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Sherman Alexie v. Bob Holman
June 17, 2000— Taos, NM
World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout

Results of the bout (poems and scores) from the WPBA/
Round-by-round analysis of the bout.
Read the Taos News article.
WPBA press release (scroll down past the 2001 results).
Buy audio and video tapes of the fight.

Judges' scores
Judge #1 J. Flaherty 96 - 94
Judge #2 G. Martinez 95 - 95
Judge #3 P. Martinson 96 - 94

The match-up. Alexie is the larger man, a huge man actually. Congenial and smart, he exudes confidence. Anything he says with his slight and attractive lisp holds everyone's attention. Holman, who's never seemed short till now, is a tender sort. Wit and charm curl from beneath his ubiquitous hat and his eyes are blue gems twinkling from behind owlish glasses. That he'll do anything to make headway against the charming giant who's his opponent comes as a welcome surprise.

The toss. Champ calls heads and wins. Takes the second position. Already he's in charge.

The bell and the ring girl. As Sr. Holman says, "a cross between Grace Jones and Princess Leila." Very tall, built to the max, an offshoot of the same local family Juliette Torrez claims, Whitney is wearing black short-shorts, a copper bra and a full, black lace mantilla on his totally shaved head. Someone had told him a crew from CBS' 60 Minutes would be there. (We've never mic-ed a ring girl before, but I think we might need to begin. When placing the beaded cap on the winner's head, Alexie, born large-skulled, whines "It won't fit, it won't fit," and the smartass Ring Girl replies, "Yeah, that's what they all say.")

Round 1. The Challenger, in the first position, begins: Holman took a chance with his opening poem, and it showed he respected his opponent enough to feel in need of a blessing-- hence the ceremonial beginning to his program. It also showed he had an idea of what his first piece should be, regardless of the toss. A lengthy list piece ("Praise Poem World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout 2000) whose point was graciousness, Holman relied on esoteria from the bardic traditions, an almost historic flourish that might have been over the audience's head. It grew restless, waiting for a real punch. The Champ responded with the lengthy and Los Alamos-tinged "Reservation Table of the Elements." Judges Flaherty and Martinson gave this round to the Champ.

Round 2. The Challenger counters his opponent's ethnic punch with "1990" ("and Nelson Mandela is free"), a PC piece updated to meet the 21st century and then whisk us beyond the petty considerations of time itself. A good blow. The Champ reprises "Why We Play Basketball," a classic he must have believed was made for Taos. It was; we'd heard it before. It impressed only the Amerind judge. Judges Flaherty and Martinez gave the round to Holman.

Round 3. The Challenger tries a piece that should impress the locals: "For Jorge Brandon" ("el coco que habla"). The piece is charming and the bit of Spanish delightful, but it's complex and, in the end, cute only. A lightweight punch. Perhaps Taoseños were put off by a perceived pandering or mis-telling of the local bogeyman folk tale; longtime Taos residents are sometimes touchy that way. This poem might have been a miscalculation on the Challenger's part. The Champ replies with "Airplane, Airport, Airline, & Air in the Bottom of the 9th Inning," a rambling, journalistic piece with the telling line: "I'm an Indian with money and that makes me dangerous." The irony taps into deep fears and desires, and acknowledges the contemporary situation here in Casino-country. It turned into a love poem. And, it was also about baseball--always a winner. The judges gave the round to the Champ, unanimously.

Round 4. The Challenger presents "Gotta Rock 'n Roll Mythology". Champ follows with "Why Indian Men Fall in Love with White Women." An obvious connection to the audience here. Another unanimous round for the Champ.

Round 5. The Challenger goes deep, pulling it out of the personal with "I'd Rather Be Crazy Than Stupid" and its poignant autobiographical history, which he explained to the audience. Should he have explained this one? Hard to call because the Champ returns with "Water," a piece delivered directly to the drought-filled heart of a wildfire-shy audience. Judge Flaherty favored the lively Challenger, but Judges Martinez and Martinson gave it to the Champ.

