FAN MAIL!

this email made me cry:

Hi Christa Bell! My name is Hannah Mary Tennent, my favorite food is cookie dough, I live in Albuquerque, and my favorite Starburst flavor is pink. I hate normal introductions like my age (13) and what I look (beautiful, hee hee) so now you know me pretty well. I just wanted to tell you how inspired I was by your porfromance in the Abq Poetry Slam. If you remember me I am the girl who came up to you in The Flying Star. I have always written poetry, but this was my first experiance with Slam Poetry. Now when I get older I want to be a slam poet, National Poet Laurite, be in a band, and change the world. The latter 3 have always been some of my aspirations. I just wanted to write this to you, because when I am famous I want to have people write to me (especially 13 year old girls) just to let to me know that they love me. So i just wanted to let you know how great you are. Enough praise for tonight, huh?

Adios,
Hannah (Veggie) Tennent

speaking of underground...

did a little archaeological dig into my performance roots last night. my dad, pastor J.B. SR., is up from san francisco this week preaching at one of the churches i grew up in. i haven't seen him preach in years but i saw last night how thoroughly i've bitten his style...the message was "what has god done for YOU and what has it moved you to DO?". i don't remember where the text came from, but it had something to do with king david living in a house of cedar while the spirit of god was housed in a tent and then david deciding to build a real house (allegedly the very first one) for god.

before he even cracked open the word, he began by telling these "believe it or not" type stories about his own relationship to god and the miracles he's most recently witnessed. out of five of the miracles, at least two included people being raised from the dead. of note, because he is notoriously sexist, is that all the prophets he talks about are women. and also, i don't remember him saying anything about anyone going to hell this sermon.

he's an amazing storyteller with PERFECT comic timing. his use of repitition is genius and he's a master at improvisational storytelling. the major difference between our styles is he tends to pace the pulpit, while i stay in one place behind the mic. we both, like to look cute on stage (he was resplendent in head to toe white, including a very handsome silver goatee on his usually clean shaven chin), we LOVE to talk about ourselves, and we have the same sense of drama (i.e. build to climax with strong endings.)...

the congregation, especially the women judges, gave him straight tens!...more later...christa

Shayne L. Koyczan...making losing worth while...

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

--The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams (as quoted in "Visiting Hours" by Shayne L. Koyczan)

so as a consolation prize for LOSING THE NATIONAL POETRY SLAM ON A TIME PENALTY shayne koyczan (2000 National Poetry Champion, from vancouver, b.c.) gave me his brand new unreleased-to-the-public book of poetry entitled "visiting hours"...it's wonderful so far...and almost worth losing for...and speaking of losing...

today on the way to hugo house to check-out some new (to me) poetry, a middle aged-state-representative-look'n black man, on the #11 bus, wearing light blue loafers, and a red white and blue sweatshirt, with the words USA! emblazoned across his chest looked at me with a smile and said, "we have a long way to go in this life...don't you ever give up!"...and i asked him why he told me that and he said, "because it's true", and i got off at the next stop and cried and cried and cried...i've been so stressed out rehearsing and competing over the last couple of months, and the wave of depression that accompanied the cry was a wonderful release...

when i first began performing, imani uzuri, my best friend, told me to be extremely conscious of the high/low mood swings that come with performing. the reason why performers often use mood altering substances is because they don't know what to do with the lull that comes after being on stage. the attention and even adulation that comes with giving a solid performance is intense, such a rush and SO addicting! seriously, the way i imagine meth might be...so the trick is to just BE with the low. observe it. don't react to it...just let whatever comes up, come up. emotions are transitory, they don't last forever...get through without trying to change the way it feels...

have a show tonight, must get ready...more later...christa

STILL UNDERGROUND

that's what i like to say about my kuh-razy nationals experience (8/9-8/13) in beautiful abq, new mexico.
in summary...mercury (the trickster planet) was retrograde like a mf in my world last weekend! out of 74 teams and two hundred seventy some-odd poets, i placed first in the indies semi-finals (with "untitled" -aka romantic archetypes- and "for bashir"...what the seattle team calls my "B" pieces) and scored highest in the last round on the indies finals stage (with "the too much" and "word medicine") but received a TIME PENALTY for the latter, for going, i think, ten seconds over time. which, truth be told, i actually deserved because on the finals stage you get an additional ten seconds OVER the normal ten second grace period, which means i was 20 seconds over time! (AND STILL UNDERGROUND!)

i was given several pieces of advice/words of wisdom by some of my favorite poets:

rives: (the first poet i spoke with after the bout, in between me banging my head on his chest and screaming WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???!)...christa, he said, i can tell you what you should do, even though you won't listen to me. don't think about it (the time penalty) EVER again...just keep it move'n...

roger bonair-agard : WHY did you lose? that is the question...were you ready to win? (and then he told me this beautifully empathetic story about his loss in 1997 at the nuyorican and how it ultimately served his writing)

bryonn bain (by email): is your soul power any less because you didn't fit into a time box? (and then he called me champion:0)

etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc...after the bout two beautiful women who sat in front of me during the team finals (who's names and exact words i will type up when i get home) wrote me compliments so amazing i cried. and the women loved me. all of them. and i felt it. so blessings...and thank you...



JANEAN LIVINGSTON (powerful!) and ANIS MOJGANI (deserving!) tied for first place and RAGAN FOX (who is HILARIOUS!!!) was second. with the time penalty, i placed third. CONGRATS TO ALL SEVEN OF THE POETS WHO MADE THE FINAL STAGE! WE RIPPED IT!!

ok...i'm over it now...i wanna shout out all the folks who gave me love throughout the weekend especially the seattle slam team: roberto ascalon, mat gano -rhymes with draino-, rajnii eddins, daemond arriendale and karen finneyfrock!), also louder arts and central jersey, my cousin will BELL, tai freedom ford, mo brown, michael cirelli (who wasn't able to make it out this year but who sent me love every day!), liz straight, and sonya, veronica and team oklahoma who were lodged next door to me at the hotel blue and who provided libations for my ancestor and goddess alters throughout the weekend (rum and vodka!). ALSO, not enough can be said about the phenomenal job that abq did in organizing this massive event! from accomodations, promotions, marketing (is that the same thing?) and venues, they did an absolutely OUTSTANDING job and should be used as a model for how to run a national event. BLESSINGS to the land for hosting us, BLESSINGS to the indigenous ancestors of the region. thank you for holding our spit.

ok. NOW WHAT THE HELL WAS ALL THE DRAMA ABOUT?

team finals hosted by karen finneyfrock and dasha kelly...the winners are announced from the stage;
in fourth place TEAM HOLLYWOOD! (yaaaaay!)
in third place TEAM FORT WORTH! (wooohoooo!)
in second place TEAM CHARLOTTE (yesssss!)
and in first place........(drumroll)....TEAM ALBUQUERQUE!!!!!!
and the sold out crowd of 2400 people goes bananas!!
it's the first time in the history of the national slam that the home team has won and they performed beautifully. the audience is whooping and clapping like crazy, abq is taking their bows and then...wait!...what's going on behind them???...members of teams charlotte and hollywood are standing with their arms crossed into X's in front of their chests in protest of abq's win!!..the stately queen sheba of team charlotte steps to the mic and indignantly says something that ends with, 'you all (abq) have no home training...' and, apparently, she wasn't alone in this belief...more to come...stay tuned!....(i believe members of team hollywood and hopefully of team charlotte are composing letters explaining their interpretation of events. will post or link when they becomes available)...OVERALL IT WAS A PHENOMENAL WEEKEND! more later...christa (like shirley, unbought, unbossed and STILL UNDERGROUND!)