Award-winning “slam poet” Anthony Dobson is being investigated by American Poetry Association officials after rumors circulated that a poem he performed at the National SLAM! Poetry Competition was actually just a grocery list his mother had scrawled onto a notepad before the competition began.
Not only is this a technical violation of the rules of the competition and could spoil his chances of retaining his grand prize, it is also, as members of the Association have been describing the incident, “the kind of rhyme that passes time but not fly for you and I, ya dig?”
Dobson has worked hard for years trying to perfect his slam technique and feels he delivered the poem, that he claims he wrote, outstandingly. Dobson responded to criticism of his performance by saying it was “beautiful, in a way that MLK would shout today that the past is the past and a blast to have passed and the trees and greens and birds and bees would be proud of me, don’t you see!?”
Dobson was strangely hysterical despite insisting on his calm demeanor under pressure. “All I did was give an honest performance of a poem that may or may not have involved listing food items with a bit of unexpected passion. Is that a crime?”
Our sources attempted to approach a peer of Dobson’s, Miss Ella Harris Fiyapowa.
“Groceries and Mickey D’s, bumble bees and city streets, it’s all the same to me, you news clown, bringing-me-down, all-around, downtown, hustle-and-bustler!” Harris stated.
Regardless of the results of this inconclusive and hardly abusive investigation across the nation. We know Dobson mobbed some of the people who praised the steeple and got what he deserved after the curve. But does that mean what he did wasn’t art? Who are we to judge who to love when all of the above is a multiple choice test in who touched Lady Liberty’s breast? Free to be you and me is not what Cat Stevens sang to me, what he sang was “we are trapped, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try and live.”
Holy crap, I’m a slam poet now. Help. SOS.