Comment's on Komplex's Blog

Joined : 03 Jan 2007 Posts : 1617 Localisation : Illadelph

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ARTICLE BELOW - from www.writerblocks.com

“Who told you to quit your day job?”
by Komplex

Now understand I came up with cats like The 5th L when it was 5 of us (Sir Reigns, Native Son, Droopy, The Drifish and myself) and 13 of Nazareth, Jason Reynolds and Myisha Cherry, Jahipster, Da Minista, 3rd Eyesis, Writeous, GodChild the Omen, Ainsley Burrows, Gerren Liles, Tehut-9, Jamal St. John and a few more that I can't think of right now cause I'm tired but these were cats I heard early and I was like WOW these cats can write!!!!! The command of the language! the delivery! the wordplay! the concepts! Hearing them, It took me a while to appreciate my own writing the way even some of them as my peers appreciated it. I put time into writing…for hours till I fell asleep in mid thought dreaming I was spitting hot fiyah but waking up jus drooling warm saliva. Making sure that my stuff sounded different…like me and not like anyone else and making sure I was innovative in some way- clever word usage or word play or concept… that was me in 99 and the early 2000's. Not to mention the fact that I have been writing since I was in 7th grade…over half my life.

Now that I am a veteran in my own right in this game, it is annoying as hell to see so many newcomers who have no respect or understanding for this art form. Jus cus you write poetry don't make you a poet. And who told you to quit your day job? WHY? I say WHY does everyone have CD's and books and is on the "grind"? for what? Who told you to do that? Yo real recognize real and I'm looking around like where are your battle-scars? (To quote my boy Kirk Nugent) Where are the receipts for the dues you've paid? I mean for real I'm hearing folks on stage at the open mic and they are announcing their cd release and I'm like really? Who the hell wants to hear that again? And some of y'all bold too…call yourself "hustling" with crazy swagger jus asking folks "You got my cd yet?" Yet? I'm like nah I'm waiting for a text message from this dude Lu letting me know that the ice-capades will be held in Hades this summer. As soon as I get that text, you can have my ten dollars. So jus wait, it should be any millennium now.

Please don't ask me to buy your CD. If I wanted it, I would ask you for it. And as of right….now….don't ask me what I thought of that poem unless you don't mind getting your feelings hurt cus y'all messing up the game and I aint biting my tongue to spare your feelings when you didn't bite your tongue to spare my ears of some alphabet assembly that sounds like you colored it in 5th grade. Rookies! y'all need to fall back and get seasoned, study the game, the craft, question urself- am I really good at this? Why? What makes me good? How can I be better? Am I contributing to the craft or just leaching off of it? Cus you all flooding the scene with coaster (I mean CD's, tho they might as well be coasters) that compromise the progression of the art. Some of y'all's stuff is just a recorded headache.

Please stop listening to everyone's encouragement. That's how cats end up in American Idol outtakes. Find someone who actually knows something about poetry to give you a good opinion, not the 73 year old deacon at your church hollerin some "Let the LORD use you!" That was not a sign from GOD that you are anointed to do this, at most that just means you can read & write. Congratulations but that don't make you hot. No you don't spit raw fiyah!!

Every poetry scene needs its open micers, the rookies and newbies who jus started writing or performing and still get nervous and mess up and get excited just to have someone listen to you and clap for you. I appreciate you sharing no matter how basic and if you reading off paper that's cool with me I will listen and applaud if I feel you but why do you have an album coming out next week and you are recording a DVD and submitting your video tape to Def poetry Jam when you only have two poems memorized and have only written 10…in your whole life? You are an open micer yo! Give urself time to grow for real cause every open micer aint a feature and jus cause u write poetry…don't make you a poet.

Joined : 07 Jan 2007 Posts : 596 Localisation : over philly

i am both hearing this and nodding and hating on it at the same time.

i can't stand when mediocrity is celebrated. constructive criticism is a very very good thing.

but i also can't stand when people look down their noses at others, and that's the tone of this rant.