Intermission. By the mid-Bout break the Champ held the upper hand, 4 rounds to 1. The Challenger needed to go for some breadth in order to pull it out. Enough of the delightful wordplay he'd been relying on. Skill and strategy were called for at this point if he wanted to change the course of this fight.

Round 6. The Challenger knows he needs to kick it into gear here. And he does, with "A Jew In New York," an excursion on his ethnic background that went a long way toward warming the audience to his off-world brand of character. The Champ's "The Marlon Brando Memorial Swimming Pool," while replete with bi-racial irony that ought to have connected, somehow didn't. Judges Martinson and Martinez gave this one to the Challenger.

Round 7 ("freestyle" round). Holman levitated his way through this round, leaping into the air while fast-rapping "The Impossible Rap" to the accompaniment of an exotic-looking and dead-on musician (an albino woman violinist he reportedly picked up on the streets of Santa Fe). That round in particular raised the bar considerably. Sherman was forced to dig deeper than he had ever gone before. He had never sung before, nor--despite riffing on "vibrato" in NYC Bout--actually demo-ed that he could do it. His light lifted ending, singing his way out of "One Stick Song," made this round the best of the evening. But he lost this one. The judges gave it to the Challenger unanimously.

Round 8. The Challenger launched in to "Storyline," running well overtime and getting the bell dinged slightly on him. That made no real difference in his delivery and did no damage to the piece, but the judges heard it. The Champ's "Things (for an Indian) to Do in New York City," a piece repeated from an earlier year, nevertheless took the round. Judges Flaherty and Martinez gave the round to the Champ. Surprisingly perhaps, Judge Martinson gave it to Holman.

Round 9. The Challenger's extraordinary "Performance Piece" brings the Living Theatre into the house, with the description of an off-the-wall poetry reading done in completely off-the-wall (or at least off-the-stage) performance style. The Champ tried valiantly to come back with "The Mice War" but he was out-performed here. The judges gave it to Holman unanimously.

Round 10 (extemporaneous round). The Challenger drew "Beads" and spent his full prep time in mock "deep concentration," holding the slip of paper against his forehead, Karnac-style. He then delivered a beautifully worked piece blending a take on the beaded cap given to the Champion each year with the concept of strings of bead-words. I thought the effort, while well-crafted, missed several turns, including the use of the word as a verb: the image of Joyce beading the cap might have been stronger if the activity were the focus rather than the adjectival quality of multi-color. Plus, where were the prayer-beads when you really needed them? The Champ drew "Mask" and did a predictable piece, an easy enough reference to his life in two worlds. Again, one yearned for the poet to see the verb-al side of this poem-seed. The judges gave it unanimously to the Champ here, but one almost feels that at the end of a long and fully-involving performance, they were ready to acknowledge the Champ before them and be done with it, rather than have to do yet one more subtle selection between two equivalent pieces.

The producers actually go to some lengths to ensure that most of the 6 to 9 words "in the hat" can have more than one meaning, part of speech or nuance. It's the human mind perhaps that focuses first on the noun. Of course it's the poetic one that rides the verb and, even though it's hard to be the "deer-in-the- headlights" (Juliette Torrez's apt phrase), it would be a valuable twist to the extemp round if the poets would look beyond the first thought here and take the road less traveled.

Holman came closer than any other poet to stopping the Champ. (Previously Alexie had taken down Jimmy Baca by the same scores (96-94, 95-95, 96-94) and beaten back the challenge by Wanda Coleman (95-95, 98-92 and 96- 94). Even so, it seems that Alexie may have made Taos his home court. At this point, with the first ever Three Peat under his belt, The Champ may prove extremely hard to knock down, much less knock out.

And didn't we love the show? How grateful the audience was to be transported that way by two superbly fine voices and visions. The evening, as always, was phenomenal. Who was it who said, "Poetry always wins"?*

* Peter Rabbit, 1983.