A Review of Ken Arkind at Chicago Martyrs
BY J.W. BASILO, Performance Editor
Denver-based poet, Ken Arkind, is on tour, opening for rock band, Achille Lauro, as part of Hot Congress Records’ foray into the Midwest. On the evening of August 11, Arkind is pacing back and forth near the stage of Chicago’s Martyrs music bar, waiting for his turn to go up and do his best to make a dent in the overall entertainment value of the club’s $7 cover charge. As I walk in, the most polished, unoriginal singer-songwriter in the history of music is onstage finishing his set. The crowd, comprised mostly of well-coiffed white people in their late 20s, sings along as if they’ve heard it all before, and they have. The singer exits the stage to the loudest round of applause the venue will sustain all evening. Before the band can even start to break down its equipment, Arkind is on stage, hijacking the mic, attempting to parlay whatever energy is in the room into something that resembles attention. I immediately make a note of how shrewd this move is, though I know better. I have been in Arkind’s place too
many times to have any hope for his ability to finish his set feeling even remotely validated.
Ken briefly introduces himself and launches into his poem, “Maggie,” a reluctant love letter to Los Angeles. He is no amateur; he has chosen to open with the poem that best inflates his chances of success. Success of course means convincing half the room to invest in the poem while another third politely shuts the hell up while pouring more overpriced booze down its collective gullet. And yes, I mean to imply that a percentage would be neither
quiet nor invested. In such an environment, this is inevitable—the actual number of people who ignore you and continue blathering on to their friends is its own measure of triumph.
The poem in question operates in the vein of many spoken word or “slam” poems: some high energy colloquial tone mixed with some wry humor that eventually devolves into a raw, honest “second act” until the tone of the piece eventually floats itself down to the floor. If one is willing to pay attention, this is a highly effective formula—one that I have used myself more times than I’d like to admit. By the 90-second mark, however, just as Arkind’s poem begins to shift from Paris Hilton and silicone jokes to its actual heart, the roar of idle conversation is on
a steady incline and shows no sign up letting up. And it doesn’t. Ken finishes his poem, briefly says his thank-yous and exits the stage to an apathetic ovation, asked by the venue to forgo his previously-planned ten minute set. Had it been a comic or another band or a stage play, the reaction would have been a sure sign that the performer was awful. The funny thing is, Arkind wasn’t awful. At all. The poem was well-delivered and constructed and executed at a level that was nothing short of professional. Ken’s trademark screech and kinetics have made him
tremendously popular in the spoken word community. But like most poets, his influence ends with people willing to pay money to see other people read in public. Therein lays the bane of the poet. As soon as anything comes out of your mouth that resembles poetry, the vast majority of the world tunes out. If the original copy of the greatest poem ever written was blowing down the street, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone willing to step on it.
So, why did I choose this particular evening as the basis of my first article as performance editor? Honestly, I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m just being inappropriately cynical. Most likely though, we all need a reality check, to be reminded how minuscule poetry is in the collective consciousness of the performing arts. While virtually all forms of the arts that can still be considered art exist on a plane that you might call “niche,” our little world of words and meter operates somewhere between glass blowing and Noise Rock. If poetry were a sport, it would be lacrosse. Everybody has heard of it, but almost no one has watched it on purpose and even fewer could begin to explain the rules to you.
I just recently returned from St. Paul, MN, the locale of this year’s National Poetry Slam. For a week, the greater downtown area was overrun with hundreds of poets in varying degrees of dirty and drunk. It’s like a miniature, traveling Mardi Gras for nerds. For some, though, it is undeniably their most important week of the year—the one time every summer where a poet can absolutely immerse himself in what ignites the fire in the proverbial basement. For five nights in a row, poets and average citizens alike were packing into bars and banquet halls to
hear poetry. Every poem, even if it was shitty, was greeted with applause ranging from polite to raucous, but every poem was applauded and if someone were to go so far as to jingle their keys too loudly, they would be accosted with a very frank sssshhhhhhhh! For most performance or “slam” poets, this is all they know. They came up exclusively in slam or reading at poetry nights at the bookstore. They are conditioned for everyone to be quiet and at least pretend to listen. However, a select few of us have seen the other side. We’ve tried to open for rock
bands and been met with soul-crushing results. We’ve done poems about heartbreak at 5PM in a college cafeteria while the students rolled their eyes solely because we were paid to do so. We’ve tried to be funny and poignant at noon on a Sunday at some arts festival side stage as old ladies clamor to buy crap made out of sand. Ken Arkind is no exception. He cut his teeth and makes his living this way and thus was unfazed. Even as the chatter rose, he remained fully committed to his performance.
