Poetry on stage in a form other than spoken word or slam -- that's Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Poetry written and performed with the body -- that's Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Hip Hop as a form -- that's Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
Watching, in person, MBJ perform excerpts from his poetry-play, the/breaks, was one of those moments that a poet never forgets. From his first sound -- my ancestors HACKED -- I am engaged. Taken by the neck and forced to listen. Sounds violent right? Well, that's the point. The hacking of sugar cane was a violent act. The beating of slaves who didn't work fast enough or hard enough, that's was a violent act. So MBJ's words must pack enough punch to get you to that end.
As he looped small truths from his life together with the macro truths of capitalism, identity and artistic sustainability, I sat amazed at how conversational his poetry felt and how the confessional moments didn't feel overwhelming confessional, but more universal and momentous.
The brillance, I think, came from his fluid chronology -- the way he moved through time/history was powerful. It allowed me to sit with hard realities -- slavery, but then be moved to more warm moments -- the first time he sees the sonogram picture of his son or the conversations he has with his grandmother. Those were a few of the brilliant moments in this poetry-play.
The body as poetry combined with hip hop as a form to engage the audience -- powerful. The sampling of music from various points in his history -- powerful. The inclusion of all the places he has been as an artist and how his identity was constantly in question -- powerful.
I think the thing I appreciated most about MBJ's performance was that he presented a great deal of truth -- hard truths -- about his life and his mind-set at various times in his life. I appreciated that the most. I appreciated his ability to take a culture -- hip hop -- present it in a play using poetry and dance as the medium and have it crossover and touch so many lives. That is powerful. That is poetry.
Showing posts with label Poet of Color Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poet of Color Reading. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Mangos With Chili - Beloved
Recently I was very excited to have the chance to see Mangos With Chilis' new show "Beloved: A Requiem for Our Dead" a show that was positioned to mourn the deaths of queer and trans- folx of color who had been taken from us. One of the poets that read was Rose Sims.
The stage was set up with an altar on one side of the stage and she stood next to it with a projection of a photo behind her. As the poem began she started talking about her family and the experiences of her Auntie being raised in the Phillipines with her mother. Then as the poetry unfolds we learn that the Auntie she speaks of was trans and the way that the family spoke of her was with female pronouns and used a female name for her. The recounting of these stories about this Auntie serve to place the poet in the position of mother telling these tales. She becomes the mother recounting the tales and we become her, sitting in the dark enraptured by these tales of this woman and her life.
As we sit there we begin to see the woman appear before us through the poem, the narrative shifts and we hear about the interest that we, as Rose, as children had in this woman and her life. The way that the language aroound her changed once the interest was shown, the way that the Auntie's name was shifted back to its birth configuration and the way that the pronoun used to refer to her becomes male. This is placed in the context of the poet's own identity as a transwoman, that Auntie becomes a focus for this child/us as a member of the family that shows acceptance of a path that is not the normative one set in front of children.
The image of Auntie behind Rose takes on more complexity when we learn that the arm around her waist, the man who is missing was an American soldier that took her away from the Phillipines. So now we have a relationship in the context of colonialism, in the context of conquering this man/soldier actually serves as salvation and love as oopposed to the violence of colonial occupation.
There's no obvious ending to Auntie's tale within the poem but we realize that whatever may have happened to her it actual matters little because the two narratives of the poet and her Auntie begin to merge into a historical connection, a legacy of love and accepting who you really are and living that life despite any obstacles. The emotion in her voice was obvious and the feeling was obvious to the audience. The love for this Auntie that she never physically met is about a connection through time, a connection of blood and experience that is visually represented by Rose standing in front of the projected image of her Auntie and turning to refer to her so often.
It was a powerful reading and a powerful poem that does a lot to create a connection between family that we create and family that we are born with and the connections and disconnections that can happen within those spaces.
The stage was set up with an altar on one side of the stage and she stood next to it with a projection of a photo behind her. As the poem began she started talking about her family and the experiences of her Auntie being raised in the Phillipines with her mother. Then as the poetry unfolds we learn that the Auntie she speaks of was trans and the way that the family spoke of her was with female pronouns and used a female name for her. The recounting of these stories about this Auntie serve to place the poet in the position of mother telling these tales. She becomes the mother recounting the tales and we become her, sitting in the dark enraptured by these tales of this woman and her life.
As we sit there we begin to see the woman appear before us through the poem, the narrative shifts and we hear about the interest that we, as Rose, as children had in this woman and her life. The way that the language aroound her changed once the interest was shown, the way that the Auntie's name was shifted back to its birth configuration and the way that the pronoun used to refer to her becomes male. This is placed in the context of the poet's own identity as a transwoman, that Auntie becomes a focus for this child/us as a member of the family that shows acceptance of a path that is not the normative one set in front of children.
