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Behind the Scenes of Brave New Voices
"Just imagine…more than 300 poets from around the country, and every single one with poetic flow and funky freshness. This isn’t your parents’ poetry."
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By Jazmine Livingston
I tried out for San Francisco’s slam poetry team this year, but unfortunately, I didn’t even make it to semi-finals.
JAMES (on tape)
We’re gonna forget about the competition as much as possible. We’re gonna love everybody it’s about peace and poetry.”
JAZMINE
Just imagine...more than 300 poets from around the country, and every single one with poetic flow and funky freshness. This isn’t your parents’ poetry.
POET (on tape)
Let me break it down for you like a reverse haiku. I will not have sex with you. So-rry but it’s true.
JAZMINE
Those poets from New York blew up the stage and that right there is a taste of what the audience heard. BUT I got behind the scenes and you know the most interesting stuff goes on in the middle of the night, like 1:30 am at the hotel.
POETS AT THE HOTEL (on tape)
Hello. How are you? Are you kickin it tonight? No, I’m not going to sleep, cuz we’re going to PARTY! And we’re gonna have a cipher.
JAZMINE
A cipher is sorta like a partly spontaneous gathering of poets freestyling.
POETS AT THE HOTEL (on tape)
We’re on the way to lyrical enlightenment. We’re on our way to nirvana…down this path of glory and righteousness. Amen, Preach, Preacher. I want to hear about your love, I want to hear about your hate.
JAZMINE
But it’s not all a freestyling love fest. This IS a competition, and poets are made to go head to head with each other on who can get the 10, a perfect score. Dahlak Braithwaite won last year. He says being part of the spoken word scene made him want to be smarter.
DAHLAK (on tape)
There was always this dichotomy. You’re hip hop and you’re cool and you’re having fun, or you’re a nerd, and you’re reading.
JAZMINE
But through spoken word he can be both at the same time. Dahlak competed again this year, and went into Semi-Finals a clear favorite.
But this year, Dahlak’s team didn’t make it to finals. But he’s okay with that because he says people at slams start worrying too much about pleasing the crowd.
DAHLAK (on tape)
I don’t believe in slam. Not anymore. I think it’s a good way to get people into poetry but when you start judging people’s poems, people start sacrificing their art.
JAZMINE
But adults like James Kass, the founder of Youth Speaks, the literary arts organization presenting the slam, focus on poets coming together, and not so much about score discrepancies.
JAMES (on tape)
If we can all get together, say what’s up, maybe put our hands in the middle, and do something corny. Love in the room. Remember that this entire show.
“Poets get loud. Get stupid, go dumb be proud. Throw poems in the air like you don't care cuz that's how poets get down...Poets get loud.”
JAZMINE
Finals. This is where things get serious. It’s all or nothing in a packed theater where it’s just you, the mic, and the poems you rushed to memorize the night before. There are four rounds, and you get three minutes for each of ‘em. Your main job: to make the audience feel you.
BAMUTHI (on tape)
But right now, y’all give it up. Give it up. Give it up. Give it up. For New York City!
JAZMINE
New York poet Azua Monay is ecstatic her team won.
AZUA (on tape)
After today, I honestly think, the world is gonna see the youth in a different way. And I hope they do. I hope they start to listen to us.
JAZMINE
She's not the only one feeling hopeful about how youth poets can change the world – the slam inspired me to keep writing, keep bustin’ and keep tellin’ it how it is.
But veteran poet and mentor Ise Lyfe says that changing the world isn’t the job of poetry because words can only inform.
ISE (on tape)
I think spoken word will go wherever we go. And so I think, spoken word and hip hop isn’t the movement, I think spoken word and hip hop is the theme music for the movement. And I think we need to create a movement for our words to follow, instead of following our words.
JAZMINE
Regardless of how you see it, there is no denying words are powerful.
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