Let’s be honest: A good chunk of the people reading this online right now are here because they clicked on a few links after reading their own poem that they were only too excited to have published. The insularity of the poetry community, even in the traditional publishing world, is undeniable. The best poets are usually never heard of outside the small circles they travel in. Walk into a Barnes & Noble today and head to the poetry section. If you find more than a handful of poets on the shelves that you actually want to read, I’ll buy you a Sno-Cone. Why
does the cult of the popular-yet-uninformed opinion shape the bookstore selection? Because that’s where the money is. Any fool trying to feel artsy can walk into a poetry section and relate to Robert Frost, but that doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of art. Truly great art inspires, challenges, and downright assaults the artist and the observer in equal measure— which is exactly what the great performance poets, Arkind included, attempt to achieve every time they amble their way to a microphone. I’m not saying that having a heavily-published book
automatically removes you from the conversation, but how many poets have you seen on the shelves that fit my definition? How about the lion share of musicians in the CD racks? So, why does no one care about finding truly great art? Because people don’t want to be inspired, they just want evidence that they’re cultured. People generally don’t want what matters to jerks like me; they want to be entertained. And poetry is still too foreign. Sorry about the raincloud, my friends. Next time I’ll try to catch Maya Angelou at the Kennedy Center and impart in you the importance of being liked. Be safe out there.
Writer/performer/humorist, J.W. BASILO, is equal parts poignant and perverse, hilarious and heart-wrenching. His raucous performances and uncanny charisma have earned him a reputation as one of the most sought-after and compelling spoken word artists working today. His work has appeared on NPR, in the Chicago Tribune, and in hundreds of theaters, dive bars, schools and comedy clubs across North America. His one man dramedy, No One Can Fix You, debuted in 2009 to rave reviews in Chicago, Seattle, and New York City. As a competitor, Basilo was a finalist at the 2007 Individual World Poetry Slam, finished 2nd at the 2009 National Underground Poetry Individual Championship, and has represented Chicago at the National Poetry Slam four times. To date, he has released two full-length albums, Poet Laureate of Apt. 2E (2006) and Love Crimes, Etc. (2007), as well as the chapbook I Dare You to Believe This. Currently, he is a Writer in Residence at Chicago's Real Talk Ave. All things considered, he’s doing pretty well for a guy who failed Creative Writing in high school. His artful jackassery can be found at his internet home, BustedMouth.com.
Denver-based poet, Ken Arkind, is on tour, opening for rock band, Achille Lauro, as part of Hot Congress Records’ foray into the Midwest. On the evening of August 11, Arkind is pacing back and forth near the stage of Chicago’s Martyrs music bar, waiting for his turn to go up and do his best to make a dent in the overall entertainment value of the club’s $7 cover charge. As I walk in, the most polished, unoriginal singer-songwriter in the history of music is onstage finishing his set. The crowd, comprised mostly of well-coiffed white people in their late 20s, sings along as if they’ve heard it all before, and they have. The singer exits the stage to the loudest round of applause the venue will sustain all evening. Before the band can even start to break down its equipment, Arkind is on stage, hijacking the mic, attempting to parlay whatever energy is in the room into something that resembles attention. I immediately make a note of how shrewd this move is, though I know better. I have been in Arkind’s place too
many times to have any hope for his ability to finish his set feeling even remotely validated.
Ken briefly introduces himself and launches into his poem, “Maggie,” a reluctant love letter to Los Angeles. He is no amateur; he has chosen to open with the poem that best inflates his chances of success. Success of course means convincing half the room to invest in the poem while another third politely shuts the hell up while pouring more overpriced booze down its collective gullet. And yes, I mean to imply that a percentage would be neither
quiet nor invested. In such an environment, this is inevitable—the actual number of people who ignore you and continue blathering on to their friends is its own measure of triumph.
The poem in question operates in the vein of many spoken word or “slam” poems: some high energy colloquial tone mixed with some wry humor that eventually devolves into a raw, honest “second act” until the tone of the piece eventually floats itself down to the floor. If one is willing to pay attention, this is a highly effective formula—one that I have used myself more times than I’d like to admit. By the 90-second mark, however, just as Arkind’s poem begins to shift from Paris Hilton and silicone jokes to its actual heart, the roar of idle conversation is on
a steady incline and shows no sign up letting up. And it doesn’t. Ken finishes his poem, briefly says his thank-yous and exits the stage to an apathetic ovation, asked by the venue to forgo his previously-planned ten minute set. Had it been a comic or another band or a stage play, the reaction would have been a sure sign that the performer was awful. The funny thing is, Arkind wasn’t awful. At all. The poem was well-delivered and constructed and executed at a level that was nothing short of professional. Ken’s trademark screech and kinetics have made him
tremendously popular in the spoken word community. But like most poets, his influence ends with people willing to pay money to see other people read in public. Therein lays the bane of the poet. As soon as anything comes out of your mouth that resembles poetry, the vast majority of the world tunes out. If the original copy of the greatest poem ever written was blowing down the street, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone willing to step on it.