Joined : 23 Jan 2007 Posts : 181

Like Glory I agree with some of the ideas expressed here but disagree with a number of them as well. I will give the brotha this...he is a proven talent. I've never been impressed with name dropping and to be honest it's not even required, his reputation proceeds him. I will say this though, sometimes as an artist out there on your constant grind you do get frustrated when you see someone being featured as a favor not because of talent. I've actually been to spots and slept through someone's feature. Some spots I've went to and rolled up before or after the feature and turned that person's feature into a footnote. When you're out there hungry and paying dues and somebody who just started writting last week puts out a cd you're like scratch

. I believe a featured speaker should be on another level. Someone experienced that we can learn from, who's work is passionate, someone versitile, someone worth paying to see. For open mic who cares. It's like the difference between something being your hobby and your career or entry and executive level to me. I'm not saying everybody can't do their thing...hell I say do you. Enjoy your art but don't ask me what I think of your last piece if you're not ready to hear what I have to say about it. Or don't ask me what I think if you're just gonna go away and write a hate piece about me for telling you the truth. Then I'll be forced to write a truth piece that squashes you if I think you matter enough.

I agree with Komplex on that American Idol comment too. Sometimes folks let that one person who likes their work pump them up too much. Then they think they don't have to work hard. Egos bigger than side by side pics of me and my moms afros, to quote myself. Then that same poet rolls up to a slam with their entourage. That same night I happen to be there taking my before slam corner tilt, sitting a table away from Queen and Queen Sheba, and look over to the bar to see Lamar Hill and Taalam Acey sippin' on watered down ass drinks while FreeSpirit and Droopy bus' it up over their college days, Dry Fish and Native Son sell cds, while Sonya Renee laughs at the opening comedian with damn near the same giggle as Keisha just as Sam I Am and Chris Creme get up to take their final before slam puff and pass the Philly Youth Slam team in a cypher by the door with Jake and Ryan and we're all their for the slam. Come on now....you've all seen them. Then after I win (hahaha...it's my story damnit! But that would be a hellified slam Yo. Could you imagine. The strategies, the fire spitting, the wordplay, the concepts, the techniques. Damn I can't wait to have this baby.) Anyways like I said...after we all tied the rookie poet gets all mad and pissy and says how the slam was bootleg. Yadda Yadda Blah blah blah. No humility. To that poet I say Evil or Very Mad

That's the poet that gets under my skin. The poet with their ass on their back. Their's always somebody better on any given day. Believe me.

Anyways, to Komplex I'd say, hey just don't buy the cd. Hahahaha. Lots of poets aren't really ready for product but it's what they do afterwards that matters. Do they learn from it or just say some shit like 'Erybody hatin on me cause they know I'm better then them. That's why they don't wanna buy my product and they sabatogin' me cause they jealous.' Hmmmm. But that's all on them. Peace!

Joined : 03 Jan 2007 Posts : 1617 Localisation : Illadelph

Covered a lot of ground

good read

Subject: Re: Comment's on Komplex's Blog Tue Jun 24, 2008 9:04 pm

Shamelss plug and shout out...

Before I get to the meat and potatoes here (about Komplexs' part), I must give props and congrats on both her marriage and baby to The Whisper in her passage because she came to Warmdaddys and won $1000.00 over someone she named in her passgae and, yes, I got a call from someone else named in her passage claiming our slam that The Whisper WON $1000.00 dollars at - was -as she put it - "BOOTLEG." I was offended by the remark and was f-ing glad tht The Whisper won (how much...? Damn!! ONE THOUSAND BOOTLEG DOLLARS) and then took pictures and blasted it all over our site. I respect everone named here and not named here. But don't lose a slam - get your poems handed to you on a dixie cup and then cry foul - or "bootleg" when all you want to do iis posture in the pulpit, push cd's and bounce. That I don't and can't respect you for.

