My name is John Powers, I am a poet, a performance poet, a slam poet, a poet... with a day job. The day job is being the strange dude sitting in the corner of the corporate cube farm trying not to talk to all of the conservative people grazing by.
You see this is my problem, in the poetry community, I look like the middle class white bread boy who just fell out of a Gap billboard. In the corporate world, I'm the weird one. The one the managers think twice about sending on business trips because they don't want me running off every evening to the nearest 'beatnik bar'. (The people I work with use quotations in the air a lot, it's contagious. RUN!!)
This company I work for has 65,000 employees. SIXTY FIVE THOUSAND! When we finally destroy ourselves and turn this planet into a matchlight charcoal briquette �, it won't be some dim witted delegating president *Bush* *cough* *cough, or even an Osama Beer Ladle terrorist type, but a company three times the size of mine trying to avert a hostile take over. Trust me.
Who am I? I'm John Powers, from Rhode Island. I run the local Poetry Slam now, I did some work with the National Poetry Slam when it came to Providence in 2000. I have a CD of poetry and music out there, I write, I read aloud, I perform, I work, I love, I have a cat named Taylor and no it's not named after Mali.
Nice to meet you. I feel a few years older than sand today. Now I know 29 is not old, old is how you act, blah blah blah... Today I feel old. Trust me..
Today I don't feel like smoking. I didn't even think about it until now. Damn. I want a smoke. BOOOO..
Who am I? Let's continue the answer by describing what I've done. It will fall short because who you are is never what you've done, but perhaps you'll get a glean..
I was born in London England, lived there until I was four-ish and then came back to the US when my parents were having martial problems. They divorced, my father moved to Virginia, started a new life, and I didn't see him again until my Grandmother died (his mother) when I was 27? Whatever. Life sucks. I grew up raised by women, mother, grandmother, aunts, the men were fleeting and so I've always related to those I still don't understand at all - better..
After England I grew up in a small Massachusetts suburb. Catholic grade school, nuns, rulers, I was an alter boy for a brief time until I got fired for screwing up the sacramental jingle that gets played during the key sacramental moment. I'll relate the full story someday, but in retrospect it must have been funny as hell to hear the beginning of jingle bells instead of that pious ditty..
After catholic school I let loose in high school. Skinny short dork boy, I had girlfriends in the 7th and 8th grades and then didn't date until the summer after my freshman year in college. UGH. GEEK BOY. I was short short short in high school - the so short every girl was taller than me except the midgets kind of short. I remember being teased a lot and not being able to deal with it very well. I played soccer in high school because I was always cut from the basketball team. By the end of my junior year in HS, I started to grow. I grew so much and so fast, it hurt. PAIN. and I have never been into pain. By the end of my freshman year in college I reached 6 foot 4 inches. Take that Mr. Basketball coach..
In college I played racquetball. Collegiate team racquetball. I have this habit of joining things after their heyday - after the peak of their popularity. Racquetball was most popular in the late 70's. I played competitive RB in the early nineties. My Junior year in college I was ranked 3rd in the country. My bronze medal is still in my draw next to the bottles of cologne I still have from the 8th grade.
Bryant College - 4th ranked business school in the country at the time - in Rhode Island is where I learned how to be a corporate drone, I mean make a living. Today I'm a senior programmer developer - doing a lot of tax and banking work. It's a long way from a fireman..
I finally started dating in college. Living with 6 people from Puerto Rico opened me right up..
After college I moved back to Mass and went to work, I did the job thing - the real corporate fast track thing. I got engaged to my college girlfriend - that would be Michelle Zabka - and eventually we broke up. After and while I was living with Michelle I kept going on the road to management. Brand new BMW 318is, cell phones, beepers, expense account...
THEN CAME SALLY.
Michelle and I went our separate ways. We grew up and then apart together. Michelle was actually the 8th grade girlfriend I alluded to up above. 5 years after that junior high breakup trauma, we hooked up one summer. We were together for almost 5 years?
Anyway Michelle and I went our separate ways - and I met Sally Zikaras. Sally who worked at the pool hall. London Billiards in Worcester Massachusetts. Sally who had the psycho ex boyfriend stalking her. Sally who needed to be saved, Sally whom I saved. Sally who turned out not to be who I knew she was... unfortunately it took me 2 years to figure it out, unfortunately it almost killed me and got me arrested and sent to court and into depression and into smoking and into leaving my corporate job and going into debt and losing my mind and realizing things are really never entirely as they seem and having to grow up big time and fast and praying to die and getting better and getting better and getting over it and eventually becoming a poet and liking my life pretty god damn much. I don't even blame Sally anymore. I used to be gullible and trusting to a fault, a kid with too many credit cards. I still feel things too deeply though. It's a fault, I deal with it.
After Sally I dated a few people and then met a woman, Annie. Damn. Damn is all I will write - right now about when I met her. Damn. We're good friends now, she lives in Boston, has a boyfriend, etc, but back then... damn. She got me to start performing my poetry - that lead to poetry slam - which eventually lead me to moving back to Providence. Stories. Ahh the stories.
Today I live in Providence with my girlfriend Jen. She's one of the reason I moved to this city, changed jobs, and moved an hour away from family. The other is that the Worcester area sucks terribly. Today we're in a tough spot. She'll be moving out in a week or two, depending on when her new place is ready. It's a tough spot for us right now, so we'll see what happens. I'm keeping the cat.
Back to who I am based on what I've done. I was a member of the 1999 Providence Poetry Slam team. I helped organize the National Poetry Slam Providence 2000, I took over the Providence Poetry slam after that. I've toured some - performing my work up and down the east coast and made a lot of great friends in the process. Today, I miss a lot of them. BOOO.
I have a half brother I never met, I have two step sisters I havn't seen since since 1990, and another step sister I havn't seen in about 5 years. Even though I hardly know him, I still miss my dad. I miss my mother more, but hardly show it, and the only reason I don't visit her more often is because I am so unmotivated lately... about everything.
Who am I? I'm a tall, thin, toaist ex christian agnostic, dude who knows computers, performs poetry, and likes to feed the animals - even though his friend has told him not too.
Peace, nice to meet you.