So, why did I choose this particular evening as the basis of my first article as performance editor? Honestly, I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m just being inappropriately cynical. Most likely though, we all need a reality check, to be reminded how minuscule poetry is in the collective consciousness of the performing arts. While virtually all forms of the arts that can still be considered art exist on a plane that you might call “niche,” our little world of words and meter operates somewhere between glass blowing and Noise Rock. If poetry were a sport, it would be lacrosse. Everybody has heard of it, but almost no one has watched it on purpose and even fewer could begin to explain the rules to you.
I just recently returned from St. Paul, MN, the locale of this year’s National Poetry Slam. For a week, the greater downtown area was overrun with hundreds of poets in varying degrees of dirty and drunk. It’s like a miniature, traveling Mardi Gras for nerds. For some, though, it is undeniably their most important week of the year—the one time every summer where a poet can absolutely immerse himself in what ignites the fire in the proverbial basement. For five nights in a row, poets and average citizens alike were packing into bars and banquet halls to
hear poetry. Every poem, even if it was shitty, was greeted with applause ranging from polite to raucous, but every poem was applauded and if someone were to go so far as to jingle their keys too loudly, they would be accosted with a very frank sssshhhhhhhh! For most performance or “slam” poets, this is all they know. They came up exclusively in slam or reading at poetry nights at the bookstore. They are conditioned for everyone to be quiet and at least pretend to listen. However, a select few of us have seen the other side. We’ve tried to open for rock
bands and been met with soul-crushing results. We’ve done poems about heartbreak at 5PM in a college cafeteria while the students rolled their eyes solely because we were paid to do so. We’ve tried to be funny and poignant at noon on a Sunday at some arts festival side stage as old ladies clamor to buy crap made out of sand. Ken Arkind is no exception. He cut his teeth and makes his living this way and thus was unfazed. Even as the chatter rose, he remained fully committed to his performance.
Let’s be honest: A good chunk of the people reading this online right now are here because they clicked on a few links after reading their own poem that they were only too excited to have published. The insularity of the poetry community, even in the traditional publishing world, is undeniable. The best poets are usually never heard of outside the small circles they travel in. Walk into a Barnes & Noble today and head to the poetry section. If you find more than a handful of poets on the shelves that you actually want to read, I’ll buy you a Sno-Cone. Why
does the cult of the popular-yet-uninformed opinion shape the bookstore selection? Because that’s where the money is. Any fool trying to feel artsy can walk into a poetry section and relate to Robert Frost, but that doesn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of art. Truly great art inspires, challenges, and downright assaults the artist and the observer in equal measure— which is exactly what the great performance poets, Arkind included, attempt to achieve every time they amble their way to a microphone. I’m not saying that having a heavily-published book
automatically removes you from the conversation, but how many poets have you seen on the shelves that fit my definition? How about the lion share of musicians in the CD racks? So, why does no one care about finding truly great art? Because people don’t want to be inspired, they just want evidence that they’re cultured. People generally don’t want what matters to jerks like me; they want to be entertained. And poetry is still too foreign. Sorry about the raincloud, my friends. Next time I’ll try to catch Maya Angelou at the Kennedy Center and impart in you the importance of being liked. Be safe out there.
Writer/performer/humorist, J.W. BASILO, is equal parts poignant and perverse, hilarious and heart-wrenching. His raucous performances and uncanny charisma have earned him a reputation as one of the most sought-after and compelling spoken word artists working today. His work has appeared on NPR, in the Chicago Tribune, and in hundreds of theaters, dive bars, schools and comedy clubs across North America. His one man dramedy, No One Can Fix You, debuted in 2009 to rave reviews in Chicago, Seattle, and New York City. As a competitor, Basilo was a finalist at the 2007 Individual World Poetry Slam, finished 2nd at the 2009 National Underground Poetry Individual Championship, and has represented Chicago at the National Poetry Slam four times. To date, he has released two full-length albums, Poet Laureate of Apt. 2E (2006) and Love Crimes, Etc. (2007), as well as the chapbook I Dare You to Believe This. Currently, he is a Writer in Residence at Chicago's Real Talk Ave. All things considered, he’s doing pretty well for a guy who failed Creative Writing in high school. His artful jackassery can be found at his internet home, BustedMouth.com.