The image of Auntie behind Rose takes on more complexity when we learn that the arm around her waist, the man who is missing was an American soldier that took her away from the Phillipines. So now we have a relationship in the context of colonialism, in the context of conquering this man/soldier actually serves as salvation and love as oopposed to the violence of colonial occupation.
There's no obvious ending to Auntie's tale within the poem but we realize that whatever may have happened to her it actual matters little because the two narratives of the poet and her Auntie begin to merge into a historical connection, a legacy of love and accepting who you really are and living that life despite any obstacles. The emotion in her voice was obvious and the feeling was obvious to the audience. The love for this Auntie that she never physically met is about a connection through time, a connection of blood and experience that is visually represented by Rose standing in front of the projected image of her Auntie and turning to refer to her so often.
It was a powerful reading and a powerful poem that does a lot to create a connection between family that we create and family that we are born with and the connections and disconnections that can happen within those spaces.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Poetry Reading - Ianna Hawkins Owen
I was able to hear poet Ianna Hawkins Owen read from her chapbook earlier this semester (and I probably should have blogged about it then but I spaced) and was really struck by the way she performed her piece. The piece was exploring her own mixed race identity as someone existing between the identities of black and white and within the identity of a mixed-race person. On top of this she is navigating moving to a new town who only the year before had repealed their anti-miscegenation laws. This of course plays into the dialogue around her identity, how does she exist in this place where only a little while back people such as her were legally barred from existing? What is the culture in that location like when this is it's recent history?
There's a lot going on there, a lot of violence both political and personal, a lot of questions of belonging and identity. After hearing so many poems that deal with identity and navigating the space of being marginalized in some way I've always been aware of what seems like a push of aggressive emotion behind the pieces that I've heard, not necessarily an anger but a realization of the way they were viewed and had to deal with themselves around their position. There is general a taking up of space, a exploration of the body in a way that is allowing it to expand into a position normally not allowed to it growing up. This is not to say that Ianna did not have a powerful or effective reading it was simply a different kind of power and emotional exchange.
When Ianna read she folded herself into a chair, leg up, arm wrapped around it. She shrank into a smaller ball, a smaller position, and read in a quiet voice. The fact that we as the audience had to stay silent, had to control our urges to whisper, cry, snap, emote in any way allowed for us to surrender to her reading more fully. There was no ability to disengage, to distract from what she was saying, from the past that she was conjuring for us to exist within. She used the quiet of her voice and the smallness of her position to take not only us but herself back to that time, her folding made us think of youth and her youth specifically in conjunction with the history and ideas she was speaking about/of/with.
It was an amazingly effective reading, as she talked about the small suburban town and referenced such things as "Serial Mom" we were carried along with her on this emotional and physical journey. We start to occupy the same space as her, to walk in her place just a little and to be drawn into her headspace.
I don't know for sure if these actions were purposeful or if that might just be the way the poet reads all her works but the interaction between this particular piece and her reading of it was especially powerful, it forced us to sit in silence, to engage fully or to be excluded from the energy and emotion that Ianna weaved about us.
There's a lot going on there, a lot of violence both political and personal, a lot of questions of belonging and identity. After hearing so many poems that deal with identity and navigating the space of being marginalized in some way I've always been aware of what seems like a push of aggressive emotion behind the pieces that I've heard, not necessarily an anger but a realization of the way they were viewed and had to deal with themselves around their position. There is general a taking up of space, a exploration of the body in a way that is allowing it to expand into a position normally not allowed to it growing up. This is not to say that Ianna did not have a powerful or effective reading it was simply a different kind of power and emotional exchange.
When Ianna read she folded herself into a chair, leg up, arm wrapped around it. She shrank into a smaller ball, a smaller position, and read in a quiet voice. The fact that we as the audience had to stay silent, had to control our urges to whisper, cry, snap, emote in any way allowed for us to surrender to her reading more fully. There was no ability to disengage, to distract from what she was saying, from the past that she was conjuring for us to exist within. She used the quiet of her voice and the smallness of her position to take not only us but herself back to that time, her folding made us think of youth and her youth specifically in conjunction with the history and ideas she was speaking about/of/with.
It was an amazingly effective reading, as she talked about the small suburban town and referenced such things as "Serial Mom" we were carried along with her on this emotional and physical journey. We start to occupy the same space as her, to walk in her place just a little and to be drawn into her headspace.
I don't know for sure if these actions were purposeful or if that might just be the way the poet reads all her works but the interaction between this particular piece and her reading of it was especially powerful, it forced us to sit in silence, to engage fully or to be excluded from the energy and emotion that Ianna weaved about us.
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