Good morning to you from the bottom right of the continental U.S.! It is still hot, sticky, and hot in sticky down here in beautiful West Palm Beach. I'm writing this bleary-eyed from a darkened hotel room, in which two (not entirely sure which two) of my team members are still sleeping soundly.

As well they ought. Like any day at the National Poetry Slam, yesterday was exhausting! I started as I often do, waking up too early and installing myself in the lobby to meet up with other early risers. I had high hopes of getting breakfast, but instead ended up meeting with Erik Daniel, one of PSI's invaluable numbers guys, to get a look at the spreadsheet for the scoring. Since the Rookie Open Mic was happening at 3:00, we moved practice to noon and I found myself in the unenviable position of having to coach my team on minimal sleep with no lunch. HUGE thanks to Manchester, whose room is filled with snacks and who unreservedly offered me instand lunch to help me avoid the hypoglycemic crash.

So... High noon, fourth floor, Cantab Quiet Room: we unfold our strategy. Our key points, as always, were to engage the audience and show off our vocal range early and consistently. In a small, broad room (old-school Cantab, anyone?) it would be key to deliver as wide as possible, without simply scanning over the crowd; we stressed good eye contact and good charisma. As usual, we were bringing the heavy, so we also talked about having as much fun as possible inside difficult poems --none of this is news to you guys, right?

Specifically for this bout, however, we expected to see the strong women from Nuyo; I wanted the team to engage as personally as they can, but also to show vocal power that I had not seen Nuyo able to match in any individual piece. I admit that we were not counting on Houston and Madison to catch either team, but no one was discounting them from the bout: in essense, we presumed we'd hear heavy social-political work from Houston and lighter fare from Madison --two things we didn't have, so, as usual, the goal would be to control the tone of the bout early.

Weeks ago, after the bout draw came out, Oz and I had already discussed what fun --intimidating fun-- it would be to drop his Finals Night piece on the first prelim night.  The whole team was on board with the idea, and Oz's performance of Bruisegiver in the room that day was demonic, well-textured, and nearly everything we could ask. Check.

Brian had also already made it clear what he considered his role for Nationals. On the plane, we'd discussed using Cesearean at NPS this year: seeing that it's an older poem, and that we will bout one of the Denver teams in our second bout (the city we defeated in semi-finals last year using the same poem), the first bout was the only place where I felt comfortable asking Brian to do it. Hearing it in the room again that afternoon reminded me how much I enjoy it: in addition to truly enjoying the swing of its story and emotion, it's just a really great slam poem and a joy to get to place in a bout. Check.

One of the things I do early in the slam season is ask poets which poem (or poems) they really want to present at NPS this year. I started coaching in 2004, the first year of the 3x5 format when we only had six performance slots over two prelims, and that was the year I immediately realized how important it was to me that the Cantab poets represent themselves at NPS the way they want to, and one of my priorities became enabling them to do that. With a team unlikely to make semi-finals, this is actually easier, because you can simply throw up the poems in front of the people you want to see them and not worry about the scores... However, with a competitive team, it invites some coaching restrictions that can make my life a little more difficult.

Oz and Brian had each already told me privately that they weren't invested in any particular poem for Nationals, and each just wanted to perform as well as they could to forward the team. (I wouldn't believe everyone who told me such a selfless thing, but Oz and Brian? If you've met and slammed with them, you know this already. Plus, after last year: you know they've got nothing to prove.) Our other three guys are all new to the Cantab team, though, and I really want to give each of them the chance to perform the poem they are invested in, preferably in the best room possible for that poem.

It surprised me last week when Carlos told me the poem he was now most interested in performing was Ten Parts. It gave me a few adjustments to make --but most of them to Carlos' poem. Honestly, Carlos' style is so unusual and characteristic that I feel like the most important key for him in a team slam is not what poem he does, but to just own the sh!t as big as he possibly can. Knowing that Falu from the Nuyo was also holding a ten-part poem was fun information, too: I hoped to place it before hers so the gimmick would already be taken, but I assured Carlos that I was in no way worried about following her piece with his, since they are immensely different.

Carlos is a puzzle to coach in this one way: between the two of us, we can't figure out what it is that puts the fire of performance into him. This whole year, I've really been missing Harlym125, who understands like no one else I know how to do it. When Carlos loves the crowd, his performance is remarkable: sincere, endearing, cocky, and inspiring. We fought through a few false starts before he eased in and delivered an extremely solid performance of Ten Parts in the room that afternoon. Check.

One slot left, two poets to perform: again, I'd talked individually with Sean and Max about what poems they were most invested in. Sean's changes every week, from which I simply garner that Sean would like to perform the best poem possible for the room. Heck, that's what I want, too, since that's also what will help the team win. We went with Hermes as the plan for the night, with one backup that we also ran in the room. Sean is an amazingly consistent performer, and both looked ready: I knew I could call either poem at a moment's notice and he would bring his best performance of it to us. Check.

