Anis Mojgani at Pix

A roommate and I went to see Portland local Anis Mojgani at Pix Patisserie last night. Mojgani won titles in the National Individual Poetry Slam in 2005 and 2006. He has also been on Def Jam Poetry.

It was apparently supposed to start at eight, but the whole thing felt a bit more like a concert, sluggish to start, everybody squished up against walls because the place was so packed. The event got barely a whisper in the Mercury, but it was cool, as even Mojgani pointed out, to see so many people come out to a poetry reading. The fact that it was free probably had no effect on attendance, of course.

Pix is a nice place, medium light on bright walls, tasty desserts, a fine selection of beers to be drunk, seating for maybe 30 people, and yet it held about 75-100 for Mojgani.

The evening started off (if there are "openers" at poetry readings, and not just self-aggrandizing organizers) with a fellow who worked at Pix, and had, lo and behold, organized the reading. His poetry was fine, but his voice fell into what we've generally deemed "the slam voice." This sort of snivelling, raspy voice which sounds like it's aiming to make every word sound like it could save the world and is constantly struggling to find and stress a rhythm and a cadence in their poems, which don't really require them to be found or stressed. White poets love this voice.

Mojgani, on the other hand, got up with a sort of surprised, quiet demeanor that immediately filled every corner of the room with his presence. He was humble, collected and jovial with the crowd, continually mentioning how surprised he was that everyone came out. In short, he seems much more like a writer than a performer; throughout the reading, he was able to trick and divert the energy of the crowd, but ultimately didn't feel totally comfortable holding on to it.

That sounds as if it might be negative, but it is very much a compliment, this demeanor only added to Mojgani's spontaneous, precarious, almost lilting style. His whole body was an effective part of the performance, fingering his arms as he mentions veins, his arms and head flailing frenetically about to illustrate certain points. Where those movements could have seemed stilted or overdone, they worked perfectly to emphasize every phrase of his poetry (which has a sort of child-like, star-gazing quality,) illustrated well in the poem ""Here Am I,"

Let your smile twist / like your heart dancing precariously on my fingertips / staining them / like that high school kid licking his Sharpe tip / writing / "I was here / I was here, muthafucka / And ain't none of y'all can write that in the spot I just wrote it in / I am here, muthafucka / And we are all here, muthafucka / and we are all muthafuckas, muthafucka / because every breath I give / brings me closer to the day that my mother may die / because every breath I take / takes me a second further from the moment she caught my father's eye.

In this respect, one of the reasons Mojgani is heads above other poets is his voice. It's his own. He sounds like an unsure, geeky teenager, and he knows it, so he doesn't shy away from that, he utilizes it, makes it work for him, and with the poetry he writes. This tends to be true of all really great slam poets, they don't try to sound like everyone else, or to sound like some ideal of how poetry should sound, they merely find and nurture their own voices, (both written and spoken) and Mojgani has done this to powerful effect.

Each piece performed works as a sort of love poem shouted out to the world, delicate but strong. This is what makes Slam Poetry such a different beast than written-to-be-read-quietly poetry, (and what makes my quoting it on here so silly) the source material is so manipulated by the performer, made so pliable as to suit the audience, and to ensure they have a more powerful experience than simply reading these poems would provide.

four rats

The slow sweep of the day, Golem locked in
his hard chamber. Hundreds of years in
some kind of slumber for a few hours of
Pro-Semitic, bloodcurdling pleasure,
and then it's "Back to the cold, solid loneliness
for you, dear sir, yes, indeed!"

But even the last, lingering splinters of light,
and the naked promise of warmer breezes and
light rain, whispering "Spring" at Golem, 

nudging him 

in the direction of rebirth, are somehow waylaid,
slow to the call, its back groans in the morning.

The working world awaits, so no more is Golem hiding in the dark,
but walking silent and mournful to his desk job,
shadowed in the streets by four rats squeaking sentences at passersby,
knowing full-well that the age of mythic, ghostly apparitions
is at an end, ideals once beautiful are rotten,
and the coming Spring seems suffering
from a case of Mono.

a funeral pyre of our despair

On the day my sweet Ragnar left,
our tears mushed up the words,
left them dripping off the page,
and GoogleMaps had muddled
the directions to Valhalla.
And in earnestness, we gushed a bit,
stared at our feet, made jokes,
but there was no avoiding the inevitable,
no reprise from what had come.
Our love awash, gone with the sea
from whence Ragnar came, those who explored,
and dug their mighty dragonships
into the wet sand, only to find the land of prosperity
gone horribly awry, found nothing
for which worth staying, except dear
Ragnar, who stumbled upon me while raiding a Starbucks,
a bit of plundered soy chai dribbling down his beard.
My dainty fingers met his beautiful, gnarled, dirty knuckles
and dropping a seax, he clutched my hand,
turned to his compatriots and growled in
stark, empowered affection.
He searched for work for months
to support our misinformed, ill-timed love,
had found nothing. Every potential
employer was mortified at his magnificent,
terrible visage. In poverty our affections slowly
waned, until the day I came home to find the door
shut in my face for a younger lover.
One who sported a beard and an angrier demeanor.
And so now we stood upon the shore,
lighting a funeral pyre of our despair,
constructing a raft of our loneliness,
and thus did Ragnar roar, as he wrapped his cloak
around his bulging frame and boarded his final venture
"My cup is laden with grief,
my heart is heavy. Life tires me so."
A moment passed. His mighty glaive fell
sullenly to his side. And his silent lips said
"I am obsolete."

And on the eighth day, god created irony.

Science shows homosexuality
occurs most often as a response
to overpopulation.

So, if we take that conclusion
to its logical end, the populations
with the highest rates of homosexuality

are probably Mormons and Catholics.

Our Trip to the Azores

The day I had to tell my children their mother and I were separating, I called them into the Dining Room, instructed them to come home promptly after school, that we were to conduct an important family meeting.

About what? Their eyes wide with wonder.

Unable to bring myself to tell them the truth, I fabricated a story concerning a family trip to the Azores.

The boys whooped with laughter and sprang out the front door onto the brick sidewalk, yelping and howling like Indians. I'm fairly certain they were mistaken about the location of the Azores.

By the time their mother arrived to see what all the commotion was about, the boys had raindanced their way around the streetcorner.

I informed her of my actions. She was appalled. She demanded to know what had brought me to say such a thing. She said it was devious, malicious and cruel. I told her I figured it was easier to let them be happy now and crush their spirits later. At least this way they wouldn't be apprehensive all day.

She slapped me on the face and called me a bastard.

I said that at least for the next six hours, one rotten lunch and two recesses, their dreams weren't dead like mine.