To Saul

Dear Saul Williams,

First of all I should thank you, because if Slam poetry is an artform then to be legitimate every artform needs its Louis Armstrong. A talent to blow harder and more passionately then anyone else of his time in a way that leaves everyone after touched by the influence.

Thank you for performing live at Brandeis University, if I hadn't seen that show I wouldn't know the truth. That through the blistering words and hand motions through the metaphors and raps it is a man giving them not a prophet or a god or even a celebrity.

I saw you laugh and stumble, mess up and go back again like we do. It was like seeing Samson pick a wedgie. I was only mad that I could share this with all the other people that know you as MISTER BAD ASS POET SUPREME that memorize your lines and constantly repeat that write their own but are all tied to yours. We're all tied to you and so some of us watch old tapes or read the old poems and say "I find it kind of pretentious now" but I don't know if we believe it. We're writers too scared of losing the past to degrade it too far but never willing to value someone on such a large scale together. It seems weird.

I even bought that weird industrial album you sold over the internet with the cover of u2's Sunday Bloody Sunday..........yeah...I look forward to you moving in new directions.

Some of us aren't as in love with the industrial sound as you are.

It's so scary that after all these years your still the face of us, so much work so much progress and we can't get away from that. SHA-CLACK CLACK I WAS BEFORE THAT!!!!

Thanks Saul