UnButtoned

We admit it; we're addicted to all things poetry - especially performance, slam, and all that goes with it. Here's our chance to take a look at the videos we love...and sometimes don't...and share our two cents. (Shout out to Button Poetry, to whom we give all video credit, unless otherwise specified)

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“Miley Cyrus’ ‘We Own the Night’ in the Form of a Sonnet” (RJ Walker)

This week’s piece comes to us from the 2015 Great Plains Poetry Pile Up. Here is RJ Walker with “Miley Cyrus’ ‘We Can’t Stop’ in the Form of a Sonnet”

If you’ve been around the slam scene for any length of time, you know that slam was created in the mid 80s by a construction worker named Marc Smith (so what), whose aim it was to take poetry out of the hands of the academy by making it a sort of bar game amongst some poets and their drunk friends. Fast forward three decades, and that game has spread outward from Chicago, spanned the globe, spawned careers, birthed festivals, and...turned away from, in many regards, its original intent. Where Marc (I think), sought to erase the line that made “page poetry” elite, and “stage poetry” somehow inferior, slam today sometimes holds that line up as a sort of conquering banner. One of the things we’ve laid waste? Poetic forms.

And sure. All slammers love a good haiku. Even though these Haiku Slams are very rarely filled with haiku. At best, we hear a good senryu or two - at worst, we get a lot of seventeen syllabled punch lines. The point is: haiku slams are separate. A haiku would never stand up in a slam and score well against a dozen three-minute free verses. We don’t even hear Sestinas or Ghazals. It takes an unimaginable bravery to craft some formal verse and bring it to a slam.

Enter RJ Walker. The crafting of Miley Cyrus’ lyrics into a Shakespearean sonnet is the perfect blend of format and foolishness, that is a clever enough to get a slammer to the next round, even if the poem itself isn’t breathtaking. Of course, it is not necessary that a sonnet be written in Elizabethan English, but I believe this poem would fall apart without it. I also enjoy Mr. Walker’s delivery. It would have been tempting to employ some additional vocal affect in performance, but that would have been over the top. Now, I can’t be certain that my conjecture is correct, as I don’t have access to the poems in the slam that came before this one, but I often refer to pieces like this as “palette cleansers.” If the audience has heard heavy poem, after heavy poem, after daddy issues, after rape and homophobia...sometimes they just need to breathe. Aptly placed, a Miley Cyrus sonnet will give the crowd just enough space to decompress.

If I have any critique of the poem, it is that it is a bit inaccessible if you’re unfamiliar with the actual lyrics to the song. Obviously, the chamber pot, ‘bout that life, and la de da lines moments are funny without that knowledge, but I found that listening to the poem while reading along with the lyrics actually made the entire piece resonate a little better. That’s not a thing that can be helped: there’s not guarantee that every person will know and love any song that you choose to reformat for a slam, but...this is my blog so….Kendrick Lamar or Damien Rice songs next time.

For a more serious offering from RJ, you can check out “Deceit and I” here. You can also find out more about him, his work, and his touring schedule by visiting his website here. For another bit of formal verse that popped up in slam, please check out Corinna Bain’s “Pantoum fro Jasmine Fiore,” offered by the folks at BicycleComics here. And, if after all that, you still need more poetry, check out Big Poppa E’s set of haiku over at HCSC Public, here.

See you next week. 

-Ashley

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“Thanksgiving” (Donte Collins)

Hold onto your hats folks; I’m probably going to hurt a few feelings this week. Here is Donte Collins with “Thanksgiving.”

I realized last week, that in the history of this little blog, I’ve only reviewed one poem that I really dislike. So, I of course went on a deliberate search for a poem that just didn’t do it for me. I was determined not to post until I’d found one. The search was long. I almost gave up hope. Button kept giving me video after video of great work;  poems that I was on the fence about; poems that I thought I would hate but ultimately redeemed themselves in the last twenty seconds or so…but then I heard it “Thanksgiving,” [long pause] “or,” [long pause] “when my brothers and I are instructed not to talk politics,”  and I knew I had it.

I will admit here that I went into Donte’s poem with the expectation of hating it, because I very rarely support the use of multiple titles to start the work. It’s a risky attempt at cleverness that very rarely hits the mark, and even when it does, the impact is so minimal that I question its necessity. That said, we’re six seconds into the poem and I’m already certain that Donte is going to be doing entirely too much for the next three minutes.

What’s most painful for me is that it is obvious that Donte is a great writer. He’s got command of metaphor and rhythm; the images are clear and gorgeous….but the entire poem reads to me as an insincere exercise in how beautifully he can tell the story of Black death.

In this story, where we don’t get a chance to interact with the brothers he makes a point of mentioning in the alternate title of the piece, white America is embodied in a singular woman who is conscious enough to understand that n-word is racist, but oblvious enough to search for ways to justify the murder of Black youth. Cool. Except. The balance of the poem’s tone is hinged upon an awareness of white privilege and the experience of white guilt, and this woman doesn’t never cops to either of those things outside the scope of Donte’s own imagination.

