2007 (Almost) 24-Hour Poetry Feature (24HPF)
Mike McGee's Complete Set-List

NOTE: I have not double-checked spellings and numbering. This is a simple draft...

To begin, I have looked at this event two ways: a grossly failed attempt at reading poetry for 24-hours AND a successful dedication to poets and poetry that lasted a bit over 24-hours. I wholly prefer the latter.

As for preparation, I did not have the time I had hoped to dedicate to the acquiring all I wanted for the set. MACLA was outstanding in ensuring I'd have the staff and equipment necessary. My friends helped out above and beyond the call of poetry. I think they understood the task I was setting out to achieve, ultimately, better than I.

December 16 to 22, 2007: Confided in and took advice from Scott Woods with regard to upcoming 24HPF. Lots of good stuff came out of it our emails. Most of the little successes at my 24HPF were due to Scott's advice.

Thursday, December 20, 2007: I returned to San Jose, evening, after a beautiful two-day visit with Miss Knowles, and a week recording in Vancouver. I spent Thursday evening rounding up things and poems. I slept a bit, but spent most of it going over the 24HPF with my crew at Barefoot Coffee Roasters; David Perez, Travis Bilenski, Lucia Misch, and Elaine Levia. Monica Hill confirmed that she would supply and serve Barefoot coffees at MACLA.

Friday, December 21, 2007: Spend most of my day freaking out with preparation stuff. Realized I ran out of time to get my chapbook collection out of storage. Went to Barnes & Noble to purchase some more books. Spent the whole night finishing up last minute details and non-24HPF related issues.

Saturday, December 22, 2007: Slept for three hours. Realized I was doomed from the start considering what little time I had. Spent too much time worrying about non-24HPF-related stuff, and didn't realize I had plenty of time AT THE 24HPF to focus on poems, poets and poetry. Very worried I wouldn't make it all the way through. Lots of self-doubt and second-guessing. Figured out how to broadcast the show on Blogtv.com, which probably, and surprisingly, the easiest aspect of the whole endeavor.

Lucia and Max Borkenhagen picked me up. I brought a lot of crap with me. Snacks and water. Cigarettes. My printer. Blankets, pillows and a crate of chapbooks.

Got to MACLA; David Perez and Fernando set up a small 5" wooden-riser stage in the middle of the theater. David and Fernando were phenomenal in setting up stage, sound and lighting. He was most pivotal and valuable as my go-to-man. David lined up rows of chairs and couches around the stage and made the place very comfy. Elaine began brewing coffee in French presses. A few others showed up for the opening set.

8:55-ish pm: Began broadcast on Blogtv.com, began at 9:15pm.

OPENING
1. Tony Brown - Poetry Shoes (written for the set)
2. Scott Woods - Why You Can't Write Poetry In Bars
3. Mike McGee - Made Of
4. Mike McGee - Seventeen, Part II
5. Anis Mojgani - Shake The Dust
6. Mike McGee - Fart The Dust (Mojgani Parody)
7. Mike McGee - When Ladybugs Are Tempted
8. Mike McGee - Dirty Dimes
9. Mike McGee - Static
10. Mike McGee - The Smile
11. Mike McGee - Soul Food
12. Mike McGee - Open Letter to Neil Armstrong
13. Mike McGee - I'm Not...But If I Were

BREAK 10:15pm - 10:20pm

REQUEST (emailed to me)
14. Mike McGee - Geez, Us!
15. Heidi Hermanson - "1,001 Loads of Laundry" Project
16. Larry Winfield - Terra Cognita
17. Larry Winfield - 12.3
18. Kevin "Chesko" Brianchesko - How Samuel Mother Fucking Jackson Mother Fucking Saved Christmas Mother Fucker - A Children's Story
19. Zach Miranda - Rambling Rhetoric for Miss Anonymous
20. David Perez - Yours Only
21. Stefan Sencerz - A Letter To My Friend
22. Karyn Fox - "the end"
23. Barbra Treston - Cute
24. Jeffrey McDaniel - The Quiet World (sent by Kim von See)
25. J. David Tabor - My Favorite Customer Ever
26. Mike McGee - The End
27. Mike McGee - Dying to Live
28. Mike McGee - People Are Ugly When I Am Sad
29. Mike McGee - Everyday
30. Mike McGee - BMX

