"I Could Be a Poet," by TAYLOR MALI
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- Опубліковано 13 сер 2008
- Performed at the very first Page Meets Stage pairing at the Bowery Poetry Club on November 12, 2005, which featured me (Taylor Mali) and my mentor Billy Collins. I remember that this day started for me in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the end of a two-week long tour of international schools where I'd been teaching. After a frantic day of travel-thank goodness the time change worked to my advantage-the day finished sharing the stage with Billy Collins in front of a sold out crowd at the Bowery Poetry Club. As the evening progressed, you can see Billy begin to relax and enjoy himself more, chuckling in places during my poems. Special thanks to Chad Anderson for filming and editing the night.
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I've never liked poetry. Then I heard this guy and I was like WOW, he's actually saying something. As I listened I wondered why I hated poetry for my entire life. This poem has PERFECTLY described the reason why. THANK YOU, Taylor!
Haha
"...eat my verbal dust."
I just might have to pull that out during a very intense game of Scrabble with my brother.
Brilliant. Positively brilliant.
Same here. I'm supposed to be studying for a class, but one of the course materials was his "Totally like whatever, you know?" and so therefore I've decided that the course material includes that rest of his poems, all the ones I can find.
Dine on my verval dust...nicely done Taylor.
Taylor Mali, you are, my idol.
I hope to be like you when I grow up.
My poetry teacher showed us this 2000s documentary about the national poetry contest in Portland and everyone in the class was in stitches over this reading. We had just been to the Berkeley poetry slam and gotten a taste of what the cadence was. So on the nose and funny ❤
seamless description of all the artsy band-wagon dorks in my creative writing senior capstone class
Oh god I love everything about this poem. Thank you.
you are a true performer, and a guy who could change a lot of things. you just have that determination that you've built.
love you! keep up the good work!
peace and love from Belgrade, Serbia.
Love it. Simply love it.
That was one of his best, methinks.
Wicked and truthful - and talk about being in good company! Billy Collins, another master. Wish I could have been there that night.
awesome. faved.
I've just spent the last two hours becoming a huge fan of you.
What a performance!
@taylormali
Thank you for your words and light. I lost my husband in 2008, "For the Life of Me" is magic
I LOVE THIS
Love this
Love this poem too.
this is amazing.
Reminds me of Severus Snape
GENIUS.
Truly amazing and cool...
Alliteration and rhyming is not a prerequisite for poetry. As brianjeppesen points out, that was how they tried to define it for a while around the 18th-19th centuries, but going all the way back to Aristotle's Poetics, poetry is all about the aesthetics of language, and there are a lot of ways where the aesthetics of language can be expressed to enhance the overall meaning of what is being told in an artistic way.
my god, i know someone who does allll her poetry exactly like this and i could never figure out why it annoyed me so. thank you taylor. thank you.
Brilliant!
so good
he is the best
excellente
It's weird how I agree with BOTH Squallboy1 and drone81 - and I'm a poet! It's good to live in the middle :D
I am so glad I am not the only one.
Ha, I never noticed Billy Collins. That must have been an awesome reading.
I like his point. I've read poetry before and I sorta felt like I should be reading like like I have heard other authors read it. But then I was like fuck it.. Im doin it my way
wthell why can't i have a cool ass teacher like you!
I love this poem. And I can't stand all the stuff he's making fun of! Nailed it! "I....am....signing off. Now..."
SO true! :D
Awesome
@alexiscentric That's pretty much the reaction the crowd had that night, and I did think we were going to have to fight our way out of there but Taylor was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it, before or since.. The man was and is always amazing, that night, was just unbelievable...
The best
yes
so true & hilarious
man im glad u said it because i didnt want to say anything
agreed
LOL. He's been to the same readings I've been to. Odd we've never met.
I'm just saying, this wouldn't get published by any major poetry magazines...
Probably true.. It's pretty good in my memory. Hope you're doing well.. take care..
BRUTAL HAHA
@drone81 thx for that reply. yea I was exaggerating when I said that about Dickenson (also I don't claim to know much about poetry). I knew some of her stuff was published during her life but not much, most of her poems I thought were found later stashed away like they didn't really matter. High school English doesn't go too deep into the subject. I do know though that you can be artistic without an audience, and some sell out for more fans or money. Art is art no matter who sees/hears it.
aww man he left out some good lines. Is that Billy Collins next to him? Its hilarious the way he looks at Taylor at the end of the poem, like he was criticizing him the whole time!
@KaritaMcB You're not the only one.
@drone81 I've never read a Dickinson biography that didn't sketch her as a reclusive shut-in. Where have you seen this? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to prove a point. Habegger definitely puts emphasis on her unwillingness to leave the house unless it was absolutely necessary in his bio for her.
