FACT NUMBER ONE: Smith is a fraud, an opportunist, and an interloper. A man named Casey Jones – and I don’t mean the engineer – started the Poetry Slam, not Smith. The climate was right. America was coming out of a recession. Reagan was president. Casey Jones, a homeless book worm and tin collector, rose from his stool at precisely 2:08 AM on Monday morning July 21, 1986 and spewed forth these words:

When you’re down and out

Raise your head high and shout

OH SHIT!

And thus began the Poetry Slam at the Green Mill Jazz Club. He didn’t need no retro lessons in free expression. He’d been performing on the street for years. Smith was sitting on a stool next to him and took all the credit. Anyone who knows Chicago knows that Smith is a fake. He was born in Iowa City. His real name is Bobby Simmons. He concocted the Smith con-fabrication because he didn’t want his employers to find out he wrote poems … if you can call what he writes poetry.

FACT NUMBER TWO: On Nov. 24, 1984, Simmons (Smith) spilled out of a cab onto the grass in front of Butchie’s Get Me High Lounge where Righteous Bob Rudnick had been conducting Monday night poetry readings ever since Butchie blew off Ginsberg in New York. Smith (Simmons) staggered from the curb to the door, sat down on a wobbly stool, and ordered a vodka tonic. Moments later, he was up on the rickety stage bellowing about what he claimed was the “new” poetry. Several “real” poets in the audience of about ten tried to remove him but he was too belligerent. “Get the flyin’ fuck away from me.” Those were the first public poetic words Simmons (Smith) had uttered in his life – but NOW he was going to tell everybody What’s What. He bought the house a round of drinks and they applauded him with great relish. No one remembers when or if he finished his so-called poem.

FACT NUMBER THREE: Later that night, Butchie and Rudnick went upstairs, to consult the Tartot cards – if you know what I mean, leaving Smith (Simmons) in charge. Butchie, the owner of GMH, didn’t like Simmons (Smith) one bit but since he spent a lot of money he let him keep ramrodding Monday nights as he pleased. “It was like Wild West Looney Tunes on speed -- or whatever they could get their lips on,” reported Butchie in an early Sun Times article, “ -- fists fights, groping, limericks … a guy named Gillette dressed up in different costumes between Smith’s (Simmons) diatribes and made the evenings even more confusing. One night, an HVAC contractor named Morris slammed Smith (Simmons) into the sidewall below the bust of Jimmy Carter. Simmons (Smith) was grabbing his girlfriend’s snatch. … Need I say more? … That’s where the name came from.”

FACT NUMBER FOUR: If you remember anything about Slam History, remember that most poets are stuck on themselves, and if you applaud them too much, they’ll never stop. And don’t believe all their blab about how it’s the words that count. It’s about them and listening to their voices. Simmons (Smith) was the worse. He could go on for hours. No one understood a word he was saying. One Monday night, Gillette costumed as Smith (Simmons) put an end to his “blah blah.” He challenged Simmons (Smith) to a “So What!” contest. Each poet would read poems until the audience shouted “So What!” -- after that the poet was suppose to shut up. Smith (Simmons) made it to the fourth word – “SO WHAT!” -- but wouldn’t stop. The gypsies squatting in the trashy apartment downstairs pounded on their ceiling, “So What!” He wouldn’t stop. The cabbies out front laid on their horns “So What!” Still, he wouldn’t stop. Winos roaming up and down the neighborhood holding brown bags over their ears screaming, “SO WHAT!” No stop. Judy the bartender set a can of Old Style on the bar top and said “on me” which got Smith (Simons) attention and off the stage long enough for Gillette, dressed as Simmons (Smith), to read a poem entitled: A RUSSIAN JAZZMAN PLAYS HIS WOODEN SAXOPHONE. This is an example of what went on in those days.

FACT NUMBER FIVE: Wally, the retired cop who owned the doll shop across the street on the other side of the viaduct, said that there ought to be a law about how long a poet could blather. He showed everybody his new watch that the “spoose” gave him for his “sisty-fift birtday.” “It’s gotta stop device on it. The second hand ticks around Ronnie R’s face. Push the button and it stops. That poem ended at exactly three minutes. And that’s as much as anyone should hafta suffer through. Make it a rule.”

The SIXTH and FINAL FACT I offer is: unless you were there, there ain’t no way of knowing the facts. Watching TV don’t cut it. It ain’t the same as smelling it from across the bar or feeling a clammy hand on your knee. And I ain’t sayin’you have to be drunk to appreciate poetry, there used to be coffee shops just as seedy as any bar – before Starbucks. However, it’s an absolute necessity to have a few heartbeats in your chest and something cockeyed in your ear … and a tendency to slip off the upright position into crazidom -- cause in my opinion that’s how this slam thing got so popular keeping words alive in flesh and blubber. I know it like I know the tongue in my head. It didn’t take some fraud like Simmons (Smith) to instruct me as to the power of the word; facts is facts – you can bet your blood on it.

Sincerely yours,

C. W. HAZE (Casey’s step-sibling)
Chicago, 2000