Slam poet to serve 2 life sentences for murder

It takes all sorts of people to make a good slam scene, even murderers. "This is a huge one,'' said Marc Smith, a Chicago poet. "It will be shocking to everybody and a little disconcerting. That's pretty wild.'' As J.J. Jameson, he was one of Chicago's most beloved antiwar poets, a frequent slampoet performer at Chicago lounges, the March 2004 Chicagopoetry.com poet of the month, an author of two books and a congregation leader at a West Side church - and so popular, people applauded when he entered a room. But in Massachusetts, as Norman Porter, he executed a clerk at a clothing store in 1960, aided in the murder of a jailer in 1961, and escaped from a Norfolk prison in 1985. More here and here and here about the poet with more street cred than all the rappers put together. Via Maud Newton.