Slammed

     Tonight I attended a local poetry slam and found out that, for me, poetry is not a sport. I had a difficult time reconciling how I feel about my work with the delivery styles of the poets I heard tonight. Snapping, clapping, and scoring were very foreign to me. Maybe it's because I was the oldest person in the room, or maybe it's because my influences are too conservative, but I didn't really identify with the slam style at all. I found their delivery interfering with my voice as I tried later to compose my own verse. I think I need to detox with some W.S. Merwin or good old Walt Whitman.