right.
And so he. He put music to a poem called. That I wrote called the Luffa Method, which was about, literally, new skelet, new skin, come. You know, and the last line, I think, is, now under my skin, a new life begins. And so he put music to this, and he played it to me. For me. I was like, oh, wow. And another guy named Mark, I had many. Marks was listening, and he was at the Art institute. He was doing visual art, and he's like, someone said, hey, do you think you could do that live? I think it was Rob Van tile. Do you think you could do that live?
And the other Mark said, well, yeah, and I can put some pictures to it. And that was it. So I was at this multimedia group at that point. I had no idea. I just, all I knew was to keep saying yes. Just keep saying yes, because that's what makes Chicago so great. If you want to do it, there are opportunities. You have to say yes. You have to show up. You have to. And we got on stage, and it was just incredible. And that's how when I found out how much I love performing with musicians and how much I love collaboration.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Collaboration, right.
[00:15:47] Speaker D: Collaboration was really is just such a big part of my life as a poet. And in Chicago, there's always people to collaborate with. You know, I've collaborated with scientists, with healers, with painters, with photographers, you know, musicians. My favorite. Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: So that's something that, you know, the show spawned.
[00:16:07] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:16:07] Speaker C: This collaboration thing, which in the poetry world was, you know, unheard of. They were just, I'm doing my poems. And by themselves, it was very. You were very isolated. But the show always encouraged the voices coming together.
[00:16:25] Speaker D: Yes. And how beautiful harmony, like singing, you know, look how. Listen to how beautiful voices sound together. One voice is powerful, but two voices are kind of stunning. And, wow. If you can get a third voice in there, you know, who knows what could happen?
[00:16:38] Speaker A: And how do you pronounce his last name? Mark Messenger.
[00:16:40] Speaker D: Mark Messing.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Messing.
[00:16:41] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: But. So his music. It's music. And it sounds. Because I remember listening to.
[00:16:48] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: It's not a jazz band.
[00:16:50] Speaker D: It is not a jazz band. Nope.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: There's all kinds of different sounds going on.
[00:16:55] Speaker C: At one point, they even made their own instruments.
[00:16:57] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: He was on xRt late at night. Was he a dj?
[00:17:01] Speaker D: He was not. No. That might have been, yeah.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: And are you listening to Laurie Anderson at this time, or. No, you were not?
[00:17:08] Speaker D: I had no idea who Laurie Anderson was. That was kind of the zeitgeist of, you know, what happens when you're doing. When you're making stuff. There's no one's making anything that's never been made before, but there's people all around. Those vibes are coming in and someone said, oh, wow, you're kind of like Lori Anderson. I'm like, okay. And then I listened to Lori Anderson.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: I was like, she stole your stuff.
[00:17:32] Speaker D: She just put out a new album. I mean, she still talk about. You just don't retire. You keep growing and evolving. She just put out a new album.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: You guys were on, I think Seth Green produced by someone's good grace.
And that's the first time I heard your tracks with Mark. And they reminded me immediately of Laurie Anderson. Oh, geez, what's going on here?
But even that cd.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: So by someone's good grace for the audience here, that was the. The members of the very first national slam team that went to San Francisco, to Gary's.
And Seth Green recorded. Recorded that. And you recorded with Mark?
[00:18:15] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:18:16] Speaker C: I think he did one with me, too. I don't know.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: He did, yeah. Saxophone.
[00:18:20] Speaker C: Saxophone.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Now are you now. Betty's mouth has not begun yet.
[00:18:24] Speaker D: Betty's mouth has not begun yet.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: And is the national. First national poetry slam is in San Francisco with Gary Glasener.
[00:18:32] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Are we headed in that. Are we around that time yet?
[00:18:34] Speaker D: Or that might have actually happened sooner before. I can't remember.
[00:18:40] Speaker C: Before Lufa method.
[00:18:41] Speaker D: Before Luffa method. Yeah, that we flew. And 89, I think. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: So you were on the first national poetry slam championship team from Chicago.
[00:18:53] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: I'd like to hear about that. That's you. Mark is on the team. Probably coaching the team, I imagine.
[00:18:58] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Patricia Smith is on the team. And Dean Hacker.
[00:19:02] Speaker D: Dean Hacker, yes.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: How did that come about for you?
[00:19:05] Speaker D: Foursome.
[00:19:05] Speaker A: Cause part of the show, we cross check lies as well.
[00:19:08] Speaker C: We've heard marks.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: We've heard Mark's version.
[00:19:11] Speaker D: Okay, here's my memory of it. I was the lucky one who actually just got asked to be on the team by Mark. I didn't have to. I mean, I was slamming. I was doing slams at the Green mill.