Beyond that, I’m really bothered by the loose connections between Thanksgiving and any of the issues tackled in the piece. I mean yes, I get it - the word play is there - even I exhaled sharply at “sugar is a spice to an open wound,” but I was definitely not here for most of it. Especially the ending. I could be reaching here...but was that “taste like a grave” business an allusion to the tasty goodness we pour over our turkeys? Is there a secret y in parentheses in his notebook? I bet there is, and I am not a fan.

Perhaps what bothers me most about the poem, is this notion that all people need to be vigilant about the world’s injustices at all times. And I get it, the realities of police brutality and the murder of unarmed Black folks - the idea of being guilty until proven definitely guilty - are enough to take to the joy out of anything. Sometimes the grief makes it impossible to enjoy a meal. But that’s not a burden that anyone should be expected to shoulder at all times. Sometimes you have to make yourself forget about all of the ways in which the world is messed up, and find any way possible to grab onto some joy.

Ok. You can find out more about Donte by checking out his blog here. For all of his great writing in a poem I can get behind, check out “13” here. For a piece that walks the connection between the mundane and the murderous a bit better, check out “Sweet Tea” by Dave Harris here. And, if after all that, you still need more poetry, here is Ross Gay with “To the Mulberry Tree.”

See you next later this week. 

-Ashley

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“I Am Twenty-Two” (Tonya Ingram)

This week's piece comes to us from the Button Poetry showcase at NPS 2014. Here’s Tonya Ingram with “I Am Twenty-Two.”

It is not lost on me that this isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned this piece by Tonya, but I had entirely too much time this weekend to consider the differences between page poets and stage poets, to not pitch “I Am Twenty-Two” as a a “how-to” guide for blurring the lines between the two like a boss.

Now. Without getting too far down that particular rabbit hole, I will say that the primary difference between the two “types” of poets is the intention of the poet as to how their poems will be consumed - either from the pages of a book (or journal, or article, or blog post), or as a member of a live audience. I will also say...that I don’t rock well with “stage poets” who don’t care how their work is received on the page, nor do I read “page poets” who don’t wow me at their readings. So. As a die-hard-fan of this poem without any critique or qualifiers, I thought I’d spend this week’s UnButtoned putting together a list of five things to remember whenever you’re reading a poem to a crowd.

Hold your notebook (chapbook, sheet of paper, or *cringe* cell phone) below the microphone, and not awkwardly off to the side. Too close to the face and you cut off half of the crowd from your performance before you’ve even begun.

One-hand your notebook if you can. This gives you the capability to punctuate your reading with the same sort of hand gestures that you would if you’re off book. Even if you’re a “page poet” at a casual reading; you’re still performing. So. Perform. 

Look up at your audience. No matter where or how you hold that poem of yours, by keeping your focus solely on the words in front of you, you’re cutting yourself off from your crowd. Don’t do that. We want you just as much as we want your words.

Read when you need to. As open as Tonya is during the first two and a half minutes of her piece, she keeps her eyes glued to the page for over a minute as the piece hits its most complex and emotionally vibrant section. Granted, she does look up 3 times during this minute, but these glances are quick, sharp, and taken during the breaths between lines. I much prefer this to the potential to sacrifice the clarity of the poem had she not been focused on solely on the reading. Because the notebook’s in a great place and she’s established a rapport with the crowd, we don’t even miss the eye contact during this section.

And, if you memorize no other parts of your poem….memorize the ending. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate Tonya’s ability to close her notebook and deliver the last few lines from memory. No matter what your intentions, if you have your piece in hand while you’re reading, you will read the ending. And no one wants that. We want you to face the crowd head-on and land the last few words, no matter how much of the piece you’ve had to read up until that moment. 

Ok. We will get back to our regularly scheduled critique next week, I promise. Until then, check out another piece from Tonyasaurus Rex here. For a pretty cool experiment, track the growth of this poem and its performance as Ms. Ingram hits 23 and 24 here and here. For more information about the autoimmune disease lupus, go here. And, for another honest look into a poet’s heart, give “Facts About Myself” by Tucker Bryant here.

See you next week. 

-Ashley

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Sarah & Phil Kay(e)

Yesterday, the infamous inner circle and I talked a bit about how many ways we could configure our 8-person friendship into a 5-person slam team that would perform well this summer and remain friends; it’s a lot harder than it seems. 

Moment of confidence: my friends are among the most talented poets I’ve seen in the entirety of my slam experience. 

Moment of candor: all of our faves are problematic. Of the 56 possible ways there are to make us a team (yes, I did the math)....there are quite a few that end in anger, tears, and quite possibly a season of writing really bad poetry. 

All of that to say: I’ve been thinking a lot about the things that are possible when great artists collaborate to make great art - particularly when the collaboration results in one piece, as opposed to multiple coexisting pieces. In slam, we have the group piece to offer as proof of our working together. Sometimes they are gorgeous - bringing out the best in each poet’s style to create something beautiful - and other times...they don’t feel quite worth all of the effort it takes to synchronize the voices. 

In any case - this week I have no review for you. Instead, I’m going to give you an indy piece by two artists, show you an example of what they’ve created together, and let you come to whatever conclusions you’d like in the end. Here’s Sarah Kay with “The Type,” Phil Kaye with “Surplus,” and the their collaborative offering “When Love Arrives.”

