scheinbar slam

yesterday's scheinbar slam was moderated by sebastian kraemer. once more, competition was tough: i missed the finale by one vote, 13 votes for slam pro bettina, 12 for me. bettina (who also has a myspace) is swiss, too. after an evening of chatting on and off stage when neither of us could tell, we only figured that out on our way to the metro and had a good laugh in the rain. so that was one of the few moments i've spent outside here so far. i've really had it with the berlin weather. it has been raining constantly since i got here. frank kloetgen, part of the famous berliner wald, won in the end and even managed to wangle the champion's title out of julius, who you all might still remember from the wdr poetry slam tv series. the poem he performs is about a young man whose attempts to land a girl are unsuccessful. there's a really good line where he says something like: "you know how in clubs sometimes the walls sweat, so if it's all about the exchange of bodily fluids i might as well just lick a wall." also there were jan, artist christina and moritz, whose text was very well written and didn't quite receive the recognition it deserved in my opinion.

still ignoring my novel problem, i spent my day writing a second slam text and organizing a next performance in june in berlin @ the bastard slam. the text i wrote was meant to become a prose text, which it still is - just a very rhythmic one. i'm considering using it for one of the upcoming 1-page-of-prose-only competitions, too. since rhymed texts appeal to me, i suppose i'll write more of them in the weeks to come. why not collect them, string them together and call them a manuscript?

here's a clip ken yamamoto sent to me yesterday night. he's performing Seekin' the Cause by Miguel Pinero. impressive as usual.

for all of you who weren't around in april when i posted a translation of his poem Notizen bei Tagesanbruch, Notes at Daybreak, please check my post of day 26.

a long and interesting post (really!)

i've made notes for this, so that i wouldn't forget anything. basically, this post will be about last night's slam in the zurich schiffbau. i was surprised to see as many young people - not only because the weather was grand, but also because of the rather expensive admission charge of CHF 20,- (approximately € 13,-). the line-up was grand, though, including national champions like lara stoll. the event itself had a much higher budget than the two smaller slams in munich and freiburg i attended previously. of the twelve contestants who performed, only four were women. this is normal, pauline confirmed. interestingly, my mother, who accompanied me last night, noticed that female slammers approach language in a complete different way; all in all, she said, there was a lot more wordplay and creative use of language (as in: technically) among the female slammers. the topics of choice were somewhat more serious, too. my text gewissensbisse, for example, deals with a serious topic (cheating) and raised laughs only in freiburg so far. in zurich it was greeted with demure silence and earned me less applause than the more obviously funny pieces of my fellow contestants. i've been told a couple of times now that this may be due to my rather stern deliverance. i'm sure this is true, yet the irony in gewissenbisse stems from the overstated and hysterical reaction of the female protagonist who goes ballistic and who takes her random speculations all too seriously. i have to say i'm not too willing to alter my performance just so the audience will like me better. while i'm sure winning a slam would feel awesome, winning is not why i partake. i partake because i like to put my words out there and because i like talking to people without being interrupted for up to seven minutes about whatever topic i fancy. listening to harry kienzler from tübingen, who won the slam but doesn't have a blog or homepage, and all the other more experienced excellent slammers, i understood how much work lies before me if i want to pursue this. learning my text by heart alone took me what seemed like forever; those of you who know me personally know what big aversion i have with regard to repetition and learning by rote. speech or voice training, on the other hand, which seem to be common tools, too, appeal to me more. many slammers seem to have their roots in acting - see simon chen, who delivers his texts absolutely professional and extremely listener-friendly. the slam was moderated well by rayl patzak and ko bylanzky who give their version of the evening here. you'll notice that i'm listed there with a stage name, annina van arx. honestly, i'm not sure whether i should stick with it. it's an altered version of my grandmother's maiden name von arx, that i thought of a while ago. following various pieces of advice, i took it on as a stage name for the slam yesterday night. while i got mostly good reactions to the name, i'm skeptical. i've always been concerned about authenticity, so 'hiding' behind a pseudonym feels awkward. perhaps i'll just have to get used to it first?

after an edifying evening, then, my personal highlight of the night waited in my electronic mailbox: joachim sartorius praised my translation of his poem So viele Wörter ich jetzt esse, stating he liked it very much. needless to say i deeply, deeply appreciate his commendation. for the original and my translation, see the post of 19 april 2007 below below or listen to it here.

small slam gallery

so... how did it go?

just a quick post about yesterday's poetry slam @ cafe atlantik in freiburg:

for me, it went really well. i performed gewissensbisse and to my surprise the jury voted me into the finale. my first poetry slam finale, that was. as competition was tough (pauline füg and tobias heyel as a duo, tommy tesfu, and lars ruppel amongst others), i hadn't expected that to happen at all. indeed, if i had, i had brought along another second text but Die Resignation. i wasn't in the mood for reading it and it proved to be an absolutely wrong text for a poetry slam finale, too. from now on, i'll bring along different stuff. just like on saturday at the kiezmeisterschaft, for a second time i got the impression that the audience clearly prefers funny texts. while i can understand that, i think there's a latent danger (not experienced enough yet to call it trend) to confuse poetry slams with stand up comedy events. good that sebastian 23, who moderated the slam, could keep the audience in good humor. in the end it was tommy tesfu who came first with a piece on madonna and her mad black-baby-adopting-antics.

i brought my camera along and took pictures, some of which i'll post here on sunday.

day 34

i'm a little consumed with def poetry at the moment. for all of you who are not from the states and need an idea of what i'm talking about, play the steve coleman video below. it's just brilliant, i love his poem and how he delivers it. amazing, too, that people in the states can make a very good living of this once they've reached a certain level of fame. i'll have to see whether there's a chance to grab some old episodes of def poetry at ebay sometime. but before that i will have to attend to my word count. [only why do i always read word CUNT?] Not True, or Only in Parts, by the way, became more of a battle rap than anything else - i'll have to work on that some more.

been there, done that, got the button

check rayl's blog for a summary of the kiezmeisterschaft evening.

or see comment of sacha @ day 31 below.
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when a wicked migraine hit me around 4.30 pm yesterday afternoon, i briefly feared for my performance in the evening. as many times before, though, two thomapyrin tablets saved my presence. after a warm welcome by rayl, i got on stage around ... not sure what time it was. must have been around 10 pm. together with a couple of previous kiez-champions, i was reciting in the second set. instead of Die Resignation, i opted for my text Gewissensbisse, which i believe was a good choice. J filmed my performance with her digital camera and will send the clip to me in the next couple of weeks. depending on how well i come across, i might even post it at youtube or so. we'll see.

including myself, 12 poets lined up. as the winner of the first jury-judged round received 27 points and i received 23, i'm content. i didn't reach the finale, but for a first performance, i think the rating i received is pretty good. also, me and marius were the only non-locals participating - everybody else knew the venue and its crew. all in all, it was a great evening and i thank my entourage of friends (aaaaw, how nice sounds that??) for coming along a zillion times!