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MAKING CONTACT Transcript: #16-01 Urban Renaissance: Youth and Spoken Word Shereen Meraji: This week on Making Contact: Tiger Walsh : We can't wait for justice to arrive at our doorstep. We need to be agents of change, create collective movements that shake foundations of lies teaching us to be slaves and masters. Bryonn Bain: Using the artform as a mode of resistance and liberation, I think we have some powerful possibilities for us within the spoken word. Shereen Meraji: April marks National Poetry Month, but during every month over the last decade the young in the United States have been speaking out -- in verse -- on issues affecting their lives. While media outlets knock American youth for being disinterested in politics and world affairs, young people gather together and share poetry with themes that run the personal and political gamut. On this program we take a look at how youth in the United States are using poetry as a tool for empowerment and resistance. I'm Shereen Marisol Meraji, your host this week on Making Contact: An international radio program seeking to create connections between people, vital ideas and important information. While media outlets knock American youth for being disinterested in politics and world affairs, young people gather together and share poetry which run the personal and political gamut. Coffee shop open mics and poetry slams in U.S. cities are featuring the poetic work of young artists. Topics range from ethnic and racial identity to love relationships, gender inequality to police brutality. Nothing is Taboo. Walidah Imarisha: The unfinished revolution Shereen Meraji: Young poets across the United States use two terms interchangeably when discussing the art-form of putting words into verse. Poetry and the newer term spoken word. Why the different labels? For an answer to this question I asked Walidah Imarisha, a twenty-one year old spoken word artist in Philadelphia, to clarify. Walidah Imarisha: I think spoken word is kind of a word we've been using, a title to reclaim poetry because a lot of times when people think of poetry they think of Shakespeare sonnets and Lord Byron and poems about, you know, spring time and stuff that really doesn't relate to the crop of poets that are involved in spoken word. You know, a younger generation, predominantly folks of color that I've seen and you know, that doesn't resonate with us. Unidentified Poet: Las yucas paladas don't want me around, Bryonn Bain: The spoken word emphasizes what it says, the actual oral delivery and performance of the word. Shereen Meraji: Bryonn Bain is a spoken word artist with the group D'Orgen and is also a cofounder of the Blackout Arts Collective in New York City. Bryonn Bain: The spoken word movement that is erupting right now around the country and has been in the last decade emphasizes not only the importance of poetic devices, which are often used in page poetry, but also emphasizes the performance of the word and the power of the word in its oral delivery. Jason: Ances-tors. Uplifting spirit and smudging aura Shereen Meraji: Another powerful component of spoken word performance is its competitive edge. There's a growing youth movement in the United States of young poets who are participating in poetry slams. A slam is a form of competitive poetry that was developed in the late 1980s to allow adult poets a venue to feature their work. In the last decade young people, many inspired by the rhyme and cadence of hip hop music, have stepped out on the slam scene and are making quite an impression. Walidah Imarisha refers to slam as full-contact poetry accessible to a wide audience. Walidah Imarisha: There are a certain number of slammers, usually, you know, eight to ten, and then everyone gets up and reads a poem. You get three minutes, no props. If you go overtime you get points deducted. There are three to five randomly picked judges in the audience, just from whoever walked in the door. You know, it coulda been some guy sitting at the bar, drinking all night, and you're like, Hey, do you want to be a judge? And he's like, yeah, cool, whatever. And they get scorecards, and you score the poem from zero to ten, using a decimal point. You know, and you usually base it half on performance and half on the poem. And it's like kinda like the populization of poetry, so that it's like everyday people, not this hierarchical, you know like aristocratic, you know, academia people who supposedly know so much about poetry, you know, giving their interpretation of the poem, but it's just everyday people, you know, hitting the poem. And I think, you know, that's what makes, you know, slam poetry so much different than you know, than just literary magazines or whatever. It's . . . you're touching real people. Shereen Meraji: Every year a national teen poetry slam is held in the United States. Teens from around the world come together to share their work and compete for the ultimate prize: Slam Champion. But what motivates these young folks to be a part of the slam scene? Making Contact correspondent Evelyn Manangan, looks