Now, Max --well. If you've been at the Cantab a minute, you know which piece you want to see Max lay on the crowd at Nationals. Max agrees with you, and so do I. Given the strength of that poem, though, we want to place it most appropriately in the competition; tonight was probably not going to be the night. Max ran it anyway, just in case, so note this: if you ever need to pump Oz up for any reason, just have Max perform this poem for him. I love this team. Check.

So: we had a plan, we had practice, and we had a Rookie show to get to. Max and Carlos and I grabbed some pre-show guacamole, and then we headed over to the Rookie open. As usual, the place was packed, and Scott Woods did an admirable and entertaingin job running a great show and fitting as many folks in as possible. I got to see Jesse Welch, who's here with the Young Chicago Authors team; we really messed with the crowd giving them the "NorthBEAST!" chant. I also got to see Max drop a hot performance of Pests before I had to make a run for the bout manager meeting, since I'd be working the late bout in our venue after our show.

My Mom had just rolled in that afternoon (wearing her NorthBEAST t-shirt, of course), so after my fifth shower of the day here in West Palm, we split a cab with Oz and headed to our venue. The Lounge is a smallish (50-seat) venue with a small, high riser for the stage and a long bar to the right, with a sushi bar in the way back which I later referenced as the "sushi speakeasy" while hosting the late bout. Yelp.com has the club listed as a gay bar; my gaydar is about as spot-on as the Bolivan Navy's, so I took Sean's word for it that the bartenders fit the bill for such an establishment.

By 7:00, the place was packed. If that's what you expected, then you've never been to an early mid-week NPS bout; I'd never seen such a well-filled venue so early in the competition, and the ground team and PSI should be thanked wildly for all their work. I heard later in the night that the door money from night one was a record high for PSI: let's hope we can continue the trend.

The night kicked off with Sean McGarrigle from Vancouver hosting, and Arrian Wissel from the southwest as bout manager: two experienced staff members had no trouble finding judges, and although we had a few snafus (one judge was from Boise and had seen Max feature there, so had to be switched up, and there was also a little issue with the stage being awfully high for the ladies in big heels to step up on), we were rolling right on time.

Our sacrifice was Diego from Miami, whose opening line to his poem was "Have you ever seen two homeless people make out?" There were a few titters in the room, after which the poem took a sharp left turn into heartbreaking territory: well-written, well-performed, and with some great touch lines. It went four minutes, and scored 26.8 (flushing out the East German judge immediately with a 6.1 low). Was it a good sacrifice? Well, it warmed up the room and set the tone for something we'd hoped... But its length really messed with the rhythm of the bout. Honestly, though, the crowd was so primed, the sacrifice could have been weak and we still would have been in good shape.

The Nuyo had drawn the A, followed by Madison B, Houston C, and Cantab D. In that hot room, it wasn't clear if A would be a big disadvantage, especially with the newly adjusted rotation, but I was still happy to get a long look at what the judges were doing before we went up. It's true that we probably wouldn't adjust anything, but, hey, who doesn't like to draw D?

Side note here: as a non-performing coach this year, it gives me a nice chance to look at the rhythm of the bout with a more objective eye. I feel like as a beginner coach, I used to imagine that teams read the room with each round and put up the "right" poem in each spot, but I've come to realize that almost everyone just makes their set beforehand and plays it regardless. There was no way, in that room, that anyone could really even get their team together (Houston was sitting together in the back, but the rest of us were somewhat scattered) and make last-minute calls. I like the confidence that poets that come to the stage with when they know for hours what poem they will be doing, but I still feel that the ability to adjust intelligently on the fly would really buy us a lot in a bout. With any other team sport I've ever played, the best advantage you can get is by thinking faster than your opponents: even if you aren't actually faster, or stronger, or more skilled. Getting to the place they want to be before they get there is a head game, not a matter of outside ability. I find myself shouting move early, move early, constantly on the field when I'm on a less experienced team playing a more skilled one: if there's a future for coaching slam for me, I want to find a way to do that while still preserving the confidence of my poets.

Right. Sorry. So there we were, in the Lounge, and Falu opened for the Nuyo with Ten Things I Want to Say to a Black Man. I could see Carlos getting nervous, but I really felt like she was setting him up; anyone in the room who didn't get the ten-parts gimmick was going to get it now. It's a great poem, and Falu rocked it: 26.2. Madison followed with a group piece from coach Evy Gildrie-Voyles and Ali, a lovely poet I'd been sharing my chair with. The poem was a tender love poem about Wile E. Coyote that I really enjoyed: it went under two minutes, though, probably not enough time for the audience to really dig in: 25.2. Houston followed with their grand slam champ, Deep Blu See, who brought a tight piece about "the little bird" in a sort of twisted Pay It Forward tribute for a 25.4, and then it was our turn.

Reading the bout at that round: the audience had seen two tender love poems, one slightly punk-ass tender love poem, and one poem I would piegeonhole as Clever (here illustrated by a poem that ends with the first line/concept it starts with). Everyone was going a good job talking to the audience, setting themselves, moving purposely; so far, it was a great Nationals bout. I figured Oz was about to pump up the scores bigtime by doing all those things, but also showing vocal power by, uh, channeling The Devil. You know, like he does.

