2018 Prize for Fiction
The Breathing Exercise
Juan Morales
“...and a wind speed of,” Dev’s phone, which was docked in a speaker, whispered only just audibly over the pounding rain and the shuddering windows of the modest house.
“A mural,” Flor decided as she stared at the empty living room wall.
“Sure, looks kind of empty otherwise, I guess,” Dev filled the open air more than actually agreeing. He was standing over the phone, watching. Not freaking out. REFUSING to freak out.
“What of though?”
“An elephant in the savannah.”
“But at dusk, and the elephant is a silhouette, flaking off like ash in the wind.”
“Well, there you go,” Flor winked in approval.
“SO IT IS ADVISED THAT YOU REMAIN INDOORS FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND…” the phone was now yelling at full volume. The large window at the front of the house was being assaulted by flung twigs and fists of rain, but neither Flor nor Dev once stopped to look through it and out at the garage with all the boxes filled with their life, piled up on the floor. Not once did they even try to open the garage door.
She was still smiling somehow, Dev noticed. And even her eyes, though not quite happy, were at the very least content as she reached into a nearby box with the words: “ART TOOLS” punctuated with a heart. The box was on a stool.
“Should the sunset skyline be like an orange/yellow gradient or should I make it like those spaghetti western posters: orange, blue, and a thin strip of grey just on the horizon?” The question was posed as a kindness. She knew Dev was anxious and in the recursive thought loop he tended to sink into in these pharmaceutical-grade stress kinds of situations. Dev understood.
“I vote orange.”
“Your help is greatly appreciated monsieur.” Flor said with a finger to her nose in a faux-stache fashion with an affectedly poor French accent.
The mural was coming along beautifully, though odd looking. The line work was blurry, and the colors bled into opaque clouds in places, but it couldn’t be helped. Flor was an excellent painter, but the wall was almost soaked. Long streams began at the seam where ceiling met wall and ended at the pool that was their living room. And kitchen. And bathroom, and bedroom with the attached bathroom, and walk in closet, and guest room, and everything else that had already been such a massive part of their lives in the past couple of months, and now here they were, Flor still painting and calm in that way that makes other people uneasy, and Dev now struggling to do his “box breathing.” He learned it from a podcast, he thinks.
Inhale four seconds.
Hold four seconds.
Exhale four seconds.
Hold four seconds.
Except sometimes on the inhale or the hold or the exhale it would become like 15 or so seconds of distracted, anxious thought. Dev was now light headed.
“IMPERATIVE THAT YOU HUNKER DOWN AND…” his phone interrupted his failed breathing system. Dev repeated the word ‘HUNKER’ in his mind over and over, picturing Flor and himself under the bed, turtle-like.“…RESCUE EFFORTS WILL BEGIN AS SOON AS WINDSPEEDS DROP TO A SAFE VELOCITY.”
Flor went to grab for another something out of her art box when a branch, the largest one yet, slammed on the window. Maybe she was frightened or the picking up of whatever tool she had grabbed had unbalanced the box atop the stool or some cruel act of quantum randomness decided that it be so; whatever the case, her box fell and splashed. Water made its way into her boots. Brushes and tubes of color poured into the pool, some sinking, others not.
“On second thought, you should have gone with the other color palette,” Dev said with a tired smirk. Flor cried after a pause. After staying for a moment and staring at the spilled things, Dev abandoned his phone and embraced his wife, accepting that the really frightening part of this day wasn’t that they were helpless.
“ONLY ADVICE AT THIS POINT IS TO FIND HIGHER GROUND WHEREV…” The phone screen flashed as an alert appeared:
“15% Battery.”
The Breathing Exercise
Juan Morales
“...and a wind speed of,” Dev’s phone, which was docked in a speaker, whispered only just audibly over the pounding rain and the shuddering windows of the modest house.
“A mural,” Flor decided as she stared at the empty living room wall.
“Sure, looks kind of empty otherwise, I guess,” Dev filled the open air more than actually agreeing. He was standing over the phone, watching. Not freaking out. REFUSING to freak out.
“What of though?”
“An elephant in the savannah.”
“But at dusk, and the elephant is a silhouette, flaking off like ash in the wind.”
“Well, there you go,” Flor winked in approval.
“SO IT IS ADVISED THAT YOU REMAIN INDOORS FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY AND…” the phone was now yelling at full volume. The large window at the front of the house was being assaulted by flung twigs and fists of rain, but neither Flor nor Dev once stopped to look through it and out at the garage with all the boxes filled with their life, piled up on the floor. Not once did they even try to open the garage door.
She was still smiling somehow, Dev noticed. And even her eyes, though not quite happy, were at the very least content as she reached into a nearby box with the words: “ART TOOLS” punctuated with a heart. The box was on a stool.
“Should the sunset skyline be like an orange/yellow gradient or should I make it like those spaghetti western posters: orange, blue, and a thin strip of grey just on the horizon?” The question was posed as a kindness. She knew Dev was anxious and in the recursive thought loop he tended to sink into in these pharmaceutical-grade stress kinds of situations. Dev understood.
“I vote orange.”
“Your help is greatly appreciated monsieur.” Flor said with a finger to her nose in a faux-stache fashion with an affectedly poor French accent.