But Patricia, I think, won a slam.
[00:19:27] Speaker C: Patricia had won the poem to Osaka.
[00:19:30] Speaker D: Osaka. So that's what she got on it. And then Dean, I think, actually won the slam.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: Dean, we put through the. He went through a rigorous.
[00:19:38] Speaker D: Dean was the one who had to really earn.
[00:19:40] Speaker C: Had like a citywide.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Dean Hacker, the cowboy poet.
[00:19:43] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:44] Speaker C: Citywide competition.
[00:19:46] Speaker D: So it was big for him.
[00:19:47] Speaker C: And he'd never traveled.
[00:19:49] Speaker D: No. He's like the kindest human being in the world. What a great.
[00:19:53] Speaker A: But his stage is he's this big, rough, tough cowboy. Long hair, kind of.
[00:19:58] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: So you got your team, you're headed out to San Francisco, and what's that experience like?
[00:20:04] Speaker D: Well, I mean, it's just like the green mill on Sundays, but on steroids. Because here's New York. Here's Gary Glasener and Bob Holman, who were like, San Francisco and New York. So you see that okay, we've got this thing in Chicago, and they're doing it in these other cities. But the thing that I remember was that Chicago, we brought this collaborative vibe, this. We worked together, and that it was not this kind of cutthroat competition that I felt from New York and from San Francisco. I could be wrong, but that was my memory, was that there was just a joy that we had. Now I do remember, I mean, nobody has joy for poetry like Gary Lasner. I mean, I remember he was just like, what? He was like, we gotta do this bigger. We gotta do this more.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: But he was a carnival barker.
[00:20:52] Speaker D: Totally, totally. So seeing the similarities, but also seeing what I felt, I mean, it was just pride in being on the slam team front.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Chicago, you know, you guys were better than everybody else.
[00:21:02] Speaker D: We were better. We won.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: How many teams were there?
[00:21:04] Speaker D: There was just a three.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Just a three?
[00:21:05] Speaker C: Well, it was actually two teams. A team from San Francisco and team from Chicago.
Bob sent one poem, one poet. So it was only a single poet.
[00:21:16] Speaker D: Was it Jimmy Santiago Bacon?
[00:21:18] Speaker C: No.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Paul Beatty.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: He came.
[00:21:20] Speaker D: Patricia blew him away. We just blew him away at every point, like, whoever. There was nothing. It wasn't really a competition because we.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: No, because we had something so different than all the rest of them.
[00:21:32] Speaker D: We did.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: We did.
[00:21:33] Speaker D: You could tell that, okay, that that heat mark had. This was first. Chicago was first, because we had found a groove. We'd found a style. We'd found a way to be on stage with poetry that was new and different.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: They were kind of performers just like, you know, maybe the beats were more outgoing, everything. But what was different in Chicago is that, like you said, every week you would learn new technique that you just learned from off the stage. So performance poetry from Chicago had turned into a very. To a craft. Instead of just instinctive or just your natural, personal, outgoing personality. We learn from each other. Oh, yeah.
And it showed at that thing because we blew them away.
[00:22:26] Speaker D: It's like good writers are good readers, right? And so good performers are good listeners. Like you. You learn and you listen to everybody and you're absorbing that. And then you're practicing your own craft and you're getting up there and you're doing an open mic and you're practicing what's working, what's not working, what's the audience responding to, what's not true. So.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: And they took the model home with them. Then when Bob goes back to New York, he starts building the show he.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Had just built up, started his slam. But it, you know, it started to cook.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: After that, you know, and, yeah, they. We gave everybody in that room the blueprint, a taste of what could happen. And I'm sure many people we don't even know carried it back to their.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: So you got all that steam. You come back to Chicago.
[00:23:13] Speaker D: What I remember, and this is a personal thing that doesn't have anything to do specifically with poetry, was when I got off the plane and we were, like, flying, mark messing was waiting for me, and he had told me that my grandmother had died. And before I left for San Francisco, I actually went to see both my grandmothers. One of them was in the hospital, really sick with pneumonia, and the other grandma, my dad's mom, I went to visit her, and she was. You know, she gave me $5, as she always did when I left, you know, have fun in San Francisco. I'm so proud of you. And she was the grandma that had passed, so I couldn't quite believe it. I would have expected my other grandma to pass, but it was my grandma who was so vibrant and alive and.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: What's her name?
[00:23:56] Speaker D: Angie.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Angie.
[00:23:57] Speaker D: Angie Solanche. Yes.
[00:23:59] Speaker C: I remember that moment so clearly. Cause they postponed telling you while you were there.
