I love being a poet. Not trying to sound arrogant and self important, but I’m good at just about everything that I do. Poetry is what I love. However, there are people in Atlanta who make it increasingly hard to enjoy doing what it is that I love to do.
Whenever I run into people I used to see all the time out on the poetry scene, I LOVE it when they ask me, “Damn, you still on the scene? I haven’t seen you in a LONG time.”
What makes it funny is because in the past year, I think there’ve been maybe 3 or 4 weeks that I haven’t been out doing poetry. So if I’ve been out more than 45 weeks over the past year and they haven’t seen me, then what does that tell you?
What I really wanna ask is, “Did you miss me? Exactly how long did it wake for you to realize that I wasn’t there? What made you realize I was gone? Did you miss my poetry or did you miss the massive amount of space I take up? Or maybe, you just realized that you haven’t seen me just now when you saw me. “
Actually, what I really want to ask is, “Do you really care?” I haven’t been in Madagascar, so its not like I’ve been particularly hard to find. Several of them have my phone number, yet my phone never rang. My email address is pretty much widely known, I haven’t gotten any email. Hell, I can’t get some of these mofos to return the email I send THEM.
I’ve expressed this to many people over the years and most of them have the same opinion: “They’re jealous of me. They’re afraid that I’m going to steal all of their glory.”
As wonderful as that sounds, I refuse to be colluded into thinking that’s the explanation. The reason is that they just don’t CARE. Its one thing to be hated on, but its another thing to be disregarded: to stand in the presence of your peers and to have them not hear a word you’ve said. This past Sunday (4/17/05), one of the poetry “big wigs” came out to Java Monkey to pass out fliers for one of their events. What? SURELY you didn’t think he came there to actually listen to poetry, did you? In the time he was there, he didn’t look up at the stage one time (At least when I glanced over at him). Every time I saw him, he was more interested in what was going on with his palm pilot that with the poetry that was going on. I could be wrong because I was actually listening to what was being said on stage. This lady named Tommie sang this really wonderful song about getting a new set of dreams. I think I’m gonna write a poem about the same subject. But I digress.
I just wish that most of these numbskulls who do all this talking about unity among poets in Atlanta would come down off of their high horses and actually begin to practice what they preach.