After pulling a 4 in our first bout, we knew that we wouldn't make semi-finals. (You needed a total of a 3 or less to make the top 20 teams, and thus, semis.) So we were more relaxed, and willing to let it all hang out in our second preliminary bout.
We were up against St. Louis, Austin, and San Antonio. Austin is an established scene, the other two less so.
The entire Toronto team and entourage came out to support us, and they were awesome. We chanted the (old) theme to Hockey Night in Canada. We roared "You rat bastard..." whenever someone went over time. So many of the bouts here are treated like a death match, or church. We definitely lightened the atmosphere, and several members of other teams came over to thank us for creating a fun atmosphere.
As for performances, Scruffmouth performed a piece from the page in the first round, partly written the day before, partly incorporating "Afro Picks". It was excellent. I did "Fossil Fools" in the second round, and I had them rolling in the aisles. There was so much laughter that I racked up the highest score to that point, even after a 1.5 time penalty. I could have cut through the laughter and avoided the time penalty. But we were more focused being the best poets, rather than winning the bout, and to me that meant playing with the audience and acknowledging their reaction.
Zaccheus did a killer version of his poem about, as he says, "All the drugs I've known and loved. Sometimes a bit too much." It has such tightly wound language, rhyming and storytelling at light speed. Jaws were bouncing off the floor.
RadaR nailed the highest score in the bout as our anchor. She got a 29.4 (28.9 after a time penalty), grabbing three tens for her poem "Burning Bush". She made a lot of contacts after the bout, and could probably book a tour through Texas any time she wants.
In the end we finished third, after Austin and St. Louis. We recorded some very high scores, but also some hefty time penalties. We were also doing less conventional poetry. The teams that won last night stuck to the poetry slam classic themes of political injustice and personal tragedy. We decided to colour outside the lines, and when you challenge the audience, it's more difficult to assess a score after seeing something different only once. All around our team was satisfied that we brought our best.
Then, we hosted a party for a bunch of teams at our hotel room calling it the "Canadian Embassy Party". We drank and played poetry tag until 5am, which was one of the highlights of the whole festival for me. It's outside of the bouts that poets expose their non-slam poems, which, to me, are usually far more compelling.
Toronto, by the way, placed second in both of their bouts, and finished 28th overall.