So. What are your feelings about this particular pairing? Feel free to let us know what you think.

-Ashley

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“Black Privilege” (Crystal Valentine)

This week’s offering comes to us from the 2015 CUPSI Finals’ Stage. Here is Crystal Valentine with “Black Privilege.”

So. It’s impossible (for me) to jump into this poem without first jumping into a brief discussion about societal privilege and the way it is used to oppress entire groups of people. Most often when we think of privilege, we think of white privilege, but there is also male privilege, cis privilege, straight privilege, thin privilege, ability privilege, Judeo-Christian privilege, and I’m sure a whole host of other privileges at work in any given moment that make access and affirmation easier for some groups of people, and near impossible for others. I find that the hardest part of having a conversation about privilege, is getting people to understand that they have it, and the pushback can be really intense. The most common rebuttals against the possession of privilege are the, “But I’ve worked for everything that I have” defense, along with the, “But what about [insert opposing characteristic] privilege?” query. Thinking specifically about conversations I’ve had with people about what it would take to dismantle white privilege, I’ve definitely been asked, “But what about Black privilege?” A question that was quickly followed by a comment about affirmative action and the ability to play the race card in situations that are not inherently about race...you can imagine that these conversations did not end well.

All of that to say, that privilege is about the benefits (or access or sense of belonging) that you get, just by being a member of any group, and so I’d hoped in some way that this was going to a light-hearted response to the questions “What about Black privilege?” Something along the lines of:  “Black privilege is being able to dance better than all your coworkers at the office party. Is being considered articulate enough to speak on behalf of your entire race.” But hen the poem begins with lynching and slave ships, which for me was a bit of a let down. I think I also would have appreciated an approach that did a side-by-side comparison of Black and white privilege, but I can’t imagine that by doing so Crystal would have hit all of the notes that she did.

And she really hit some homeruns here: “Black privilege is the concrete that holds my breath better than my lungs do”

“[Black privilege] is having a crowbar for a spine”

“Black privilege is being so unique that not even God will look like you.”

There were also some heavy hitters that fell flat due to timing and delivery. I’m thinking specifically here about the notion about our denial concerning the rampant murder of black women that seemed a bit lost at the end of her list of eulogies (0:25 - 0:40). Also on the list: the dope line about always being first in line to meet God, that went underappreciated amidst the applause from the line before.

Let me also say that the poem handles repetition excellently. We’ve learned in previous posts that repetition is holy, and so I was concerned the first time I listened to the poem that the phrase “Black Privilege” was going to be over (or even under) used, but Crystal peppers the poem with the phrase in just the right places - and I appreciated it every time it showed up.

Where the poem falls apart for me are the places in which Crystal criticizes her own poem for inserting the names of Black boys into the work as a means to win poetry slams. The critique of slam inside slam poems seems to be happening more frequently these days, but the  practice seems really disingenuous to me. To begin: Mother Lorde teaches us that the Master’s tools can never be used to dismantle the Master’s house - so to use the things that you don’t like about slam as a tactic to change the things that you don’t like about slam….is never going to be effective. If doing a poem about a Black boy dying, every time a Black boy dies is somehow bothersome to you….then don’t do poems about Black boys dying. Even if  Crystal does here goes a bit beyond that and into the idea that she is asserting a kind of privilege by invoking the names of the dead for her own benefit, I still feel like the notes about “trading a name for a 10” are a bit insincere. And, I’m a little fearful about what happens when the poet (particular the performance poet) no longer speaks about the uncomfortable thing. If your beef is with poets who preach a particular grief and call for change on stage, but do nothing about when the poem is over..then say that...not that the poem shouldn’t have been written in the first place.

And of course, a final nit-picky thing: I wish that there had been a vocal drop at the end of the piece. The tempo is perfect; the subtle hand gesture is everything; and the hold back at center was done so well…..I think even the tiniest lowering of pitch for the word “heartbeat,” would have really brought it home.

All things considered, an absolutely gorgeous poem from Crystal Valentine, who you can catch a glimpse of here. For another of her offerings on Button, here is “Tempest,” also from CUPSI 2015. For more poems that handle the writing of poems for Black boys, check out Danez Smith’s “Elegy for Mike Brown,” here. And, if after all that you still need more, check out Anthony McPherson’s “All Lives Matter: The 1800s Edition” here.

See you next week.

-Ashley

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“Love” (Jared Singer)

I will admit first that my New Year’s Resolution is to let this be the last time I have to apologize for not posting a poem for you each week. In the spirit of the new year, I thought we’d kick off with a list poem by Jared Singer, performed at the 2014 CUPSI coaches’ slam.

The “list poem” pops up rather frequently in the slam scene these days, and with most commonalities that seem to have popped up over the years, I have mixed feelings about the style. In a crowd favorite that mocks how poems are constructed for slam, my teammate Eric Thompson makes a note that “poets often use counting to connect thoughts that have no real correlation whatsoever.” And while I find that this does happen often, I think the more commonly occurring problem is that the thoughts connect so well that the need for listing/numbering the sections is merely a fallback used for timing and breath control and isn’t actually needed for the structure of the piece. Jared lets us know from the very beginning exactly why this poem has to be told in such a fragmented way, and then goes about the business of feeding us each fragment. Literally. I mean, “Love is a sandwich.”