BREAK 11:20pm - 11:35pm

31. D. Silence - American Dream
32. Alex Charalambides - Mentor
33. Bad Andy - Open Letter to The Brothers of The Book
34. Samuel Rutledge - America
35. Blair - Gorgeous Monsters
36. Jason Carney - Now and Again
37. Jack McCarthy - End of the Road
38. Jack McCarthy - Careful What You Ask For
39. Jack McCarthy - The Faithful Men
40. Bill Peckham - The Joys of Motherhood
41. Bill Peckham - The Locker
42. Mike McGee - Going Young
43. Mike McGee - Artist Boy
44. Mike McGee - Do It For The Children
45. Mike McGee - Badass Mofo
46. Mike McGee - Yellin' at Cancer

BREAK 12:36am - 12:53am

47. Lucia Misch - "Mountain Ode"
48. Mike McGee - Tonight
49. Joshua Walters - Bustin Out
50. Gary Pacernick - The Writer
51. Gary Pacernick - Live for the Poetry
52. Antler - Brains Bashed In By Sledgehammers
53. Drew Bauguess - Impressionless
54. Drew Bauguess - Armor Breach
55. Charlie Mehrhoff - Of One Bread
56. Tony Brown - Mission Statement
57. Mike Henry - My Grandparents Had Chickens
58. Sarah McKinstry-Brown - Dropping Hints
59. Daphne Gottlieb - Suicide Artist
60. Geoff Trenchard - Turning Back To Face
61. Matt Mason - Code Orange
62. Mike McGee - Graveyard Shift
63. Tamara Nicholl - Chicago's Lover
64. Buddy Wakefield - Convenience Stores
65. Piet Gerbrandy - "Today my body"
66. Mike McGee - Sleepwalker

BREAK 1:58am - 2:17am

CHARLES BUKOWSKI
from Betting On The Muse
67. Charles Bukowski - splash
68. Charles Bukowski - the women
69. Charles Bukowski - the monkey
70. Charles Bukowski - Whistler
71. Charles Bukowski - the pleasures of the damned
72. Charles Bukowski - panties
73. Charles Bukowski - the dead flowers of myself
74. Charles Bukowski - me against the world
75. Charles Bukowski - the snails
76. Charles Bukowski - again
77. Charles Bukowski - the World War One movies
78. Charles Bukowski - to hell and back in a buggy carriage
79. Charles Bukowski - stages
80. Charles Bukowski - escape
81. Charles Bukowski - woman on the street
82. Charles Bukowski - Confessions Of A Coward
83. Charles Bukowski - the secret
84. Charles Bukowski - A View from the Quarter, March 12th, 1965:
85. Charles Bukowski - drink

BREAK 3:20am - 3:40am

WOMEN OF POETRY
86. Suzy La Follette - Automatic Shirts
87. Suzy La Follette - Eve Said
88. Emily Kagan - For My Girls
89. Sara Lihz - The Physics of Two Airplanes in the Same City
90. Sara Lihz - Playing: The Mother
91. Sara Lihz - On Realizing How Close We Are To Death
92. Sara Lihz - How to Solve the Whole Mid-East Crisis Without One More Body
93. Leticia Viloria - I Think You're The Bee's Knees
94. Sou MacMillan - If Money Burns
95. Molly Meacham - Recalling
96. Jessica Lohafer - Love Makes You Crazy
97. Jessica Lohafer - Minnesota: God's Forgotten Paradise
98. Lucy Anderton - Becoming God
99. Lucy Anderton - That year. In rapes.
100. Lucy Anderton - The Poet Takes Back Love
101. Delrica Andrews - quiero bailar contigo
102. Delrica Andrews - Good Morning
103. Andrea Gibson - El Mozote'
104. Andrea Gibson - Sidewalk Chalk
105. Andrea Gibson - Water Drips Through Stone

