Because of my beard pages, people tend to submit a lot of beard related links for me to check out. The other day, I got an e-mail from Eirik Ott, aka Big Poppa E, asking me to check out a video for a poem that he wrote called “Beardo”.

“i was digging on your site, and i thought maybe you would appreciate the poem i just wrote about the joys and challenges of having a beard.”

I’m always grateful that people will take the time to send me beard related stuff, but this guy was asking me to look at a poem. Sure, it was about a beard, but still. Poetry? I was torn between my love for beards driving me to click, and the thought of being reacquainted with the mind-numbing curse of iambic pentameter holding my finger at bay.

I put aside my latest revisions of Life of Riley Week 100, and stared at the e-mail as if some cosmic regex would suddenly appear and devour the word “poem” and replace it with something I had a better chance at enjoying, such as “epic metal saga” or even “clever geek humor based comic”. Sadly, no such words appeared.

I sighed, threw on my two dollar headphones, and twisted up my face in preparation for what I was sure would be a coffee shop poetry reading to an audience full of waif like creatures who wore tiny glasses and had propensities toward giant, ratty scarves that didn’t fit them or the weather. I imagined them snapping their long, thin fingers at the end of the performance in place of applause. Before the thought of the clove filled air could give me a headache, I opened the video.

Within the first thirteen seconds of the start of Big Poppa E’s poem, I accidentally shot a fist in the air and burst out laughing. I was glad that I was alone in my office and that the blinds facing the neighbor’s house were closed, so that no one knew that I had involuntarily lost my cool. I’m only telling you this because we’re all friends here, and I wanted to head off the wave of e-mails letting me know that some errant system error had dropped another couple of XP from my profile in the game of life.

Now, instead of allowing yet another droplet to evaporate from the spoonful of cool that I have been allotted in life, Eirik could’ve warned me what I was in for. Eirik, aka Big Poppa E, is a touring, professional slam poetry performer who has appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry three times. Check out the video, and lets see if Eirik can get you to lose a couple of XP yourself.

Beardo: Slam Poetry From Big Poppa E

For more Big Poppa E videos, check out Why I Got Fired From Apple, Falling in Like, and Poem for a Friend. Further information can be found on Big Poppa E’s website, brokenword.org.

Posted in Beards