at the grassroots organization Youth Speaks in California's San Francisco Bay Area for answers. Evelyn Manangan: In San Francisco, a hub of grassroots movements that have inspired art and activism, a renaissance of words is being celebrated. Announcer: She is 16-years old! Her name is Chinaka Hodge, y'all. Chinaka Hodge: The wind rips across America and frightens the night Evelyn Manangan: It's voices like Chinaka Hodge's and organizations for young people that are sparking the renaissance. Youth Speaks, an outreach organization dedicated to creating venues for youth poetry performance, is experiencing phenomenal growth. Founder James Kass says Youth Speaks, which began in 1995, immediately crossed race, gender, and ethnic boundaries and helped teens find a place in our cultural dialog. James Kass: You know, we go into the schools to do a lot of outreach and we work with teachers. And teachers have responded really incredibly well to it, for a few reasons. We have a teacher at Berkeley High School who said, You know, three or four years ago, when it was the time to teach poetry all the teachers dreaded it. It was . . . they couldn't engage it, the youths weren't interested. Poetry had such a É it was a foreign term. And now that's the thing that young folks are looking forward to all year and the teachers look forward to it all year, and poetry has become a way to also engage youths with history, as the historical elements. And part of our success is that we are offering teenagers something that they're not getting elsewhere. And we're doing it in ways that teachers and parents can appreciate, because it is a focus on literacy, and it is a focus on using language and understanding how language can be a communication tool. Chinaka Hodge: We are emaciated Evelyn Manangan: In her first year with Youth Speaks, Tiger Walsh represented San Francisco at the National Teen Poetry Slam 2000. She is now a youth coordinator and mentor in Youth Speaks' after school writing workshops. Tiger Walsh: I see a lot of folks writing not because necessarily they have all the free time, or because, you know, they like pretty flowers and stuff like that, but I see people writing because they have to. Because if they don't write, they're going to explode or they're going to die or their parents-you know, it's like something crucial is gonna happen and it-and they're also writing because nobody else is listening. You know, like their teachers aren't listening, the politicians aren't listening, the parents aren't listening, and so the paper is listening. Chinaka Hodge: We are the beat Evelyn Manangan: Antonio Elmo Mims, whose stage name is Amen, came in contact with James Kass and co-director of Youth Speaks, Pamuchi Joseph, in his last year of high school. Antonio Elmo Mims: And to tell you the truth, if it wasn't for Mark Pamuchi Joseph and James Kass, I wouldn't have graduated from high school. 'Cause around the time when I met them, I was going through a lot. I was just gonna plannin on stop goin' to high school; I was just gonna plannin on stop going to school. Lot of folks said I was gonna be a loser for the rest of my life, 'cause I was always gonna be successful, but I didn't feel high school was gonna help me do that, so I stopped. I stopped going to school but what happened was I met up with them. And they gave me a little bit of direction. They gave me direction in my life. All I know is that I'm lonely and I really want to cry No other place I believe in the world right now offers what Youth Speaks offers. And that's like a number of different workshops where people can come-young writers and old writers-people of all ages can come and express theirselves through word, through dance, through anything. Through visual art, performing art. It's very inspirational and it gives you, it gives youÉ I want to say a sense of family. A sense of, a sense of togetherness, without salaries, without grades, without all the other BS a lot of movements give you. It's not politics. No one's president. No one's trying to get in anyone else's place. No one's trying to be anybody else. You just come and you express yourself as best you can and it's accepted no matter what. It's accepted. Announcer: You know what? I have something to tell you all. This is a slam! Bill Hollman: Slams are the most energetic grassroots arts movement in the Country. Evelyn Manangan: Poet Bill Hollman... Bill Hollman: So what's so great about it is it's aÉ if you've got the desire and the idea strikes home, you can go start one up yourself. Evelyn Manangan: Youth Speaks and its expressive community soon became a subject of "Poetic License," a documentary film that follows the stories of poets slamming across the country while competing for the national teen poetry title. Filmmaker David Yanofsky recalls his first teen poetry event. David Yanofsky: Within a minute or two, it was immediately apparent to me that there was an exciting movement that had to be documented. There was-at that event-I was exposed to a generation-or I was exposed to a group of teenagers who literally were blasting through whatever misconceptions I had