Jared drops the ball for me a bit when it comes to the structure of the poem. Section One, Parts A, B, and C are a little too disjointed for me to all be included in the same section. I would live for a version of the poem that’s outlined a little like...Love 1: Sandwich. Love 2A: Hurricane. Love 2B: Tornado. Love 2C: Earthquake. Love 3: Children’s Cartoons. Love 4A: The songs are right. Love 4B: Yes my friend can beatbox. Love 5: Lay down your heart and get these lungs. Perhaps the timing would be a bit clunkier, but it’s a format I could get behind without question.

Now. For the other part I have a huge question about. Love 4B: “Sometimes you’re going to have to rely on someone else’s beat to make your story work.” The members of my inner circle seem to believe that this portion of the poem is brilliant, but I tend to apply the same rules to beatboxing as I do singing and other musical accompaniment. Without rehashing the list that offered in a previous post, I’ll say that the rules for singing basically boil down to...don’t do it. The inner circle contends that the rules do not apply here, because the stanza itself does not work without the beatboxing, and is brought full circle by the beautiful line offered at the end. I however, argue that the poem suffers nothing but the loss of a few seconds if the stanza is cut from the poem entirely. I’m also of the opinion that this poem violates the group piece “do-wop rule,” but that ‘s a different discussion altogether.

This unnecessary addition is so uncharacteristic of Mr. Singer, who is otherwise a master of minimalism in his work. To that end, every other word - every line is properly placed. The tone and pace of the delivery is perfect….and then we get to the ending. Now. I’m all for the “wordless ending”...silence is the loudest kinda noise and all that...and so I do believe that the two deep breaths is the right way to end the piece. But. After an entire stanza dedicated to explaining that love is not a muscle, I cannot imagine why those breaths had to be delivered so forcefully. Instead, I’d really have liked for Jared to have given us something that read a little more excited, then a little more resigned.

Above all else, I commend the work that offers a new take on defining love, making love, and falling in and out of love - all with a tone that is both lighthearted and heartbreaking (light-lunged and asthmatic), and without offering any of the same cliches that once made love poems the lowest scores at a slam. Good job sir.

Alright. I was unable to pin Jared down on the web, but you can check out my absolute favorite piece of his here. For another list poem that I adore, here is Siaara Freeman’s “The Drug Dealer’s Daughter.” And, if you still need more after all that, check out a great wordless ending in Carrie Rudzinski’s “Jupiter” here.

See you next week. 

-Ashley

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“Blurred Vision” (Mahogany L. Browne)

This week’s video comes to us from CUPSI 2015. Here is Mahogany Browne’s “Blurred Vision.”

Any poetry slam worth its weight in whiteboards will have a smattering of persona poems, wherein the poet tells a story in the first person as someone other than themselves. Done well: these are some of my favorite, but they are quite difficult to do well. There’s a…delicate balance between poem and dramatic monologue, and I tend to find that the current trend in performance poetry tends to fall on the side of the latter. But Mo Browne - in true Mo Browne fashion - delivers here a flawless narrative as an unnamed dark skinned girl that is among my favorite persona poems.

Let me say first what it does not do: It does not rely on an accent or visible change in posture to make itself work. It does not impose poetic device onto the speech of a character that would not speak in that way. It does not fall into easy tropes about our perceptions of who this character is. Which is to say that we are convinced in this moment that Mo is this young girl, in this moment, telling the story of LeeLee and Curtis as it is happening. We believe that everything Mo offers is in fact something that this girl would say or did think at one point, and the poet’s job in this moment was just to take those phrases and arrange them beautifully. We see her confidence and insecurity, her love for her friend and her heartbreak all at the same time. We see an entire person - not a caricature or stereotype - which should be one of the goals of any good persona poem. 

Can I also get into how this poem is about colorism, microaggressions, self-image, and internalized hatred without once proclaiming itself to be about those things? Swoon. I do not even begin to suggest that poems that do declare themselves in that way are somehow less than, but there is something gorgeous here in just following this girl at a pool party, without Mo inserting her “poet-self” into the poem to explain to the audience the larger themes that the main character is struggling with. In that way, the entire audience is able to find their own connections to the character, instead of only relating to the more obvious group for which the poem might have been intended. You don’t have to be a dark-skinned brown girl to know what it’s like to have someone else affirm something about yourself that you find ugly. Or to have a LeeLee. Or to want to disappear sometimes.Everyone is able to find themselves here.

And finally….I lived for the vocal accompaniment to the poem. 

Rule number one for poets who are also singers: Just because you can sing, doesn’t mean that you should sing. If you do choose to sing at the beginning or end (or…for whatever reason…the middle) of the poem, it should be because the song selection edifies the piece. 

