Dear Urbana Slam Poets and Bowery Poetry Club

Dear “Big Mike”… at the Bowery Poetry Club

Fuck right off.

No I will not take off my shirt or show you my ass for your polaroids. Skeevy asshole. I”m so happy to go back to San Francisco and say goodbye to the Bowery’s poetry scene… Where they knowingly tolerate blatant sexual harassers in their scene.

Dear women in the Bowery Scene and people who aren’t misogynist fuckheads, I feel sorry for you that you have to put up with that kind of thing. Why do you?

Dear mc dude of the Urbana slam team, nice job of laughing off sexual harassment to my face. Also thanks for letting me know that “that guy hangs out here every single day at the poetry club.” I’m sure everyone just thinks he’s SO funny and such a character!

Dear guy working the door… I thought you were laughing with me and were complicit in my fool-baiting. “Thanks” for then when I confronted the dude about his fucked-upedness, then acting like you didn’t hear anything wrong… And for saying that you didn’t hear anything hostile. Because we all know that asking all the women in a cafe or a poetry reading to take off their clothes for a camera and if they have any “intimate” piercings or tattoos is just totally FRIENDLY… It makes women feel all appreciated and welcome and stuff…

Oh also? The tempting offer of a free copy of your book in exchange for the polaroids of my naked body… not tempting at all.

9 thoughts on “Dear Urbana Slam Poets and Bowery Poetry Club

  1. What a wanker! It’s funny how tolerant these guys were of him harassing you yet if the tables were turned and he was pulling this shit on one of them you may bet it’d be a different story. I’m sure they see “Big Mike” as quite the Bon Vivant and Hail Well Met fellow, truth is they’re complicit in the harassment because not only do they tolerate his behaviour but they also encourage it by laughing with him and letting him continue so he misbehaves again and again.

    blaize

  2. I’m sorry. You can leave your twisted bigoted crap in San Fran. EVERYONE knows Big Mike. EVERYONE knows he is harmless.

    You looked through his collection of polaroids. Then you called HIM a “sexual harasser.” Not a perv, like yourself. You, my dear, have issues. I have only heard a wee bit about your “poem” from that evening.

    Please run home to San Fran, the grand locale of self-inflated, four-syllable-word-using dim-wits (albeit with “cool” tatoos and an attitude to prove it.)

    Mike thinks he suffered a terrible lapse in judgement, considering your interest in his photo collection. I think you must have been drunk. Why else did you say, “Oooh, let me look” and the next, “He’s a misogynist.. blah blah blah….”

    Do you know what misogyny means? Google it, genius. He’s a perv, not a woman-hater. In fact, his best friends are women.

    I CAN NOT believe* anyone took your nasty posting ALL OVER THE INTERNETS as fact.

    Think about it. You are defaming someone with inflammatory LIES. That is harassment. That is ABUSE. This post is harassment (a misdemeanor.) The things you said at the Slam were abusive. You continue to ABUSE/illegally harass another human being by spreading this crap across the internets. I am pissed as hell.

    I resisted the temptation to name the names of numerous “slam” misogynists who, frankly, dear, do NOT bother you or harass you, perhaps, because they do not think they have a chance to FUCK YOU. Perhaps, you have not been called a stupid white cunt for an hour by the local Bowery veteran-poet-drunkard. Run home to San Fran, princess.

    You are clueless if you think that Mike’s interest in you as a subject for his photography is in any way connected to the REAL AND PRESENT problem of misogyny in the poetry scene and the cabaret arts, in general.

    *Unfortunately, i DO believe it. Misogyny wins another one. Go Team Misogyny! Bring on the San Fran poetess who wouldn’t know her clit from a misogynist. (yeah, I can rhyme too. i lay down my sword.) i am fed up with young women who pitch for the man’s team.

    ikon pic by Big Mike

  3. response to anonyMaux,

    By “everyone” knows he’s harmless, I take it you mean that you know he’s harmless. But clearly, not everyone knows he’s harmless. You might consider that your own suggests that his behavior, when taken out of whatever context has approved it, is not generally okay.

    And as a side note — I’m assuming good faith, but it’s not an assumption justified by your comment, which suggests irrationality if not actual trollness. Throwing out terms like “illegally harass” and “misdemeanor”, for example, work to escalate rhetoric, not engage in good faith.

    Laura Quilter

  4. I’m sure Big Mike was kidding if he asked you to take your clothes off. Really, who the hell would want to see you naked?

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