a funny thing happened on the class mesage board this week.

out from the flourescent corridors of official teaching and learning... out from the shadows... out from behind the subtle swinging doors of the a. p. rigormortis saloon... step a crew of wordslingers, bushwhackers, logonauts...

out from the somewhere we can only call nowhere strut these cool rhyming cats... they call it a "poetry off"... a suburban e-rap battle... sprouts from the dozens, eastcoast-westcoast hiphop contentions... grown whimsically wild... a funny, self-conscious oh-yeah fest of rhyming dudes and dudettes...

becky got it going on 9.30 with her defense of suzanne's lineated messages: "Don't cage the magic- don't cage the bird." this was followed by some (mostly) prosaic responses... and a little raplet by becky containing:

Hey Suzi- I like the way you post
It's only annoying to some, not most
Those people just don't have our flair
They sit and read words without a care

and then bryan kicked it up a few notches on 10.6, concluding

Don't forget that the English language without poetry,
Is like a stray dog with a single measly flee,
Like a cute little squirrel without a home in a tree,
Like a soup kitchen for the homeless with a fee.

followed about two hours later by chris, standing up for poets

They are scholars-there is no debate,
They have an insatiable hunger for knowledge that they cannot sate.
No one can hate on the rhymes they make,
For they have a thirst for phat rhymes that they cannot slake.
All their poetic skill comes out in a crazy chiasm,
and our brains are left as mere ectoplasm.

it turns out that chris has a wicked big vocabulary... or a very scarey rhyming dictionary... then brienne... "Queen referee"... hops in to formalize the match

Matt Heid challenged Becky and Suzanne's poetic flair
But Becky bounced back "Heid do you really dare?"
But Heid answered back passing Suzanne the shovel
But Becky fought back "Oh Heid, You in trouble"
And so it began, grab your shovels and troughs,
Who will win our little poetry off?

and off it went... i was particularly taken by jim's lean lines

One, two, make it three,
Don't like things? Just leave them be.

People's got rights,
Men can wear tights
(Got skirts in their sights),
Me? I just might.

Individual, recontinual,
Post it, make the
Most of it.

Or don't bother,
Rip on another,
Cry to your mother,
Or maybe to Brother [Tom].

gee... i've never been rhymed before... but i've made it a point to stay clear of the battle... since i'm a notoriously lame rapper... and because i'm an over-fifty rock and roll white guy i figure i've a right not to rap... to just stand back... let out the slack... report the attack... i'll end with suzanne's good advice

somebodys say TIME
somebodys say RHYME
everybody say: RHYME TIME

willing to go
toe to toe
not though
as foe
not to lay low
the competition
with demolition
but to strike a blow
for poetry ignition
so word up your submission
with wit and intuition
set aside tradition
of your own volition
pony up your cognition
for props and major recognition
I have a premonition
the rate of attrition
will be low

no need to take it slow
just let it flow
blow by poetic blow
I'm with you
quid pro quo

(i originally mistook this last piece as sdo's... sorry suzanne... i whole-heartedly approve of the more positive direction suzanne suggests... why is the dissing so dominant in rap? kind of infantile, territorial, primal, no? it certainly generates passions, but i'm not totally convinced that they're constructive passions... which, of course, is where we should be headed... 10.11.03)

Just to inform those who think they're oh so cool-
I'm rhyming, n' rapping, n' sycopated fool.
I got the beat down in my platlets and plasm
It'll shake ya up like an epileptic spasm.

Al C

 

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