New rule number one: If the poem is not clearly better because you are singing, then please, don’t sing. The song delivered here sets the tone for the piece at the beginning, provides subtle rhythm and pacing cues for the poem as it continues, and then gives the audience time to breathe and reflect at the end. And, while the poem is capable of standing without the singer, it is clearly enhanced by the song’s addition, without being overpowered by it. 

Ok - last rule number one: If the best thing about your poem is the song that you sing at the end of it…then….well…write a new poem.

Alright. Obviously one of my favorites from Ms. Browne, whom you can check in with here. For another of her dynamic pieces on Button, check out “This…This” here. For another piece on the nuances of colorism, try “Team Light Skinned” here. And, if after all that you still need more poems, here is a gorgeous poem from Rachel Wiley that I probs should have listed in the Thanksgiving Edition.  

See you next week. 

-Ashley

[unbuttonedpoetry]

“When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny” (Blythe Baird)

Let me begin by apologizing for last week’s absence; I let the days slip through my fingers a bit while getting ready to spend the holiday with the family. That said, I thought I’d take the downtime from cooking to bring a special Thanksgiving edition of UnButtoned. Here is Blythe Baird’s “When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny,” performed during prelims of NPS 2015 for Twin Cities.

Perhaps I’m a little bit of a jerk for reviewing a poem on Eating Disorders on the day devoted to celebrating American gluttony, but I often spend holidays thinking about the many people who find these days near impossible to deal with - particularly the people close to me who have struggled with EDs for the better part of their lives. Blythe here provides a point of view that’s not often heard: the view from those persons who look healthy, but in truth are dying.

I have….an odd problem sometimes with my enjoyment of poetry - especially performance poetry, where I really do like most of the lines in the poem, but still am not a fan of the poem. Like if I could just jump in and rearrange some things the piece would be amazing, but as is is not one of my faves. “When the Fat Girl Gets Skinny” is one of those poems. 

Don’t get me wrong. There are some amazing gems here:

“If you are not recovering, you are dying.”

“If you develop an eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital. If you go to the hospital when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story.”

“Now, I am proud I have stopped seeking revenge on this body. This was the year of eating when I was hungry…”

There were others of course, but these are the three that really leapt out and punched me in the face...mostly because these are the only three that I am absolutely certain happened in the right place, but others - not so sure. This is a “problem” with poems that aren’t necessarily narrative driven. They instead make the the audience aware of the larger story with these little snapshots and punchlines. Finding...just the right order in which to offer these snapshots is extraordinarily hard to do.I can almost forgive how all of the snippets are arranged here, with the exception of the last line. It is beautiful. It accurately captures the tone of the poem. I can see why some might consider it a good ending for the piece, but it’s just...not. I have several ideas for an alternate ending that rearranges a few things a bit, but that’s between me and Blythe if we ever get a chance to talk about this poem.

Another thing that I’ve found about performance poems that are punchline driven: is that over time, poets tend to anticipate having to hold for crowd reactions, which can lead to some issues with pacing and perception if the performer is holding at a time the audience is silent. It happens to Blythe a few times during this performance, particularly in the beginning. And sure - some will offer that some of the extended pauses are about being emotional and needing to gather herself...or even taking a minute to remember a briefly forgotten word, but in this case I’m going to have to disagree. We see what it looks like when Blythe needs to take a moment, near the end of the poem when she briefly goes up on a line, and then recovers beautifully. Holding for the applause that does not come looks altogether different.

All in all, a solid performance from Blythe, who I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more from in the future if she continues to handle such difficult topics in such gorgeous ways. If you want to learn more about the inner workings of today’s poet, check out her blog here. You can find another of her works on Button here. For another poem that takes an innovative look at struggling with food, check out “Shrinking Women” from Lily Myers here. And, if after all that you still need more poetry after all that, check out Sonya Renee’s “The Body is Not an Apology” here.

Be good to yourselves, and see you next week.

-Ashley

[unbuttonedpoetry]

“Ode to Biggie” (Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib)

I will admit that I was trying not to review a piece by Hanif Abdurraquib quite so soon, in hopes that the piece he performed at the NPS 2015 Semis would popup on Button. But, I am reviewing him now as a means to get over my outrage that he’ll be performing at UNC Chapel Hill at the same time that I will be in Durham, attempting to qualify for WOWPS 2016. *Sigh* Here is “Ode to Biggie,” performed at Rustbelt 2014.

I have found that the reaction most folks have to any poem by Hanif falls on the side of blind devotion or stark hatred, with zero grey area in between, and usually without any cogent explanation as to why they fall on either side. At best you get one of two questions: (1) “What didn’t you like about it?” or (2) “What is the even about?” I tend to fall on the side of adoration and will, try to articulate what is so flawless about this poem.

First, and I cannot stress this enough, this poem gets at least a 7.5 on the 10-point slam scale, just for not being a persona poem...or a letter from Biggie to Fetty Wop...or some other nonsense like that. I wouldn’t have been able to deal.

