So, fortunately, and I guess also unfortunately (as far as my online life goes) I have been incredinly busy since I have been back in Salt Lake and haven't had a whole lot of time to update my stuff. But alas! A window of time has been found and update I shall!
Where to start... where to start...
While traveling, particularly in Houston and Austin, but also in Minneapolis (which are cities that have a very integrated slam/performance poetry community) I saw/performed at cash prize poetry slams, where basically they advertised the slam like a show or concert, charged a cover charge at the door, and gave a cut of that to the winner/winners of the slam. There are quite literally poets in Houston Texas who pay rent off of winning poetry slams. Granted, there are like five cash slams a week, but none-the-less, it happens. And that's just three cities, this goes on everywhere! So, needless to say, I started thinking, "so, if this can happen in all these other cities, why the hell can't it happen in Salt Lake?"
As soon as I got back in to SLC, me and my friend Michael started brainstorming ideas. I told him about my ideas for the slam, he was totally down, and within a week of being home we had Salt Lake City's first cash prize poetry slam (Put Your Mouth Where The Word Is) booked at Mo's Neighborhood Grill (http://www.mosbarandgrill.com/) The next three weeks went alsmost entirely in to premoting the slam, working on different projects to prepare for it, and trying to get media coverage.
After a lot of social networking, mass texting, fliering, calling, rogue reading and postering, we raised five hundred and twenty five dollars at the door! That means we had one hundred and five paying audience members, and thats not even including the probability that people snuck in without paying because there was without a doubt more than one hundred and five people there.
In short, it was a great success, it was so much fun, and if the amount of people who approached us afterwards saying that they had a great time and were definitely coming back next month come through, then those numbers will be at very least doubled!
As for me individually, I'm doing great. I'm super broke and looking for ways to make money, relying on poetry and teaching as my only form of income, and living almost completely on the good graces of good people and friends, and man it is liberating. I'm homeless and broke, couch surfing and backpacking, walking everywhere I go, living as an artist relying on his passion and the good graces of other people and the universe for money, shelter, food, etc. Some day, possibly sooner rather than later, I'm going to get a job and an apartment and live as an alleged "functioning," member of society haha, but right now I'n enjoying and gaining so much living far below the poverty level. I have learned to appreciate so much more living like this. The smallest scrap of food, the smallest donations of money, purchasing my art, offering a couch to crash on and a roof over my head, a hot shower and a dry towel, it means so much more to me now, I see gifts and small conviniences through different eyes and it's wonderful.
So for now I shall remain a vagrant, a vagabond, a poet, an artist, a musician, a lover, a friend. Fuck the system man. Active disobedience! They have perfected violence for centuries, what they do not know is peace.
Love is revolutionary
-Cody Winger
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