Question: Why Do Poets Take Themselves Too Seriously

I asked a friend of mine to attend a poetry reading with me a while ago and she declined. She explained that while she enjoyed my poems she claimed “POETS DON’T LIKE SH!T!” She said “Raymond. I tried. But if you don’t wear your hair natural. Carry a back pack and if you like Beyonce…it’s a problem. I love me some Beyonce.”
As we talked I told her about the time I went to a club to celebrate a friend’s birthday and I ran into a person from a place where I read IN PHILLY and they said and I quote. “Don’t Tell nobody from _c_ _o_ e _ you saw me in the club.” And I bust out laughing in her face. She sounded like a teenager or a church deaconess dodging a choir member.


One more story before I get to today’s question. I have a friend who was INVITED to a spot IN PHILLY. After I bragged about my friend/family-ships with some of the people you always see noted in my blogs. Well she went to this one reading and was thoroughly insulted because some one didn’t feel she fit their small image of what a poet should be.

Now I do not want to get into this whole spoken word vs. poetry thing. I do but not right now. Here’s what I want to know.

When did being a poet become…BEING GOD? Some cats act like if every poem ain’t about the revolution in the next 15 seconds you wrong. And evidently God must think we can make it with out a revolution coming soon because we still here and the Revolution is still a long ways off!!!!!

Why do we take ourselves so seriously? I read and perform a number of angry poems and my share about the revolution. You know what? White people tend to see me as an angry poet. And Black people barely remember those poems but remember the stuff I write about having fun. I try and present a balance.

Where did this perception come to the general public who don’t catch at least one reading a week, that POETS HATE EVERYTHING?

And if that is true that they think we Hate EVERYTHING? CAN WE GET SOME LOVE OUT THERE? PLEASE.
I am the first to say we should examine everyone with the critical eye…INCLUDING POETS!!! But be fare and real. I hear a lot of poets slamming hip-hop and I critique aspects of it myself in my poetry.
But I never let my listener forget…Stephanie Renee and Kevin Powell are hip-hop, Chuck D and KRS One are hip- hop, when no other art form made room for us we had hip hop, and Muhamed Ali, Sammy Davis and Dezi Arnez pre-date but still inspire hip-hop. And also hip-hop did not create sexism or drug abuse…those intimately more American institutions than they’ll ever be hip-hop.

Alright what’s your feeling? I do have a lot more to say.