Second, like all Hanif poems, this particular piece is about eighty-seven different things all at once, in a way that manages to resolve each of them within the context of the story line. This Ode to Biggie is, of course, a telling of what it means to be a dark-skinned Black boy in the world, the first time that the mainstream lifted a dark-skinned Black boy to the status of superstar...while also being a personal telling of growing up poor, the miracle of grandmothers, and about Blackness in general - all wrapped up in some religious iconography that makes hearing this poem feel like the first time you heard a good preacher talk about Noah and the flood. C’mon. “For God so loved the hood that he baptized his only begotten son in diamonds.” Tell me you didn’t scream.

And finally, this is an Ode to Biggie that you do not have to be a Biggie fan to understand. I’m certain that there are intricacies that I’m not privy to because of my lack of familiarity with Mr. Wallace’s music, but I was still able to understand and appreciate the piece at large. 

I asked Buddy Wakefield a few months ago, what it was like to craft his pieces that are soooo narrative-driven and metaphor-heavy, particularly “Horsehead,” which is one my faves. His response: that it wasn’t important to him that every metaphor or line be understood at once - but instead that the whole poem would wash over you and give you such a sense of itself, so that, whatever that sensibility was, when you went back from the beginning, each line would sort of reveal itself a bit more. Hence, why my friends and I have been arguing for years about what Horsehead is “about.” I mention all of that here to say: it’s not particularly important that you know which of Hanif’s lines are direct references to Biggie or his music for the whole thing to wash over you and give a sense of how spectacular he was.

I will offer here, that there are moments when the poem feels like a too-long run-on sentence, but that appears to be characteristic of many of the pieces that Hanif slams, and so, well… let’s chalk that up to style choice and be glad that the man has enough breath control to make the whole thing work. To that end: I will also say that I wish he’d maintained that “long-windedness” all the way through to the end. This is a time where I believe keeping tempo would have been more effective than the traditional “slow-down method” of landing a slam poem; a slight drop in volume and pitch would have been enough, I believe, to bring it home.

Alright. You can find Mr. Abdurraquib here, and if you do nothing else, please follow him on Twitter; it’ll uplift your life. If you’d like to hear another of his poems go here, and then feel free to do a YouTube search of your own; there’s tons of great stuff to choose from. For another great ode to a hip-hop icon, check out Ashlee Haze’s “For Colored Girls” here. And, if after all of that you still need more poetry - here is “16 Bars for Kendrick Lamar” by Joshua Bennett.

See you next later this week

-Ashley

[unbuttonedpoetry]

“A Good Day” (Kait Rokowski)

I hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween as much as I did (I literally sat around in my pajamas eating candy out of a grab bag I’d stolen from been lovingly blessed with by one of the youth leaders of my church). We are back this week with this little ditty from Kait Rokowski.

Alright. I am going to be completely upfront and say that I have nearly nothing to say about this poem. It is simple and straightforward in a way that is also complex and sometimes heartbreaking. It’s at times triumphant without being “in-your-face” about the victory. It makes comments about depression that are universal enough to resonate with all of us who suffer with it, and at the same time are personal enough to not somehow trivialize anyone’s individual struggles in the way that these poems sometimes can. Good job Kait. This is actually one of my favorite poems and one that I come back to on my bad days.

That said, the reason I posted this poem is not for the poem or its performance...but for the disclaimer that precedes it.

Ok so this is short and I know you guys are gonna judge it, or short for a slam poem, I guess it’s not that short. But I don’t really care about the scores on this poem. For once, I’m going to ask you guys to help me with a little bit of therapy, which I don’t do a lot in slam anymore. So this is not going to be the best poem I have written, but I think it’s the most important poem I’ve written for myself in the last year and a half, so thank you.

It comments on length and style of the poem; distances it from any emotion related to crowd response but then asks the crowd to be particularly attentive. It devalues the poem while also asserting its importance, and is… as all disclaimers are… so completely unnecessary to the performance of the piece. I really think that poets do themselves a huge disservice by offering up these explanations for the intent of the piece or smaller references within the piece, before they start speaking - especially if that explanation begins with a comment on how bad the poet knows the poem is.

And I get it. We all want to be understood. But I really believe that if the poem itself doesn’t make it clear, then editing and conversation are both real things. Edit the poem until you don’t feel compelled to apologize for performing it, and once the show is over, when someone asks where the piece came from, tell them how much you needed to get free.

Ok. That’s all I’ve got for you today folks. If you want to keep in touch with Kait, you can check out her Tumblr page here. For an absolutely breathtaking poem of hers go here. For an interesting poem on disclaimers themselves, check out “An Introduction” by Billy Collins here. Taking it a step further in a piece that I have mixed feelings about, check out “Unfinished” by Nkosi Nkululeko here. And if you need more poetry after all that, then check out another poem that I always come back to here.

See you next week. 

-Ashley

[unbuttonedpoetry]

Suffering from supreme sugar high - will resume Unbuttoning poetry next week.

[unbuttonedpoetry]

“Unforgettable” (Liz Acevedo, Pages Matam, G Yamazawa)

This week we take a look at our first group piece. Here are Liz Acevedo, Pages Matam, and G Yamazawa on the NPS 2014 finals’ stage, performing “Unforgettable” for Beltway, which went on to win the tournament.