Now, for our regularly scheduled program...

I will not condone nor cosign much myself. As I am humbled by my own beginnings and my path to the level that I have achieved in this art form.

I take pride in others accomplishments that have strengthend mine and as an educator at Temple University where I teach poetry, I can respect Komplex's opinion and points that he made. At the same time, I must respect and encourage everyones beginnings. WE ALL DID WHAT THEY DO/DID at some point. WE ALL WERE NEW.

I rememeber Komplex hustlin' his CD (while I was in Baltimore one night years ago - and will remind him of this if I have to) in the same fashion he descirbes. I did it too. I was proud. Everyone should be.

At the same time...and here is where I agree with his "American Idol" referrence when they dub themselves poets and spoken word artists. But then, years form now, we will look at them and say: "My - you have grown..." to be respected. And that's all they want...and have to earn. That's all I wanted - was to be respected for what I do...and (by some) today I am. Because everyone that smiles in your face - damn sure ain't yo' friend.

Koplex stated: "Just because you wrote a poem , doesn't make you a poet."
MMMMM?! I asked this question (as I do in every class room...) while lecturing at Southern University of New Orleans almost 10 years ago and the same question 8 years ago at University of Hawaii where I was a guest lecturer and panelist for a symposium:

'If a person writes a poem in their journal and no one ever reads it (to know that it is there), does that poem make the individual a poet?'
And the debate ensued. So, think of the tree falling in the woods without a witness to the noise that it makes. That sound coming from the wilderness that we fail to hear as it communes with the ground.
Just as the sound coming from the persons mouth in the venue that we witnessed reading a (WHAT?) poem. Thereofre, techincally, they are a poet and the tree did make a sound.
Maybe not according to KOMPLEX (?) But in my book, they are. One poem or a million - you are a poet once someone calls you a poet. Just as any other profession in life.

I will not applaude mediocracy nor will I co-sign a poorly delivered poem that may have been written well. I will, instead - if the opportunity presents itself - ask questions and listen to the motivation behind the answer and the "birth" of their art and encourage them to read other poets and write daily or more often than they do.

Komplex makes valid points about paying dues. I recall being referred to as an elder in the presence of one poet that he named and he thought that I didn't hear his line of questions as to "...why I was being referred to as such...?" I am considerably older than he is..almost old enough to be his father and the person who made the ref to me being an elder clarified his statement and defended it as well (as I listened from behind them) when he stated: "k/d has been writing for over 33 years (at the time) and he has studied under the best...the Last Poets, Kimmika Williams, Lois Moses, Ed Shockley, praised by Nikki Giavonni and Kent Forman (oops - name dropping) to name a few, and he teaches, so he knows his stuff..." Then the brother came to me and said "Damn k/d, I didn't know that you were in the game that long..." We talked more about it and kept it moving.

One thing that I was taught early is that "Respect will get you into places where knowledge wont." Therefore, I know that there are bettter performers, poets and better writers out there as well. If we start guaging our own (personal) success on theirs, we will either choke and ride the bench or become motivated to get in the game and go hard. Michael Jordan go cut his first year on the courts...Bruce Lee took an ass whippin too. So who the hell are any of us to tell any person not to or when to take pride in there personal accomplishments?

When your name becomes GOD and I see you at the Pearly Gates, then I will submit unto YOU - but until then. Rememeber:
Humble pie comes in many flavors. I hope that anyone who disagrees is hungry when it comes their way.

FYI: This marks my 38th year since I learned what poetry and a poem is - from my late mother. May she rest in peace.
Cheryl E. Morris 9/23/45 - 5/23/08
"Not every poem ends with an applause."

k/d/morris

Joined : 15 Jan 2008 Posts : 30

Subject: Re: Comment's on Komplex's Blog Wed Jun 25, 2008 11:59 am

Joined : 08 Jan 2007 Posts : 406