Oz performed the poem extremely well. I always get nervous when I can't see Oz until right before he takes the stage (he always disappears and comes back at the last minute), but of course he arrived just in time to take the stage totally deliberately. His first line elicited snaps from around the room from folks who recognized the poem, which felt great for the whole team, and the "grown folks made you leave the room for" line really got its due from a primed audience. I thought he might have been a little far off-mic, but his radio voice came through and when he launched into the first powerful ramp I knew he was gong to nail it. He performed beautifully. 25.4. Uh-oh. That put us 0.8 behind the Nuyo, and all the teams were clearly in it.

So: when the D doesn't get you the score bump you want? Keep toploading! I'd originally thought we'd be placing Carlos in the second round, in order to show a few different vocal looks from the team right away, but given that we were no longer looking to shut the door on Falu's poem, I let Brian and Carlos know that Brian would play in the two-spot. While we were working that out, round two opened with a disturbing two-woman piece from Houston about a ?lesbian ?rape that actually made me and Brian a little uncomfortable. 24.4.

The Nuyo followed with the three-person group piece (Sick Prose, Ion, Rich Story) about swine flu that they performed at the Lizard a few weeks ago, but much more well-polished. As someone who worked in the pediatric ER at the Boston Medical Center during the height of the H1N1 "crisis," I don't mind saying that the poem drives me nuts, but their new blocking looked great and the performance was spot-on: 27.9, which would be the high score for the night.

Brian was up next and he performed Cesearean extremely well. The best part was watching the audience have to swing to follow him from laughing at the funny parts to honing in on the serious work: great fun, and a 27.1, which would rank 3 overall in the bout.

Madison: an erotic poem that scored a 23.2, effectively removing them from the running. At the end of round 2, Nuyo was 1.6 up on us and we were 2.7 up on Houston; unless something blew the top off the scores (unlikely, it seemed), it was going to be a straight-up dogfight with Boston and NYC.

We opened round 3 with Carlos, who absolutely nailed Ten Parts. It is a danger with that poem that the audience won't "get" what Carlos is doing, and given that there'd been nothing that abstract on the stage yet that night, I was a little concerned. The thing about that poem, though, is that Carlos' charisma and frenetic, original movements will draw people into the poem despite themselves. Having Carlos on the team this year to bring to NPS has been one of the things I've been looking forward to all year, and he didn't disappoint: I feel strongly that he brought the biggest surprise to the stage that night, and I loved being there for it. Spot-on performance. 26.2.

Round 3 finished out with Brother Said from Houston and rookie Nichelle Nichols (who is a TRIP and you must meet her) from Madison. Nuyo put up Sick Prose with a letter poem (I can't spell epistolary? epistilary? drat) to her daughter for a 26.5, cementing their lead of 1.9.

Given the score spread, I didn't see us making up 2 points in the final round, especially when the Nuyo still had Eboni or Ion to play. We could have put up Max, but I honestly would have called him to go funny in that room, since the room was ripe for it... I still didn't think it was going to buy us what we wanted. Madison opened the final round with a 22.3, further tanking the scores for Sean to have to follow, so we went with Hermes, all of us realizing we were now playing for the 2. After an initial stutter, Sean rocked the poem and got some great crowd response for the touch lines: 26.4.

As expected, Eboni closed out for the Nuyo: she brought funny, exactly the right choice in the room, and pulled a 27.2 for the top individual score for the bout (just 0.1 ahead of Brian). Sheba from Houston finished up the bout with a poem for her mother: 25.9.

Final scores: Nuyo 107.8, Cantab 105.1, Houston 101.6, Madison 96.2. We rank 2 with a low cumulative score overall, going into a tough bout tonight. Hey, we knew this year wasn't going to be easy!

Of local interest: Hampshire took the 1 (!!), actually over Manchester's 3 in the same bout. Providence took a 2. Portland pulled a 4 (bummer) in the Dallas dogfight bout where everybody got spanked by the Chicago Youth team. Worcester took 3 in the crazy upset bout where LoserSlam (Jersey) defeated SlamCharlotte. And I blew out my voice hosting a super-fun slam with Boise, Paris, Hawaii, and Chicago, wherein Steve Subrizi sacrificed with Seaweed Baby.

The good news: we didn't overspend, so I feel good that we still have plenty of work left for the week. We're in the same venue tonight, so it's home. AND: with only 68 teams in the competition, a larger proportion of teams will make semi-finals. It's going to be very hard for us, but we all feel good going into tonight, no matter what happens.

Today: beach! Also, maybe some practice. Our bout tonight at the Lounge is at 9:00 Eastern time, so think good thoughts during the last half of the home venue open mic for us, please!

Cantab SlamMaster signing out. Also, my mom says hi.

--simone
Simone Beaubien, SlamMaster