Ah. Group pieces. I will begin by saying that I am not normally a fan of group pieces. More and more lately there seems to be an emphasis on choreography and gimmick to sell the intent of a group poem, as opposed to maintaining a focus on quality writing. And, without going into a long diatribe about the “right” balance of performance and poetry within performance poetry, I will say that I never want the best thing about someone’s poem to be what dance they were doing while they said it. Nevertheless, when a group piece is done really well, it does tend to resonate in a way that indy pieces do not.

The construction of group pieces can be tricky and usually comes about in one of two ways: either two or more poets will brainstorm a sort of outline that they each write to (Praise for Google Docs); or the group takes an existing indy piece, edits and expands it. The latter method is my favorite for a litany of reasons that I won’t bore you with here, and this week’s poem was constructed that way. “Unforgettable” is born out of one of G’s poems, with several personal elements added by Liz and Pages, and then some structural elements changed for continuity. The thing that this poem does well, is not showcase the fact that it’s assembled as a jigsaw puzzle. Even though each poet is given the opportunity to tell his or her own piece of the story, they do so with a consistency of tone that somehow makes the poem feel as though it is being told with one voice. There were some moments where the images presented felt a little overdone -  “colonizers” and “thick skin” - but in general the entire piece took a pretty common idea, and made it something fresh.

I will...have to be nitpicky about the performance of the poem, in that there are moments when the group struggles to find harmony in energy and pitch. This usually happens when the natural register of one person’s voice is drastically different than the rest of the group’, and it can be quite jarring. When each poet speaks individually, you can hear them trying to match pitch with the person who spoke before them, but in times when the group comes together you can hear the differences in a way that makes them sound as though they’re not quite in sync. If you don’t believe me, peep the sonic difference between the line at 0:20, with the one at 2:05.

The closing for me was also a winner. I enjoyed how the group said their piece, then gave each poet a chance for a tagline, and then came back together for the very ending. The whole thing was just well-balanced and truly enjoyable from beginning to end.

If you want to learn more about Liz, Pages, and G, you can go here, here, and here. To have a look at the poem that sparked “Unforgettable,” click here. For another great piece about unique names, check out ShaCondria Sibley’s “To All the Little Black Girls with Big Names,” here. And, if after all that, you still need more poems, check out this gem from Tonya Ingram here.

See you next week.

-Ashley

[unbuttonedpoetry]

“Dear Mark Wahlberg” (Alex Dang)

This week we are look at yet another piece from this year’s Nats. I’m not entirely sure whether this is a prelim or semifinals bout, but here is Alex Dang performing for Portland.

After reviewing a piece last week that had me on the fence, I thought we’d dive into one that I have very clear opinions about. And I am...not at all a fan of this poem. Let us begin:

I’m not generally a fan of the “letters to public figures” subgenre that keeps popping up in performance poetry. Every time a celebrity, politician, or viral video star says/does something disagreeable (And I know disagreeable is not the correct way to describe the acts of violence described in this poem - I’m generalizing for the purposes of explanation. Breathe), some, or several poets, set about responding to it by writing the offending figure “a letter.” These letters are usually more rant than poem, and are rarely heard by the person to whom they are addressed. If these letters achieve any success, it is usually to inform the audience that the person they are talking to did something problematic. This is usually accomplished in the first two lines or so of the poem, and then...woefully...it continues. I find that the only type of open letter I enjoy are usually written to people who are personally significant to the poet, and not just about subject matter that they deem important. In this way, the writer usually approaches the larger theme with more subtilty and always comes back to some place that’s...sweet in some way - this poem is not that.

I can tell that Alex is passionate about the subject matter of the poem: the clearly racially motivated violence perpetrated by someone in the public eye; the use of a late apology as a means to garner financial success; the public sigh of relief when yet another person of an oppressed group grants unwarranted forgiveness to someone with access to privilege...all important topics to be discussed...But. Passion and import don’t make good poems. They just don’t.

And I get it - hearing this apology on the heels of the opening of a burger chain does not give anyone much to work with in terms of metaphor - but cracking a skull vs. cracking open a beer; rendering someone unconscious vs. rendering the fat; and all those references to grinding meat all just felt like an attempt at cleverness that was doing entirely too much and not nearly enough at the same time.

I will give Alex some credit his closing line. Though I wasn’t necessarily here for much of the denouement of the piece, “bite into your favorite burger, and taste blood,” was actually a line that got at the connections he was trying to make throughout the poem without being incredibly heavy handed. I wish he had done more of this sort of thing throughout.

Ok. While this is obviously not a favorite of mine, Alex Dang still has some gems under his belt. You can check out one of my favorites here. Get to know Alex and stay abreast of his performance schedule here. For a “letter” poem that I can get behind check out Ethan Smith’s poem here. And if you still need more after all of that, check out the completely unrelated piece that I almost reviewed for this week here.

See you next week.

-Ashley

[unbuttonedpoetry]

[unbuttonedpoetry]

“Interchangeable Parts” (Joel Francois)

This week’s piece is another from prelims at NPS 2015. Here is Joel Francois representing the Nuyorican, which later went on to take third in their semifinal bout.

