"I can seriously only tolerate about half an hour of spoken word before I start tuning out and thinking about my grocery list or what my cats are up to," writes Emanuel Xavier in "The Death of Art," one of the poems the spoken-word writer/performer plans to read at Giovanni's Room this Saturday. When Xavier reads — and really, he needs to be seen and heard — a half an hour is probably not enough. His life story, which influences, inspires and infuses his work, could make a gritty little movie. As his poem "The L" describes, he was sexually abused by a cousin, thrown out at 16 for being gay, worked as a hustler and drug dealer, was attacked on the streets in Brooklyn, and was diagnosed with acoustic neuroma. Yet Xavier published, not perished, and later wowed Russell Simmons' Presents Def Poetry audiences. Xavier's refrain in "The Death of Art" is "I am not a poet." Don't believe it. He's a master slam man.