How to Perform Like Poetry Slam-master Karen Finneyfrock

photo by Inti St. Clair, http://finneyfrock.wordpress.com/

Karen Finneyfrock didn't look intimidating. She had weaved a braid through her thick hair. Her skirt was short, cute, and she never stood still--boundless energy, I thought.  She smiled easily, seemed genuinely interested in the people who had joined her class last night at 826's How to Write Like I Do 2010 Adult Writing Workshop. She wanted to know each of our names, what we write, and what brought us to her class.

But I was intimidated.  I was in awe of Finneyfrock, just because she was her.  And then there was the microphone on a small bit of a stage, that she told us we would use before the class was over.  The microphone we would use--that's when my hands started getting clammy.

From what I heard in the introductions, none of us had imminent plans to go on a book tour or read a just-published book of poems, short stories, or a selection from a best-seller novel. But I'm sure, without hearing it said in the room last night, that all of us hoped one day to have those plans.  Which was the reason none of us left after she told us we would get a chance to practice getting up in front of a low stakes group and get a chance to use a microphone like a pro.  After a few tips and tricks, she said.

Don't get me wrong. I was thrilled to be so close to a widely known performance poet, who I had heard myself perform at a Seattle Poetry Slam event.  Karen Finneyfrock is one of the members of the female national slam team, and apparently, according to her blog, two other national teams, too.  She regularly MCs the poetry slam events. She was named “Slam Legend” at the National Poetry Slam in 2006.  She has published two books of poetry, including the recently released, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost.  She is a Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools.  She also writes young adult novels, and her first, Celia the Dark and Weird, will be released by The Viking Press in summer of 2011.

The woman is "accomplished." Without doubt, she knows her "stuff."  She first read "Night Things," which she introduced as a poem she wrote for some friends getting married.

That she introduced the poem before she began, she explains, has to do with the fact that it's important to think about the audience and what they need to know to follow and experience the poem as the writer/reader wants them to.  Reading a poem and hearing a poem are different experiences.  When a poet reads, the audience needs a context, a framework from which to start.  So, for example, a short reference to what prompted the poem or tale to be written. Or a short bit about the writer. Who you are.  What you do.

She told us she grew up Southern Baptist, and  that was one of the reasons she was so familiar with Bible stories.  This was just before she read a haunting poem told from Lot's wife point of view, just after she turned into a pillar of salt.  The most striking line, the one I wrote down, was what his wife would have said, if she could. Instead "...an ocean has dried itself on my tongue." Apparently it was an image that resonated with Paul Constant as well, as he cited it in his review of Frinneyfrock in The Stranger.

Finneyfrock tells us that imagery is key to reading aloud.  When she shares her work aloud, she says it--the cadence and speed--sound like it sounded in her head. "If you can see that image in your mind, the listener will see the image, too," she assures us.  So, when reading, the "noise" has to be silenced.  Any worry or thought that gets in the way of projecting that image gets in the way of the audience seeing that image.  Don't think about the microphone being too far away, or the boy in front who is texting on his cell phone, or the person caught in a coughing spasm, or the number of empty seats. Focus. Get back to that moment when the words came streaming out of the imagination, spilling on the page as if the event and the feelings sparked just happened.

Then Finneyfrock read one more poem.  This one was highly personal. "How My Family Grieved" is from the new collection of poetry. (Read another interview with Finneyfrock in City Arts Magazine). The poem is raw, like someone opened up the refrigerator door and pull out a bag of vegetables. Some of  the tomatoes have gotten soft and squishy. But others are salvageable, so you put your hand in that soured juice to pull out the one or two still edible. Finneyfrock's voice has completely changed. She is vulnerable. Her voice is quiet. She is back in that emotional place when she wrote that poem. 

"We all have ways to hide on the stage," Finneyfrock explains.  We talk fast. We fidget.  We check out. All to get around the discomfort of being in front of an audience.  But to get through and connect with an audience, we just have to tap into that natural story-telling ability that we have when we're off the stage.  Speak in a normal voice. Be yourself on stage, despite any preconceptions or rules that a speech teacher once taught you.
But there are a few differences.  Finneyfrock says to talk slow.  People are processing what you are saying.
Enunciate. Project.  Your voice must be loud, because who knows the needs of the people in the room.
"Go slower and talk louder than you think you need to," she says.

She indicates the microphone on the stage.  Adjust the microphone before you start speaking. Make it work for you. Don't compensate for it.  The mic itself should be at a 45 degree angle and one closed fist from your mouth.  Don't speak directly into it--speak over the microphone.

Then there is the end.  Finneyfrock imagines the end of a poem or a story is just like a bell has rung and is still resonating.  "Pause and let the audience absorb the meaning," she explains.  The pauses may feel like hours, but to a listener, they often create a longing to hear more.

So, our prompt--as we needed to write something before we could practice speaking out loud--was to describe a garden that has been in our life.  We had to include an emotional relationship and use imagery.

Since I had been working in my garden the last few weeks, I was excited about the prompt. But once the pen starts moving, isn't it funny where it takes you. What I turned out was something a lot different:

This father's day, as I sat down to write a card, I thought twice about thanking my dad for instilling in me the pride of cultivating my own food from a plot of my own making.  See, I thought twice because for years I fought and fought with my father when he asked me to go out and help him in the garden.  I hate weeding. I hated raking the cut grass to use for mulching.  I hated watering and weeding some more.  The leaves on the crowded together tomatoes gave me welts on my arms.

Then there was the zucchini and yellow squash, which meant casseroles and lasagnas.  Yellow squash in watery tomato sauce.  I got so sick and tired of squash, squash, squash.

But now at the age of 38, still a renter, no plot of land to call my own, I decided a rented piece of land is better than no land at all.  So last summer I borrowed a shovel and a hoe and hacked up a 12 X 3 piece of lawn turf. I hauled in a a truckload of planting soil and started my own garden.

That summer, tendrils of sweet peas crawled up a twine trellis.  The fruit from the cherry tomatoes plants, with names like chocolate kisses and yellow pear and golden nugget, hung proudly from sturdy stems.  French fillet beans dangled gracefully, long, thin limbs trembling in the breeze.

Somehow the harvest, whatever was ripe, was never enough. I wanted succulent raspberries, sweet strawberries. I wanted tart, spicy arugula and curling leaves of kale.  And garlic.  I wanted cloves and cloves and cloves and cloves of garlic.

And so more and more of the grass disappeared under my hoe.  The sun setting. Then rising, I peeped out from my bedroom window each morning to spy the early seedling.

All this I remembered, looking down at the card. But I couldn't quite bring myself to admit he had been right, been right all along about gardening. Instead, I prefaced my thanks with:

"Hey Dad.  Just got my own garden started.  But before you start on the told-you-so's, I wanted you to know that I still thinking weeding is a waste of time.  But mulching--well--you were right about that.  Except you never told me that mulch can come in a bag from the store.  Shame on you for keeping me in the dark."