about this generation. A lot of the media images I had received overseas were of them, of teens, being locked up, put into police cars, walking through metal detectors at school, apathy reaching an all-time high. And what I saw was the exact opposite. I saw a group of teenagers who were intelligent, were creative, were positive, and were creating a community around the spoken word. And it was amazing just to see that cohesiveness right before my eyes because, again, it was something that I had never... it was something that I had not been exposed to and it was a beautiful moment. Asheena McNeel: Hi, everybody. I'm gonna dedicate this poem to today's youth that's filled to the brim with yesterday's lies about tomorrow's truth. Evelyn Manangan: Asheena McNeel's performance is excerpted from the film "Poetic License." Asheena McNeel: The poem I wrote is called 125th Street Blues. And I hope you like it. Evelyn Manangan: For Making Contact, I'm Evelyn Manangan. Shereen Meraji: You're listening to Making Contact, a production of the National Radio Project. If you want more information on the subject of this week's program, or would like to get in touch with any of our guests, we'll be giving out our toll-free number at the end of this broadcast. Bryonn Bain: When I had never seen the scriptures encrypted Shereen Meraji: That was Bryonn Bain, spoken word artist with the group D'Orgen and cofounder of the Blackout Arts Collective in New York City. For Bain and other spoken word artists, poetry is more than a form of cultural entertainment. It is a tool that can be used for political activism and resistance. Bryonn Bain: When we realize that education and language and art are things that not only pass on information, but also carry our culture, we understand more clearly that it can used as a tool for colonization and why it has been used as a tool of colonization. We also understand how it can used as a tool for resistance. You know, the stuff that we're doing now didn't begin with us-in Brazil, the Angolan capoiera, you know, emerged as a way for enslaved Africans to disguise their martial art in a dance. And even in the United States, we have the tradition of the Negro spirituals. You know, Swing lo, sweet Harriet comin' for to carry me home-talking about the Underground Railroad and a way for enslaved Africans to communicate with each other-their messages, and their practices and their plans for resistance and uprising. So it's a powerful thing that we're inheriting and I think it's really captured theÉthe essence is captured in the African figure of Eleggua, the trickster, which is symbolized in artistic work as having two mouths-you know, our language is double-voiced. And poetry has the power to speak in two ways, and the metaphorÉthe idea of a metaphor in and of itself embodies that, and I think that if we can use that ability to speak in the coded languages and the tradition of using the art form as a mode of resistance and liberation, I think we have some powerful possibilities for us within the spoken word. Walidah Imarisha: I operate under the principle that I think a lot of folks I've met in the spoken word seem to, that you know, the personal is political, the political is personal. Shereen Meraji: Walidah Imarisha, spoken word artist in Philadelphia. Walidah Imarisha: So in that vein, I think that everything is political, and I think that art should be political. So I use, you know, I try and use my time in the spotlight, this chance that I've been given, that I've been very lucky to have- Blare out insanity cracks -to share, you know, the truths that I've learned, to try and share the knowledge that I have acquired and to dialog with people on ways we can do that. You know, right now there's actually this group in New York and Boston called Blackout and we just started one here in Philadelphia. It's an organization of conscience artists of Color who are getting together to put on shows so we can control our own venues so we can have our own voices not distorted by other people. But more importantly, ways that we can utilize art to further the struggles and movements that are going on in our community, so whether that be from doing benefit shows, to doing fund-raisers, to doing you know guerrilla art for them, to doing hip hop shows, to whatever we can do to help mobilize, educate, and activate our people. Shereen Meraji: Blackout Arts Collective in New York City offers poetry workshops for youth in high schools and juvenile detention centers. According to Bryonn Bain, the workshops help young people, predominantly students of color, examine issues affecting their daily lives. Bryonn Bain: Our curriculum at the Freedom Academy we spend a month talking about What is Patriarchy? We spend a month-through art-we spend a month talking about What is Capitalism? We spend a month talking about What is White Supremacy? We spend a month talking about What is Revolution? Because we realize that it's going to take more revolutionary solutions, more revolutionary alternatives to what is happening culturally and institutionally in this country for us to really transform the