BREAK 4:40am - 5:17am

106. Beowulf (dozed of at page 23, gave up)

BREAK 6:00am - 6:45am

ANIS MOJGANI HOUR
from The Birthday Yard
107. Anis Mojgani - The Birthday Yard
108. Anis Mojgani - "Set the warriors..."
109. Anis Mojgani - 4 Suitcases
110. Anis Mojgani - I'm Forgetting This Poem Before I Write It
111. Anis Mojgani - Spin Her Ed...
112. Anis Mojgani - In Curtains We Marry Ourselves To Our Inhibitions
113. Anis Mojgani - I'm A Fifth Generation Inchworm
114. Anis Mojgani - The Fingernail Tree
115. Anis Mojgani - Your Favorite Color
116. Anis Mojgani - Cave Paintings
117. Anis Mojgani - The Clementines Grew...
118. Anis Mojgani - Let's Say My Heart Beats, I Mean Hypothetically
119. Anis Mojgani - There Are Torpedoes Off The Coast...
120. Anis Mojgani - Thou Art God's Shadow on Earth...
121. Anis Mojgani - The Monks Hunger
122. Anis Mojgani - S.L. Hudson Sleeps in Douglasville, GA., U.S.A.
123. Anis Mojgani - Galumpf These Nuts...
124. Anis Mojgani - Harvest
125. Anis Mojgani - Outlaws

BREAK 7:24am - 7:32am (not sure when I took this break)

126. Anis Mojgani - The Mechanics of Geese
127. Anis Mojgani - I Slept the Night in an Aquarium
128. Anis Mojgani - Dreams September 12, 2004
129. Anis Mojgani - If I Had Written This...(for Naysan)
130. Anis Mojgani - There's a Spotlight on Las Vegas Blvd...
131. Anis Mojgani - Ghosts
132. Anis Mojgani - The Mechanics of Geese Part II
133. Anis Mojgani - God Was A Black Crow
134. Anis Mojgani - Laughter and Legends
135. Anis Mojgani - No One Tells You It Will Be Like This
136. Anis Mojgani - I Want Water...
137. Anis Mojgani - The Circus Is Calling
138. Anis Mojgani - The Mustache of Brautigan's San Francisco

BREAK 8:08am - 8:26am

SHIRA ERLICHMAN HOUR
from Advertisement For A Human Being
139. Shira Erlichman - Advertisement for a Human Being
140. Shira Erlichman - Letter home to Base Untranslatable
141. Shira Erlichman - A Feeing is an Idea with Roots
142. Shira Erlichman - The Piano Speaks
143. Shira Erlichman - Towards Being More Unreasonable
144. Shira Erlichman - Alien Authoritative Alien Says Hello Hello...
145. Shira Erlichman - Daddy's Parking Lot Sermon
146. Shira Erlichman - A Brick Through God's Window
147. Shira Erlichman - Wet
148. Shira Erlichman - The City of Hope
149. Shira Erlichman - The Brain that is not the Brain
150. Shira Erlichman - Medicine Choir
151. Shira Erlichman - Preparation Speech for a Future Fossil

BREAK 9:09am - 9:17am

152. Rob C. - Teacher
153. Rob C. - The Other Side of a World
154. Ryk McIntyre - Lovers Are My Favorite Alarm Clocks
155. Ryk McIntyre - Bathroom Found Poem #2*
156. Adam Stone - "an unfortunate, isolated incident"
157. Ittai Wong - Pledge of Allegiance
158. Eric Victorino - whiskey'n'coke.
159. Ryler Dustin - Endings
160. Ryler Dustin - My Old Man
161. Logan Phillips - Morning of February 21, 2005

BREAK 9:48am - 10:10am

CHILDREN'S READING
162 - 192. Jack Prelutsky - (various, from:) It's Raining Pigs & Noodles
193. Emily Perl Kingsley - Farley Goes to the Doctor (Sesame St. Book)
194 - 212. Shel Silverstein - (various, from:) Falling Up
213. Judi Barrett - Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
214. Dr. Seuss - The Lorax

