parent-teen.com
an
online magazine for families with teens
ARTICLES,
ARCHIVES, &
RESOURCES
Ages
& Stages
Alcohol/Drugs
Arts
& Media
College
Planning
Coping
Driving
Fun
Issues
News
Parent
Pages
Puberty
School
Sex
& Dating
Sports
Volunteering
Working
Your
Body
COLUMNS
College
Prep
Dear
Mike
Freshman
Journal
From
the Backpack
FEEDBACK
What our readers
say
FORUMS
Discussion boards for parents & teens,
plus professional college planning advice. COMING SOON.
CONTRIBUTE
Editorial guidelines
SHOP
Coming soon.
Recommended
books for parents and teens from amazon.com. Your purchases will
help support this site.
Parent-Teen is a publication of:
Parents'
Press
1454 Sixth St.
Berkeley, CA 94710
Phone:
(510) 524-1602
Fax:
(510) 524-0912
e-mail:
ParentsPrs@aol.com
Site contents © copyright 1997-2000 by Parents' Press
You are welcome to make a single (1) copy of any article for your personal, non-commercial use as long as all rights & copyright information remains intact. Please contact us if you are interested in reprinting any material from this site.
Brave
New Voices 2000: Poetry
Slam
ARTICLE AND PHOTOS
BY GEORGE GLONKA
© 2000 by Parents' Press
"I'm pumped," says a black clad bundle of protons. "I heard this song on the way over and I'm pumped."
Aaron-from-Hartford arranges cushions on wooden chairs in San Francisco's Regency Theatre, site of the National Youth Festival and Poetry Slam.
Moments before, he was among a dancing gaggle burning off over compressed energy in a space the MC will describe as 'Pirates of the Caribbean.'
"We stayed at Stephen Kass' house last night (organizer of the festival) and had dinner with some members of the San Francisco team, and poets from Bosnia were there.
"You should talk to Jasmina," he says, pointing to his former dance partner. "She's from Bosnia."
"Representatives of each team come before me NOW!" The MC is wickedly enjoying his part in National Poetry Month.
Thump-THUMP. Thump-THUMP. The DJ has a perverse sense of humor, too.
"Because nobody wants to go first," a Sacrificial Poet is offered up to the five judges. The audience is encouraged to cheer or boo judges, but only applaud poets. It's not about the scores.
The Sacrificial Poet approaches the microphone. Music stops.
"Me, my earth mother and the tree" shortly draws a
collective gasp not the last.
The teen poets come from across the United States, from England and Bosnia.
They convey two distinct impressions: they're invested in the process from creation through performance, and they support each other endlessly.
Themes run from mid-America to inner city. Relationship material punches up the applause meter, and sex is always a winner.
Although at times they speak in sentences run together like an e-mail address, their poetry is precise, the pauses timely. The poets don't start out slowly.
Aaron-from-Hartford: "I feel like God. Is that bad?"
His hands as demonstrative as when he danced, Aaron discourses on a portion of the female anatomy often augmented. Belly laughs rack the near capacity crowd. Judges award high scores and Hartford jumps in the aisle -- but who's counting.
Berkeley/Oakland is next.
A-capella-in-an-orange-vest taps his microphone. Competitors sway in rhythm. A spiritual-gospel chant floats from the hood drawn close round his face. A-capella returns to the "chorus" half the crowd recalls the words. The next time, the congregation recites in unison.
Aaron, returned from an interview with ABC News, is still pumped. He had come prepared.
"We had an informal bout (after dinner with the other poets) and I was surprised. They were much more prepared than I was. I went back and practiced reciting." But who was going to be counting?
The last poem of the first round is a team performance. Three women and one man from Ann Arbor, Michigan recite rules for an upcoming test, admonishing "fill in the circles completely."
"Go!"
Their prepared script jumps back and forth
among the microphones, discoursing on a test-obsessed system
until...
"Your time is up! Put your pencils down!"
Scripts drop to the floor. Applause from everyone who didn't complete a test their future depended on.
Between rounds, Jasmina-from-Bosnia talks in slow, precise sentences.
"I'm not slamming. I met some poets at a slam. Stephen (Kass) brought me here as a translator."
What does she think of the poets and their work?
"Poetry here is different from poetry in Bosnia. I don't always understand it."
Martina, a poet from Mostar, Bosnia will bridge the gap.
"Not about the way, about the love" begins slowly. Pin-drop quiet clutches the room. Tension builds with gesture, expression and tone. Repeating a phrase, you know she's serious "you do understand?"
An ovation follows Martina to her seat near Jasmina. She touched them all, yet how many understood her native tongue?
The second round combines a strong Native American influence with the energy champs, Chico, California who, in a related development, have fallen in sync with Hartford e = mc2 gone to critical mass.
John-from-Chico: "Why do you women always get involved with ........s?" John pitches himself: "I have the patience to go out with you twice. AND you BUY it."
Laughs born of impeccable timing contrast with a young, breaking voice dealing with domestic violence. Mid-poem, a siren screams up nearby Van Ness Avenue. Met in the aisle by older poets, he uses his t-shirt to blot tears, the movement standing out because all other senses are drowned by the crowd's roar.
Two women of the Navajo Nation take microphones. One remains stage front. The other walks to the back and sits, bending low to the floor, then her eternal voice short circuits your spine, firing nerves at random.
It is impossible to pay attention to both recited words and lyrical chant, so you just let go. Is it over? Your nerves don't know.
Bedlam as scores are tallied. But who can count now?
The assembled teams came from hotbeds of poetry slamming, and "coming to a large city, especially San Francisco, is a big deal for the poets," most of whom are from smaller communities, according to Jeff Kass and Jess Roberts, advisors to the Ann Arbor, Michigan team.
Talsi-from-Hartford: "We went to the Haight-...Ashbury? And my friend Scott and I went to City Lights looking for a book by Beat poet Lenore Kandel. Her work is the one that got to me."
Talsi remarked that City Lights bookstore and its founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti are well known on the other side of the country. Now she, and other teens are slamming poetry out of the coffee houses of Ferlinghetti and Kandel into the spotlight. You gotta be pumped thinking about their future.
Teams from Ann Arbor, Atlanta, Berkeley/Oakland, Chico, Hartford, the Hopi Nation, London, Los Angeles, Mostar, the Navajo Nation, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Taos and Washington D.C. participated in "Brave New Voices 2000."
More Information
youthspeaks.org
poeticlicense.org
poetryslam.com
Companion website to the Independent Television Service documentary "Poetic License," a look at spoken word and performance poetry as a powerful form of expression for American teens.
Home | About Us | Ages & Stages | Alcohol/Drugs | Arts & Media | College Planning | College Prep column | Coping | Dear Mike | Driving | Feedback | Freshman Journal | From the Backpack | Fun | Issues | News | Parent Pages | Puberty | School |Sex & Dating | Sports | Volunteering | Working | Your Body | Advertise | Contribute | E-mail Us