Let me say first, that I still have not come to a consensus within myself as to whether or not I like this poem. I’m not going to to tell you how many times I’ve gone over this video, watching and listening - listening without watching, pausing and starting again - trying to decide if I’m a fan...and all I’ve got is a consistent back and forth with myself. Here’s a window into what that conversation looks like:

A poem that I completely believed was going to be about gun violence in terms of its politics and the debate about gun control, quickly shifted into a piece about Blackness and criminal justice. Praise for the surprise. However, the transition from the facts about gun assembly into the introduction of the idea of “black men as guns” is handled so clumsily, I’m almost turned off to the entire poem at about 40 seconds in. And with that jaded edge I’m made to endure the next minute and a half: “Oh look,” I think to myself, “here’s another line where he replaces black men with black gun, or trigger or bullet - how...great.” But, when I let myself ignore the bluntness of the switch, I also realize that this is part of the genius of the piece - the interchangeability of each of these words as he progresses through the piece to arrive at its final conclusion. “Oh look,” I think to myself, “look at how well he substitutes gun or trigger or bullet with man - how great!”

The moment that I am completely certain about, happens at a little over two minutes in, “I have never seen a composite sketch...that did not look like me,” all the way through to “we are sick of these toy guns” - I am heartbreakingly here for without critique.The interchangeability of Black men who always fit the description? Yes. A justice system that seeks to neutralize the looming “threat” of Blackness? Preach. A nod to the rates at which we lock up our young boys in particular? If this man isn’t just subtle and on-the-nose at the same time….I listened to this section of the piece repeatedly and have yet to find a flaw in the work.

But then...he stumbles out of that greatness into an easy trope about the boys in blue, which is where the piece loses its momentum for me, and it just doesn’t have enough time to recover before Joel lands the ending. Redeeming point here: I live for endings that circle back on themselves to revisit the opening lines or ideas of the piece, and this poem does that particularly well.

Even after writing this, I still can’t say with any degree of certainty that I like or dislike this piece...but I do love a poem that will grab you - force you to spend long hours reckoning with it, and considering the words and the work long after you were introduced to do it. This the first poem to put its teeth into me in that way in a long while. Praise for that.

You can connect with Joel via his Facebook page here. This appears to be the first of Joel’s pieces on Button, so check out an offering of his on Da Poetry Lounge here. If you want to check out another awesome piece concerning guns and blackness, peep Sonya Renee’s “The Shotgun Questions the Black Boy” here. And, if you still need more poems after all that, check out another piece that had me on the fence here. 

See you next week

-Ashley

[unbuttonedpoetry]

“The Joys of Motherhood” (FreeQuency)

This week’s video comes to us from the 2015 edition of the Women of the World Slam. FreeQuency is one of my faves out of N’awlins and did grace the WoWPS finals’ stage this year.

The premise of the poem: one that’s popping up more and more often in light of the realities surrounding race, particularly in terms of police brutality in this country. We’ve all heard the Amadou Diallo poems...the Trayvon Martin poems...the Mike Brown poems...and now - poems about what it’s like to parent, teach...love these boys who may at any moment be the next in a string of harrowing hashtags. And while I’ve heard several pieces in this vein, “The Joys of Motherhood” might be my favorite.

To begin: let’s look at this amazing thing that she got right. “Too many Sean Bell[s] go off in my head when I consider calling 911. I will not take it for Oscar Grant[ed] that they will not come and kill my son.”  There. Do you see how she referenced the dead without falling into the easy trap of offering up a list of names? Love, love, love it. 

There are so many other quote-worthy lines in the piece, that I’m almost angered by the time constraints of slam (this was for the two-minute round), and wish she could have slowed down a tad and let some of those harder hitting lines rest with us before moving on. That said, even in her haste, she took time to stick the landing - opened her eyes, hit the center, dropped the voice, and held just briefly enough to give the audience some resolution before she walked off the stage. Perfect.

Meanwhile….two things do bug me about the piece, that repeated viewings would not allow me to shake. First, and I almost hate to say it, but there were moments when some of the rhyming made me want to stop listening to the poem. While I’m usually all for Free’s use of rhyme, it seemed in certain places to interrupt the flow of the piece, instead of aiding it. That perhaps has more to do with the speed of the performance and issues of breath than the actual poem, but I really wanted the piece to remain conversational, instead of making a pointed effort to hit those end rhymes.

Secondly...I have a huge “thing” with repetition. My issues with it and praise of it will probably pop up here more often than you’d like, but I think, for good reason. The greatest writer in the world told me once, that repetition is holy, and so, every time that Free says “being Black in America,” I really want her to say...something else - even if it’s just to find a new word to stand for America each time she offers that sentiment. Or, I may have rocked with it if there were some tonal change in these lines each time (vocally, not the tone of the piece), just to make each one hit a little differently.

All told - another great piece from a great writer, who you can get to know a little better here. Check out another of her pieces on Button here. If you’d like to see another inspirational offering on raising a Black son, check out Clint Smith’s Ted Talk here. And, if you’re still hungry for more after all that, here is Eve Ewing’s offering for Black Poets Speak out here.

See you next week

-Ashley