Record Crowd at Java Hut for Patricia Smith

There was a packed house at the Java Hut Sunday night, March 25, for the Patricia Smith reading, which followed an open-mic session. Patricia Smith is a former Boston Globe columnist and is widely regarded as the Nation's foremost slam poet, a four-time national Slam champion. Although she is a renowned slam poet, for this reading Smith stuck mostly to newer "fresh" pieces that she had been working on recently.

As I entered the establishment I discovered that seats were mostly taken, but a friendly man informed me that this was going to be a large showing tonight and suggested that I just find a space on the floor. As I grabbed a hunk of floor, someone revealed to me that this is the most people he has ever seen at the Java Hut.

Many of the poems she read shared a common theme of the blues. In one poem she said that to sing the blues, "First, you have to get the blues. / This is easy if you have a pulse." She read a lot about the Cantab, a blues club that she used to perform at. She tells of the club's idiosyncrasies, like the peanut man who "is pushing 80 harder than he ever pushed anything." At one point in his life the peanut man had a hit jingle, "the peanut song," which he never gets tired of singing, although he won't let anyone else sing it.

Not all of Smith's poetry dealt with the blues. She read a poem about her mother, whose great wish was to speak "proper English." Her mother feels that her dialect emits the impression of ignorance, "I lived too long to act like I'm stupid and just got off the boat" she would say. Smith is quick to point out "My mother has never been on a boat." Smith then read a depressing piece about an aging lounge singer whose life has always been dedicated to her singing career, and now that she's older she has nothing but her singing. When she was younger, her job was sexy and exciting, but now she is "just a distraction" that has to endure comments like "I bet she was good looking 20 years ago."

The audience was quite excited by Smith's poem, "Bitch," which is an ode to the clitoris. The poem suggests that one can be con-trolled, even enslaved, by one's own sexual drive. The power is expressed throughout the poem, in lines such as the following: "You moody queen. / You exquisite bitch. / You didn't ask for this poem, / you requested it."

Smith's final piece was one of the most entertaining poems she read. It was about how her band wants to be famous. The poem goes into detail on just how famous they want to be. "We want to be so famous that . . . / we walk down the street and folks just Pass Out! / We want to be stupid famous. / We want to autograph skin, / breasts, / testicles, / change our name to a symbol, / have sex with any-body. / We want to be famous enough to break the rules of the world." Smith goes on and on spouting metaphors for fame, and it's fantastic. She ends with the following lines: "I dream about writing one word, / that will make you lean forward in your seat. / no, make you lean forward in your life." This was met with a well-deserved standing ovation.