[00:24:04] Speaker D: Yes. They didn't want to.
[00:24:05] Speaker C: You found out in. At O'Hare Field, where you from? Concourse c. I think you walk through that thing with the flashing lights. It's the same.
Same thing. There's a big corridor, and that's where you found out. I remember walking with you when I think they probably called you or something.
[00:24:21] Speaker D: Mark was waiting there. Mark messing me the news, and I was like. I just couldn't believe it because I kept saying, wait, grandma, grandma, selach. And. And he was really. He didn't know what he's like. I should have. You know, it had happened, like, the day before, two days before. He's like, I didn't want to call you, which I was grateful for.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:38] Speaker D: Because it wouldn't have changed anything. And. But, yeah, so that's the thing I really remember, was walking. No, she was a lovely. She was such a supporter. Unconditional love. So, yeah, it's a good memory because she gave me that five before I went to San Francisco.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: It was the $5.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: And now that you mention that, Lufa method probably did start before that. Because the next Lufa method, because Luffa method had so many performances every year, they would maybe two or three a year. The next one you did was about your grandma. Right.
[00:25:15] Speaker D: We ended up turning the theater into a dark room. The whole theater. I don't. We were working. We were collaborating with a photographer and I had, we, we made giant murals of her photographs, but we didn't expose them yet, so they weren't put in developing fluid. We had them rolled up in these light sealed tubes.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:36] Speaker D: And during the piece, I read this poem about her, and we unrolled this, what looked like just a plain white poster, and then poured buckets of developing fluid over it. And we had safe lights in all of the lights. And so her image would come up.
[00:25:52] Speaker C: And she's doing the polymer image stuff.
[00:25:54] Speaker D: Which has come up, and then we would turn the lights on, and then, as it would with a photograph, it just goes to black with music going up, too. That was the kind of stuff you could do in Chicago. And you collaborate.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:07] Speaker D: But the other thing I remember about that night coming back from the slam is I was crushed and broken, but I thought the only place I could go is the slam. I can. I have to go to the green mill that night, and I can't be there. And so I went and Patricia Smith, she was there. Patricia. And she just, like, I feel like she just read poems to heal me and helped me through that night. And it just. It was going to be okay. Yeah, it was going to be okay.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: They used to call it the slam family.
[00:26:33] Speaker D: The slam family, yeah, definitely.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: A lot of these stories are early on, and I think, yes, some of the stuff you guys started to gather and the feelings and the support as the generations went on, we're still there, like in the nineties, late nineties, 2000. It's different than the descriptions we've had from people that come in.
[00:26:53] Speaker C: Pre slam family and slam dysfunctional family. Also like a true family.
[00:26:58] Speaker D: Don't know what you're talking about.
Thank you. Thank you, Mark.
[00:27:08] Speaker E: So, first piece, aging gracefully.
When I was 20, my superpower was being 20.
I could fly at 4 hours of sleep a night, leap tall freshman in a single bound with nothing to eat but sugarless gumballs, break through bad grades with a semester of ease. Classes.
When I was 30, my superpower was poetry and music and Sunday nights at the green mill and boys named Mark and being blonde and then a redhead. And then a blonde and then a redhead.
When I was 40, my superpower was women. Sleeping with them, fighting with them, writing poems about them, then moving in with them and sleeping with them and fighting.
[00:28:01] Speaker D: With them and writing more poems about them.
[00:28:04] Speaker E: When I was 50, my superpower was motherhood.
Waking each day to tiny fish shaped pretzels and tiny fish shaped crackers and tiny fish shaped pasta and a newfound ability to cut greenhouse grapes perfectly in half with scissors, and to get my son to do anything by singing the instructions. Leo, time to go. Snow pants, boots, coat, gator hats, gloves, and backpack.
[00:28:36] Speaker D: After that.
[00:28:43] Speaker E: At 62, my superpower is love for myself, but for everyone, really. Even if you piss me off, I'll get over it. I've had that much therapy.
It's being young enough to enjoy being old enough. It's being more sacred than scared, drinking more water than wine. And when I wake up and I find joy staring me in the face, toss it off like a blanket, I pull it on like a cape.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: You've been listening to through the mill, our podcast about the poetry slam. My name is Mark Elleveld. I'm the editor of the spoken word revolution books. Emily Kalvo is here with us. She named the podcast. It's an anthology she's been working on since the early nineties. We're here with Mark Kelly Smith, the founder of Poetry Slam. We're going to be bringing some podcasts and shows to you to hear the origin stories from a bunch of different poets and a bunch of different organizers. Our director Hugh's over there in the corner. I hope you had a good time and we'll talk to you soon.