BREAK 11:45am - ??:?? (lost track of time)

CANADIAN POETS
215. Cynthia Gould - Buddha at the Crosswalk
216. Cynthia Gould - Purple Ink
217. Fernando Raguero - High Cupboard
218. Fernando Raguero - Hush Puppy, Hush Puppy, Hush Puppy
219. Barbara Adler - The Banana Dilemma
220. Barbara Adler - Come
221. Ms. Spelt - The Fallen
222. C.R. Avery - Just Passin' Through
223. Shane Koyczan - Remember How We Forgot?
224. Fernando Raguero - The Other Two Percent
225. Fernando Raguero - Michelangelo
226. Fernando Raguero - Wow
227. Magpie Ulysses - "I heard about a guy..."
228. Barbara Adler - 24 Hour Heart

BREAK About 1:20pm - 6:45pm (took much needed, migraine-fueled nap)

229. Chrystalene Buhler - 12:01 am, november 1st
230. Chrystalene Buhler - waiting
231. Ryler Dustin - We'll Vanish Like Cities (submitted by Elaine Levia)
232. Bill Peckham - Spring
233. Bill Peckham - Our Jury for Our Peers
234. Bill Peckham - What Goes Down Must Come Up
235. Bill Peckham - On Her Eyes

BREAK Approx. 7:20pm - 7:30pm

LYRICALLY CHALLENGED
236. Beatles - You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
237. Arrested Development - Tennessee
238. Kool Moe Dee - I Go To Work
239. Neutral Milk Hotel - The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1
240. Neutral Milk Hotel - The King of Carrot Flowers Pts. 2 & 3
241. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
242. Neutral Milk Hotel - Two-Headed Boy
243. Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945
244. Neutral Milk Hotel - Communist Daughter
245. Neutral Milk Hotel - Oh Comely
246. Neutral Milk Hotel - Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2

BREAK Approx. 8:20pm - 8:35pm

DERRICK C. BROWN SET
from Born in the Year of the Butterfly Knife
247. Derrick C. Brown - The Kurosawa Champagne
248. Derrick C. Brown - The Chinese Elevator
249. Derrick C. Brown - Punish Children
250. Derrick C. Brown - Waltzing the Hurricane
251. Derrick C. Brown - The Silent Fall of New York City
252. Derrick C. Brown - The Dawn of Weird
253. Derrick C. Brown - With The Guidance of Dolphins
254. Derrick C. Brown - How to Feel
255. Derrick C. Brown - To the Lightning Teachers
256. Derrick C. Brown - Blood Test
257. Derrick C. Brown - Hot for Sorrow
258. Derrick C. Brown - Armstrong
259. Derrick C. Brown - Medusa Oblongata
260. Derrick C. Brown - Come Alive
261. Derrick C. Brown - The Labrador is Posed in the Freezer (story)
262. Derrick C. Brown - Blowtorch Sonata
263. Derrick C. Brown - A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me

BREAK Not sure

RC WESLOWSKI HOUR SET (12/27/07 - EDIT: List of correct titles submitted by RC)
264. Suicide prevention day arrives three weeks too late (For Deanna)
265. Life is but a dream (For Vlad E. Vos tock)
266. Lightning bug (For T-Paul)
267. The Narcoleptic Owl (For Bill W.)
268. As i breathe
269. Love part one: The Bun of disquiet
279. Love part two: My soft response to the wars
280. Love part three: My heart is a glass piñata
281. An open love letter to Kurbatoff the scoundrel
282. Ange's buttocks
283. Apojee
284. Baby Jesus Visa
285. The big heads
286. Bucket of zaaaa
287. Eat my face
288. Butterfly Bomb
289. Every bawdy haz a sownd
290. Eye Spy
291. Fredipous Rex
292. Fuckerhead's reply (In response to Morris Stegosaurus)
293. I received a grant for this
294. In my black leather diaper
295. Jimmy
296. Look out trees, here I come, I love you
297. My memory of hate
298. PNE love affair
299. Somehow the night was filled with poetry
300. Sometimes love does win
301. Swallow the Ocean
302. The best thing
303. The Girl Next Door
304. The Hummingbird Man is waiting for you
305. The seven moon stations of the black tortoise of winter
306. Ut Ut Igboo Weasals
307. War on Worms
308. Why he runs
309. Beauty ba bo
310. U.R. the Magic People
311. Bum on the mountain
312. Move the mushroom
313. Shake the Salt (Following Mojgani)

