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.