Dean Hacker performs on 1990-Oct-15 at the Green Mill, Chicago. This poem is part of a series of competitive readings to determine the Green Mill's final slam team member. He joined cin salach, Patricia Smith, and Marc Smith to represent Chicago at the first-ever National Poetry Slam, which took place in San Francisco later that season.

The character Oliver O. Oliver is a reference to Chicago's Bozo's Circus, a local children's television franchise. On the show, Oliver was a bumpkin clown who was almost constantly outsmarted by Bozo. The series aired live and (largely) uncensored through the 1960s.

TRT: 3 min 13 sec
shot on Hi-8 videotape; post-produced on S-VHS videotape; mono; NTSC

MPEG-4 version: standard definition, NTSC, 320 x 240 px
Windows Media Video version: standard definition, NTSC, 320 x 240 px

Clicking the links immediately above may be more suitable for some mobile devices, set-top boxes, and game systems.

This video is published here by permission of the director.

This video is copyrighted content. Rights to the video reverted back to the video's creators upon its publication here.

This video does not exist in high-definition (HD) video. The original was created using only standard-definition (SD) production equipment.