THE INSPIRATIONAL, TOUCHING
POWER OF BEING
Experiencing
Poetic Justice IV
by Tony E. Boyd
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| Hostess Stacy "LIFE" Harper |
I missed the last Poetic
Justice due to the loss of a beloved family member. Poetic Justice IV made up
for it. The night was filled with performances that could not help but to uplift
hearts, tickle funny bones, and stir one’s soul. If you weren’t able to attend,
to put it bluntly, you missed out.
Poetry slams are usually laid
back affairs in my experience. They start slow and gain momentum. Our talented MCs
for the evening, Leora Jackson (stage name: F.L. Jones) and Stacy Harper (stage
name L.I.F.E. – Life In Front of Everything) directed a smooth flow that started
as a babbling brook and ended as rolling river. Powerful. That’s a word that
came to mind a lot during the slam. From start to finish, I in awe of the
talent assembled.
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| F. L. Jones |
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| Doug Shields |
F.L. Jones started off the
festivities with a work of her own called “Teacher Behold This Child”. I would
describe it as an ode to teachers espousing the virtues of being an educator.
Next up, she welcomed to the stage Doug Shields, a personable instructor with
an uncommon wit. His piece “Let’s Do That. Let’s Look At It From The Cop’s
Point of View”, was a very powerful, insightful examination of what happened
between Sandra Bland and the Texas justice system. His dramatic reading style
and animated presentation added to the impact of his words.
Doug was a tough
act to follow but Steve Holst stepped up to the challenge and regaled us with a
set of entertaining, and thought-provoking limericks. Steve’s limericks tackled
the sometimes confusing, seemingly contradictory and unfair nature of religion,
bibles and deities delivered with humorous intent. In order of reading, they
were “Love Poem To My Species”, “So Go Ahead Then”, “Statutory Immaculate
Conception”, “Second Coming, Slow Down Darling”, “Busy Being”, “Angry Young
Poets”, “Sound of One Frigging Slipping”, “God’s Good Lawyers”, and “Popcorn
Colors”. It seems like a lot but they were short and poignant.
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| Steve Holst |
Next up, F.L. Jones
returned to the stage and channeled James Weldon Johnson by reading his piece,
“The Creation”. If you’ve never heard of it, look it up. It’s worth your
reading time.
Our other charismatic MC,
L.I.F.E. returned to the stage to perform her ever-evolving piece with
interchangeable parts called, “I Will Sing”, a mixture of song and prose. The
way it’s structured, she can perform the same piece over and over and it never
has to be exactly the same every time. Within it, she plucks bits from the
headlines, stories that need to be heard, highlighted and interweaves it into
“I Will Sing”. That’s one of the things about the Poetic Justice slams. They
serve as a venue of expression of emotions that one might not have otherwise.
It’s a place to reflect on the things going on around you in the world, a place
to share your frustration, pain, sadness, joy, hope, and happiness.
That
freedom to express how you feel is exemplified by Tina Gaston's choice to read (via
smart phone recording) a poem entitled “An Overreaction: Words on
#BlackLivesMatter and MLK” by Sarah O’Neal. It’s a rousing push back against efforts
to trivialize our community’s right to be outraged and to show rage about
injustices against our community. Said piece is available to watch on YouTube at
https://youtu.be/Frfq-ok8w_4 .
Leora
Jackon has a piece called “Oh Valentine” which she performs with a singer (in
this case, L.I.F.E.) that never fails to cause my heart to weep. It’s about
domestic violence, a somber topic that has touched so many of our lives.
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| Rosalyn Laurie |
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| Kaia |
Heaviness was not all there
was to be had by the packed house. Levity was interwoven to lighten the mood,
add a little chuckle here and there. Rosalyn Laurie provided the house with two
humorous, anecdotal pieces that brought smiles to people’s faces. Her first,
entitled “Good or Bad” discussed the world through the eyes of a child
considered handicapped but in more ways than one may be more able than those
around him. The second piece was more of a fun little ditty about a man and his
roadkill possum called “I Wouldn’t Recommend The Ice Water”.
Comedienne Kaia
first performed a piece, a sort of ode to Michelle Duggar, entitled “Live In
Fiction. She later returned to do a bit of stand-up for the appreciative crowd.
There were singers and songs
with original lyrics. Wavy J. stepped to the mike to perform “My People Dying”
(pretty self-explanatory). Afterwards, he was followed on stage by another
singer, Michael. He sang his original song “Not The Hustle”, a poignant ballad reporting
the tragic death of a sleeping 7 year old Ayiana Jones.
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| Michael (left) and Wavy J |
Later on they both
returned to the stage to do a duet about police brutality entitled “Black
Male”. It was important to them to get across that the police personified in
their song were not all police but the select few who go beyond the scope of
their job description and rules to take the law into their own hands.
Michael
earned an “Awwwwwww” and applause from the assembled crowd for the love song he
performed for the love of his life standing in the audience. Poetic Justice is
spontaneous and unpredictable like that. Good for them.
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| Lakeesha Shaw |
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| Poetic Thoughts |
As the “river” continued to
flow, we were blessed with more clever wordplay, grownfolk prose, entertaining
analogies. Brandon Poetic Thoughts’ “I Am Drunk In Love Off of Poetry” and
LaKeesha Thomas Shaw’s “Forget The G Spot, Hit The B Spot” both used witty
juxtaposition of terms to convey their respective messages. Just the titles get
your attention, right? Brandon’s vivid description of his relationship with his
poetry was both humorous and profound. We all had an “Oh?” moment listening to
LaKeesha educate us on the merits of concentrating on the B spot rather than
the G spot. If you don get it, go listen to her perform it sometime. All will
be made clear.
Brandon later returned to the stage to perform “Who Should
Really Be Scared”, an older piece of his referring to racist perceptions.
So many exceptional
performances, all deserve to be mentioned. Here is a list of the rest of the
performers and the name of their pieces:
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| J |
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| T |
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| Jim Dudley |
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| Anna |
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| Sam Nguyen |
J – “Music Appreciation
Through The Years” and “I Wish I Was Dreaming Instead”
Jim Dudley – “Perseus”
Luka – “The H Word”
Cherokee – “Jesus, I Heard
You Knocking”
Sam Nguyen – “Misplaced
Feeling”
Anna – “Fumble”
Kim – “Slave Trade Out of
Ghana”
T – “Boxes”
Serif – “Obliquity”
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| Serif |
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| KIM |
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| Luka |
Some performances were calm,
deliberate and demure. Others were intense, physical, and in your face. Not the
type of stuff you could just ignore. If you get a chance to see any of these
talented performers, poets, singers, comedians perform, do it. You will be the
better for it.
Stay tuned for the next Poetic Justice in October.
Story and photos by Tony E. Boyd