NOTE: I took a break in there somewhere, but I had stopped caring about the time by then.

Finished 10:20pm

I specifically stopped on RC's works. I read them all in order, and could not muster up the will to read any of my own.

Blogtv.com was great for most of the broadcast. I know many viewers had sound issues and/or choppiness throughout some of it. The chat function made it nice to communicate with the viewers, that is, until some random user logged in to post his "Molestation poem" and discuss "their" love for pedophilia. I logged out then and did not resume the broadcast until sometime a few hours later. I could not police the function myself, and nobody I knew was logged in at the time to help out.

My long nap between 1:20pm to 6:45pm is where I felt the most failed. I was pushing myself so hard physically, that my body just shut down. I must've dozed off a few times prior to the children's reading.

In retrospect, I know what I could've done to smooth out the 24HPF. I could have made it a lot easier on myself by actually getting some sleep prior to the 24 period. My breaks were all out of whack due to extreme exhaustion. I drank water and ate when I was hungry, but my lack of rest contributed to the breakdown of the "24 hours of reading." In all, I may have read for a total of 12-17 hours. I doesn't matter to me, really.

I learned a lot about myself, about poetry and about other poets throughout this process. I want to do it again and I feel I have a lot of information and advice for poets who might set out to do this on their own. As much as I feel I did a good thing here in San Jose, I know I can do much, much better. I have many new ideas for an event like this, but I can say I would not have had them if I hadn't tried it on my own. I also won't worry so much about the time. I wasn't trying to break any records or anything. I just wanted to read awesome stuff for a long time. I accomplished just that.

This would not have even come close to happening if it had not been for the immense help from the staff at MACLA & Barefoot Coffee Roasters, David Perez, Lucia Misch, Travis Bilenski, Max Borkenhagen and Elaine Levia.

I will do this again, but maybe next time when it isn't so cold in San Jose, and I'm not between such close periods of travel time. I also would not have any designated set for my own work. I would have rather began each set with ONE of my poems, then moved onto others. I can think of 50 other poets I should have read, but never got to. I had WAY TOO MUCH poetry to choose from. My own works should have been a default if I ran out, not the focus. I got tired of my own poetry very quickly, especially when other poet's works were so much better.

Bill Peckham, San Jose Slam regular, stayed with us for 17 hours. He's 69 years young. When I told him I felt like I'd failed my mission, he said, "If we knew the outcome, it wouldn't be an adventure." As glad as I was to have him there, he interupted me a lot during the set, not intentionally, but certainly every time I'd try to utilize my break, he'd commandeer my time to discuss his own work and convince me to read his stuff. I don't think I drove home to him the intention of the 24HPF. He just kept handing me stuff of his to read and I would feel bad if I didn't. It occurred to me how detrimental it was to have to focus on any one conversation during my breaks. I think it important to explain to friends who want to stay for the long haul just how important your breaks are. I should have gone for walks.

My love of poetry and spoken word grew immensely and exponentially this weekend. For anyone who has ever deigned to make a career out of performing poetry, I highly suggest they try this, especially if you've ever fancied yourself a "night person." You will fall in love with poetry and hate it, back and forth, all at once, all night long.

Gotta hand it to you, scottwoods. You were right about the Chloraseptic throat spray. It's a life saver!

Karen G rules for sticking with me online!

Now I'm off to New York to meet Robbie Q...
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Word to the nerd.
2008: Doing it!