Beltway Poetry Slam Analysis

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

“I turn on the news each night and what do I see again and again? African Americans alleged to be killing, raping, mugging, stabbing, gangbanging, looting, rioting, selling drugs, pimping, ho-ing, having to many babies, dropping babies from tenement windows, fatherless, penniless, and Godless” (Moore 59). The media has devoted too much time and space perpetuating these negative views of African Americans and far too little time describing the background problems of African-American communities. “What is not a crisis is not usually reported and what is not or cannot be made visual is often not televised” (Racist America 154). The news media respond quickly and with keen interest to the conflicts and controversies of racial stories. For the most part, “they disregard the problems that seep beneath the surface until they erupt in the hot steam that is the live news story, ‘The suspect is a black male’ we’ve all seen it” (Racist America 154). The media has not studied important events in the African-American community today. Issues such as urbanization, education, and poverty, just to name a few that have and will continue to have a

The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov talks about a widower and his late wife, and how he uses the vacuum as a symbol for her death. The poem expresses deep sorrow and sadness that derive from the loneliness of the speaker, after his other half’s passing away. Nemerov attempts to take his readers on a grief-stricken journey, by strategically employing figurative language (mainly personification, metaphor, simile, and alliteration), fractured rhyme schemes and turns in stanza breaks in the poem.

Brent Staples’ essay titled, “Just Walk On By”, really impacted and resonated with me. His essay was about the many discriminations that African Americans face every day. He was able to deliver this powerful message by telling the story of how he faced stereotypes and racial profiling almost all the time. He describes how just a simple walk at night could threaten and frighten a local white civilian. Every day he was seen as a dangerous and outlawed criminal because of the color of his skin. He gave examples of these discriminations that he faced by describing how when he was simply taking a nighttime stroll to put himself to sleep frightened a white lady walking ahead of him. She automatically assumed that because they were walking alone

The 2016 census reported that 14% of the United States population was living below the poverty line. And sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures. Leading people to go as far as committing a crime just to feed their family. This was the theme of Cage The Elephant’s song, “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked,” written by Matt Schultz. In the song, Schultz utilizes personal experiences and an emotional appeal to address the issues of poverty to the upper classes and to justify how people in poverty or “the Wicked” handle their situation by the means of crime and immoral ways.

Prior to the event, I have never heard about Air Go. Therefore, I did not have any expectations coming in to watch/experience their show Friday night. I’m glad I did not have any background knowledge because it made the experience authentic and easier to connect to the artists. Expressing urban rhetorical expression through the arts is not knew, most rappers that I listened to (J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Chance the Rapper) put forth this idea when it comes to their music. However, listening to David Ellis and Tasha express their thoughts and emotions through their craft is like having an intimate connection with them because I also saw the issues they are talking about.

Of the utmost importance to us was American identity, which was a deciding factor in eliminating some candidates such as David Baker and Alex Dang. We also assessed the efforts of the poet in promoting poetry, the thoughtfulness of the messages contained in their poems, whether or not they displayed a distinct writing style within their poetry, the recognition they have received for their work, and also finally their background. Even though many factors were considered, American identity is weaved into each and every one – for example, when providing background information on the poet, the presenters had to demonstrate how their background helped the poet to develop distinctly American characteristics, and then show how it was represented in their works. These expectations which we had set for a prospective poet laureate were easily surpassed by Komunyakaa. For reference, he surpassed the next highest score, Mary Karr’s, by an astonishing 3 points, scoring 21 out of a possible 24 points, and this well-rounded excellence proved him to be the ideal

Two boys named Josh and Harold were going to a Cardinals game. When they were walking

I really enjoyed the poetry reading, a lot more than I was expecting. I really liked how all of their poems was memories, not something just made up and have absolutely no meaning. I enjoyed listening to the poems they had, I tried to visualize while they were reading. I was quite surprised when I learned that the two writers, Becca Lachman and Wendy McViker still used writing prompts. I would think that since they are so experienced and have even wrote their owns books that their poems would just come to them and they would be great at it. It is comforting to know that even the best writers have troubles sometimes.

I learned from this event that if it’s not something I would normally go see it’s hard to stay focused on what is going on. What I learned is that we at Niagara have a very talented theater department and a lot of people come to the plays here. Why was the important to me…honestly I needed to go to be able to write this event paper. The last play I went to see in my life was The Sound of Music at Shea’s in Buffalo; I loved it because I wanted to go.

The Coney Island Walls was an event I personally experienced. The walls are displayed in the open but with a gallery display. The first thing you notice about the walls is the colors. The bright colors the artists use on the wall, becomes the guidance through the event. The color and formation makes the elements. In many of the walls, George mentioned that the brighter walls were always the ones he went to first. It was interesting to see that the color of a piece has so much influence on it. It determines whether the audiences look at it as soon as they go in or if it’s a piece that will get passed on.

Slam poetry, also known as spoken word, is a type of poetry defined by free-verse that uses literary terms and poetic techniques to convey a message or feeling toward a specific issue. These issues typically are provoking topics such as social and economic issues, politics, and day to day struggles. Slam poetry emerged in the late 1980’s, this was a period of great change for American culture. It is said to be Marc Kelly Smith, also known as Slam Papi in the poetry world, was one of the first founders of slam poetry. He felt that poetry had fallen off and wanted to bring it back to life. Smith used his idea of open mic and began to host poetry slams at a jazz club in Chicago where anyone was welcome to come share their personal work. Unlike

Personally, the event was a good use of time, since my plans were to stay in bed on this particular Saturday. I am proud of myself for putting myself out there and attending this event. Was I glad I attended? Yes and No. I am glad I attended because I got to experience something that most students cannot, seeing their team play at Madison Square Garden. I am not glad that I attended because the traveling costs were quite above my margins. The days’ worth of spending money totaled to around forty dollars. Which for a college student such as myself is exorbitant. The train ride itself, round trip, cost around $32.50. An after eating lunch in the city, my spending’s were exceeding my limit. I learned that it is okay to splurge once in a while on something special, and not to feel guilty when it comes to those occasions in life.

Healing and entertaining people through rhythmic storytelling are the corner stone of slam poetry. Slam poetry is a type of type poetry where people read their poems without props, costumes or music (A Brief Guide to slam poetry. 2004). It is usually original work that talks about themes and subject that people can relate to. Invented in the 1980s by a Chicago construction worker named March Smith, it started as a form of storytelling and they used rhythm to make it entertaining (What is slam poetry? .2013). The essay is about a South African poet Koleka Putuma within details about biographical background of the poet’s life, body of work, performance style and analysis of her poem that will be provided.

Slam poetry is one of the many forms of art where people express their feelings by writing them down and sharing them with other people. In 1984 Smith a constuction worker was hosting poetry reading in a jazz club in Chicago. Mac made up a gimmick to bring life to his open-mic formal; his idea was to match up poets against each other as in a fight. It was in 1986 when slam poetry was born and has been going on ever since. Accoding to the Oxford dictionary (1994 : 194) slam poetry is a competition where poets read, recite,and perform original work alone or as a team before an audience who act as judges they are judged at a scale of 0-10.