A poem can be music and music can be a poem, I would present this assertion to a classroom of skeptic students about to write their first poem. So a rap can be a poem? Uh, yes and a poem can be a lyric on the page, yes, yes, yes. I feel its all about delivery, a rap can be read without a musical beat and a little toned down and can pass as a poem.

A memorized poem is more accessible then a poem in a book,
and more accessible than a song played on a friend's I-pod.
Yet, music is music and poetry is poetry. Each one has its own intimate qualities for the listener. The message can be in a song or in a poem. Bob Dylan is a poet and a musician. He says, " Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem." He is an example of a poet manipulating his voice and reciting a poem like a song. Then a hook and a call and a response comes in, it's a thin line and I truly love both art forms.

The poem "I'm a Hip Hop Cheerleader" by Jessica Care Moore ignites feminist hip hop heads and gives room for them to re-think what they are dancing to - it may just freeze up your spine. The narrator creates a space of freedom and restrictiveness in that too tight skirt. The narrator calls out the male dominated rap scene that does not nurture or heal, nor does it allow for women to shine and hold court with other men. If anything the narrator goes through a reincarnation or perhaps there are two narrators speaking: one who can "tolerate all your hoes" and the other who is wise and conscious of the hip hop game. The poem has tinges of sardonic humor, of being fed up. A hip hop cheerleader is definitely different from your everyday football cheerleader. Image is everything in this poem, the cheerleader still has on her short pleated skirt because "when you're a woman sometimes all you have is a minute", she got your attention and now she will flip it.

"I'm a hip hop cheerleader
carrying hand grenades and blood red pom poms
screaming from the sidelines of a stage I built
afraid to part down the middle
for feminine riddles
raining words of proverbs
of prophets who never get heard
because the microphone is just another phallic
symbol"

Juxtapose this poem/rap with Dead Prez's "Police State" and you get a different tone: there is more rhythm, occupied by a very male voice but a conscious male voice, albeit, a different sort of radical, here the narrator is flipping off the state, the state of being under surveillance while they list in their chorus: the world being controlled by the white male. In both poems there is an enemy, there is blame and there is education for the reader, there is knowledge there is another way to live in both poems and to open up your "third eye", another very late 90's 2000's term! There is something about these poems that demand an unveiling of the nausea and repetition of your same ole' song or poem, unveil , and dissect and refocus. The narrator seems young, militant, radical, mentored, alive and can battle somebody in some politics. This is a rap and Jessica Care Moore's piece is a poem.