conditions in which we're living. And so we have these competitions with the young folks. These young folks are already familiar with hip hop, they're familiar with visual art, they're familiar with drama, they're familiar with poetry, and so we use the art forms to work with these young folks to deal with issues in their communities they already know a lot about and just need a process by which they can begin making important connections that will catalyze activism and work around those different issues. Shereen Meraji: Bryonn says that high school students reveal their complex understanding of social issues in the poetry they create at the workshops. Bryonn Bain: It's unbelievable how politically savvy and how much understanding these young folks have, and you hear everything from conversations about police misconduct and harassment and brutality, you know, in their work. You hear about the failures of public school education in their work and the fact that there's been a huge divestment from public school education in this country and from combining the arts and education in this country-you hear all of that in their work, and it's amazing how much of the work that you hear from these high school students is the stuff that you hear from poets who are on the Scene. Poet Ice Live: I'm here today to present my case to the masses. Shereen Meraji: Poet Ice Live, performing at the Teen Poetry Slam Semi-Finals in San Francisco, California. While spoken word artists around the country, young and old alike, agree that poetry and other art forms help to politicize communities, some say that more needs to be done to facilitate real change. Walidah Imarisha. Walidah Imarisha: I think that it-that poetry is an amazing tool, but it's only a tool. And it's just a tool just like any other. Too often people think that poetry and art is the revolution. They think that because they made a revolutionary CD, because they dropped a phat revolutionary poem, that's all they need to do. Like, you have to do all those levels of work. And we have to constantly be struggling and striving because, you know, poetry is so easily co-opted, art is so easily co-opted, I mean rock 'n roll main-streamed, jazz main-streamed, hip hop being main-streamed, slam poetry being main-streamed. You know, you can turn on the television and hear Gil Scott Heron talking about the revolution will not be televised on a Nike commercial. It is so easy for them-everything is revolutionary now, you know, revolutionary new Mac lipstick. Like it's so easy for them to take art because of that emotional factor, because people want to feed into that, to take it, make a cheap rip-off of it or depoliticize it, and throw it up, you know, back at the people and pacify them with the thing that would have caused them to struggle before. Shereen Meraji: In order to counter the commercialization of spoken word and other art forms being used as tools for resistance, Bryonn Bain helped form the Blackout Arts Collective in New York. He says that in order for the political and social commentary in spoken word to remain undistorted, artists must own their means of production. Bryonn Bain: Start your own thing. Own your own thing. And so we wanted to create a space for artists of color to come together and perform their own work, to create a space for artists who are delivering work, which deals with the social and political issues in our communities, can be valued and validated, because most radio stations right now play the same 30 to 35 songs on the radio every damn day. And so we needed to create an alternative to that, something that would celebrate and promote and validate our artwork in a space in which you could have an MC perform, and then you could have an Indian classical dancer perform; a space in which you can have, you know, a cat come up and play the cello; and then have, you know, a sister come in and break down a poem. Shereen Meraji: That's it for this edition of Making Contact, a look at youth and the Spoken Word Movement. Thanks for listening, and special thanks this week to Kevin Ramirez of AWOL magazine in Philadelphia for production assistance, and Ginger Otis from WBAI for recorded portions. Phillip Babich is our managing producer; Laura Livoti is managing director; Peggy Law, executive director; associate producer, Stephanie Welch; senior advisor, Norman Solomon; national producer, David Barsamian; women's desk coordinator, Lisa Rudman; prison desk coordinator, Eli Rosenblatt; and I'm your host and associate producer Shereen Marisol Meraji. If you want more information about the subject of the week's program, or if you'd like to reach any of our guests, call the National Radio Project at 800-529-5736. Call that same number for tapes and transcripts. That's 800-529-5736. You can also go to our website at radioproject.org. That's radioproject.org. Making Contact is an independent production. We're committed to providing a forum for voices and opinions not often heard in the mass media. If you have suggestions for future programs, we'd like to hear from you. Our theme music is by the Charlie Hunter Trio. Bye for now. |