Advice for Poetry Slammers
(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling)
If you can keep your scores when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you recall your words when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can bear to hear the poems you've spoken
Critiqued by snobs who scorn the common touch,
Or watch your strategy for three rounds broken,
Or, drawn out the hat first, don't bitch too much,
If you compete, and not make “First” your master;
If you get tens and not make tens your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can wow the crowds and keep your virtue,
Or recover when scores kick you in the crutch
If silence or polite applause cannot hurt you,
If all comments count with you, but none too much
If you can slam and not be tired by slamming,
And if you lose, just chalk it down to chance
Resist the urge of judges, to be damning
And if you win, don’t do a victory dance
If you can fill the unforgiving three minutes
With one eighty seconds' worth of verse and puns,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Slammer, my son!
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