I think his best is "What Teachers Make"
hahaha awesome
this is funny because ive been to a lot of poetry readings where its been done.haha
according to wikipedia theyve performed together before
Taylor Liam = Orally Am It
how could you follow that?
@drone81 I like what you are saying except 'art is what happens at the intersection between the artist and audience, and without the audience, it's all vanity" I mean as far as poets go some of the best never did shows and Emily Dickinson never even really went out of her house.
Art is something that catches you and sticks with you, no matter how it is made. Art just is. When it hits you you know it.
Hello, Outlaw Trucker! How goes it? A video of that performance does exist somewhere. I've seen it. It's better in your memory. Trust me.
It's fuuuuny becaaause I dooo thiissss. xD
Lobsterman in Birkenstocks? Dr Zoidberg?
Where and when was this?
oh no you are not alone...
so does everybody in academia.
@KaritaMcB Same here :-)
Funny. And sadly, true.
Hey Taylor - what about the line "Glaconian, distemic, irrepscenteelia-"
Did you leave that out on purpose?
wisely hilarious
@drone81
WOW. that was amazing. this guy i know really needs to read what you just wrote. he doesn't get the message. he contradicts himself, saying "i write for myself" yet on facebook his status updates give updates about his poems and beggin for attention.
Good stuff. The old dude didn't seem to like it too much though.
taylor mali is fuckin hilarious
Billy Collins is angry there mate. Look at him fume, you've worked out his little methods. He came to my college in the UK and he called our poet laureate's work "Whimsical poems with spikes".
@alexiscentric Yea, I'd like to see it too, but I bet Taylor's right. It's probably much better in my memory.. hahaha.
Felix war hier
So you're aware that all her poems have been edited and revised by other people? In their raw form most of her poems were bad and she knew it. That's why she published so few, because she didn't want them published. They were merely exercises for her to improve her writing. She has a small number of decent works, as all aged prolific writers do, but by and large the praise she receives is unwarranted. She is a historical oddity in her peculiarity and was flaunted by those who embrace mediocrity.
Elia war nicht hier
I am a writer, eat my verbal dust...
you're right... I do enjoy this, but i wouldn't call it poetry... it is definitely art, but i would describe this more as "rapping" (don't think dr. dre or snoop dog) i'm mean talking to get a point across in an artistic way... but there is no alliteration here, or rhyme, or rhythm or stanza structure (these are all examples of poetic craft) that would make this a poem...
but like i said, it is enjoyable
poetry in itself is not mainstream... the only real mainstream poets are dead... emily dickinson, edgar allen poe, whitman, frost etc... you wont hear many ppl (unless they are real followers of poetry) mention today's big poets; sharon olds, william olsen marie howe
Elia nicht
Billy Collins almost looked spiteful at the end there.
WHY aren't the people laughing their asses off??!!
I think he's making fun of people who think they are slam poets because they follow the fashion of it. They don't have their own passion, they borrow on others. The posers, if you will lol.
I agree, but isn't that all of them?
I understand what he was trying to say, but in reality, I found it quite demeaning. I know that that wasn't what he was going for, but that's what I got out of it.
It's called satire. I find it insightful and humourous. I think if anyone cannot laugh at themselves, they've lost a large part of themselves.
lmao cuz they're 'poets' :-p
is he making fun of slam poetry? I love him, but I was just wondering...
Taylor Mali du bist so ein gemeines Gurkengesicht #hater #felixwarhier
No no, my naive friend. This is what happens when people comprehend reality.
okay im not sure if you have actually studied... because i closely researched Emily's poetry... and she's brilliant. Obviously not everyone will agree on, and enjoy the same poetry, so I understand if you do not like her poetry, but to say she "sucks" is childish, and betrays your ineptness. Her attention to rhyme, rhythm, imagery- is seemless. she counts syllables! The only flaw is- sometimes... she overdoes the hyphen.
guilty.
see, thou art one of these modern poets... you probably think fitty cent and jay-z are poets... don't get me wrong, this stuff is good, but it's slam poetry, something totally different from traditional, written work... it's performance art
I watched some of the guy's poems before and he seems like a guy who writes poetry for all the wrong reasons. He does slam poetry solely because he looks at it as competition...
Frost and Poe are amazing, but anyone who actually knows anything about poetry knows how hardcore Dickinson's writing sucks. Just because you write 5 poems a day doesn't mean they'll be any good. And Whitman is alright. But I cringe when people congratulate Dickinson just because they think they should.
Geiel. Ich nicht.
Dickinson is downright awful, and Whitman takes a lot of booze to choke down.