The mural was coming along beautifully, though odd looking. The line work was blurry, and the colors bled into opaque clouds in places, but it couldn’t be helped. Flor was an excellent painter, but the wall was almost soaked. Long streams began at the seam where ceiling met wall and ended at the pool that was their living room. And kitchen. And bathroom, and bedroom with the attached bathroom, and walk in closet, and guest room, and everything else that had already been such a massive part of their lives in the past couple of months, and now here they were, Flor still painting and calm in that way that makes other people uneasy, and Dev now struggling to do his “box breathing.” He learned it from a podcast, he thinks.
Inhale four seconds.
Hold four seconds.
Exhale four seconds.
Hold four seconds.
Except sometimes on the inhale or the hold or the exhale it would become like 15 or so seconds of distracted, anxious thought. Dev was now light headed.
“IMPERATIVE THAT YOU HUNKER DOWN AND…” his phone interrupted his failed breathing system. Dev repeated the word ‘HUNKER’ in his mind over and over, picturing Flor and himself under the bed, turtle-like.“…RESCUE EFFORTS WILL BEGIN AS SOON AS WINDSPEEDS DROP TO A SAFE VELOCITY.”
Flor went to grab for another something out of her art box when a branch, the largest one yet, slammed on the window. Maybe she was frightened or the picking up of whatever tool she had grabbed had unbalanced the box atop the stool or some cruel act of quantum randomness decided that it be so; whatever the case, her box fell and splashed. Water made its way into her boots. Brushes and tubes of color poured into the pool, some sinking, others not.
“On second thought, you should have gone with the other color palette,” Dev said with a tired smirk. Flor cried after a pause. After staying for a moment and staring at the spilled things, Dev abandoned his phone and embraced his wife, accepting that the really frightening part of this day wasn’t that they were helpless.
“ONLY ADVICE AT THIS POINT IS TO FIND HIGHER GROUND WHEREV…” The phone screen flashed as an alert appeared:
“15% Battery.”
2018 Prize for Poetry
There Were Stories Before There Were Tongues
Ellen Birdwell
Helen Keller told
stories to herself
before she learned
of water's name.
She stole pies, pranked her governess.
She did not eat with a napkin
because she did not know how.
Autumn churns slowly
and awfully into Spring;
forgive her, she was young,
and birds were just
a strange movement
in the air, flowers only a softness
against the cheek and in the nose.
When Helen Keller took a bath,
she knew the truth of it,
how it had nothing to do with clean or dirty,
but with weightless and wet, with smooth,
and with opening up the muscles to. . .
what?
Water existed before
there was a box to put it in
and a handle on that box
made from letters.
When Helen Keller worshiped
she burned full of the sun.
She telescoped into a fiery spiral,
an exultation,
a pre-Babel calling out of wonder.
There Were Stories Before There Were Tongues
Ellen Birdwell
Helen Keller told
stories to herself
before she learned
of water's name.
She stole pies, pranked her governess.
She did not eat with a napkin
because she did not know how.
Autumn churns slowly
and awfully into Spring;
forgive her, she was young,
and birds were just
a strange movement
in the air, flowers only a softness
against the cheek and in the nose.
When Helen Keller took a bath,
she knew the truth of it,
how it had nothing to do with clean or dirty,
but with weightless and wet, with smooth,
and with opening up the muscles to. . .
what?
Water existed before
there was a box to put it in
and a handle on that box
made from letters.
When Helen Keller worshiped
she burned full of the sun.
She telescoped into a fiery spiral,
an exultation,
a pre-Babel calling out of wonder.
2018 Prize for Non-Fiction
Life Is a Poem, Man
Kyle Knight
He was a Maori man, tan and large. His sunbaked hands flew down to his knees, a sign that the ritual was about to begin. New Zealand was his home. This stage, however, was his battleground. He stood at the microphone but didn’t use it. He didn’t need to. His booming voice silenced the whispers of coffee drinkers and beer guzzlers. Taking a step back, he began to stomp. Stomp. Stomp. The haka had begun.
For the residents of Wellington, this wasn’t out of the ordinary. For a student studying abroad from Texas, it was quite terrifying. The haka, a native war cry and dance performance, is a common cultural activity among the Maori tribes of New Zealand. Loud shouting and wild arm motions are almost always an expectation, but this often occurs as the performer – or performers, in some cases – speak in a native tongue at special events or ceremonies. His shouting was in English, and took the form of a free verse poem.
This was my introduction into slam poetry. It was at a small bar on the other side of the world, but I found myself hooked. I wasn’t the only one inspired. A classmate had the guts to get up and perform a piece before we returned to the U.S., but I hadn’t mustered up the courage to join her. I watched as a member of an audience at several slams during my time abroad, wondering how anyone could feel comfortable enough to perform on stage in front of complete strangers. As the weeks went by, and upon my return to Houston, I found myself researching local venues to immerse myself in the art form.
This story begins as any real adventure should – a young protagonist finds himself asking a question. In this case, I asked myself why people perform spoken word poetry. What’s so special about it, and how do people become comfortable enough to do it? With nothing better to do on a hot summer evening, I found myself sitting in a black armchair in a dimly lit patio bar, looking up at a microphone stand.
Enter AvantGarden. This palace of beer and finger snaps is nestled smack-dab in the middle of Montrose and Midtown, right off Westheimer Road. You’d pass right by it if you didn’t know it was there. Green shrubs and vines of ivy adorn the metal fence surrounding the three-story historical house run by Mariana Lemesoff. When you manage to find a parking space, you’ll walk through a tiny little gate and find a pathway leading to a backyard complete with its own bar. Steel chairs and small tables surround the roof’s support beams, and lights sway like leaves in the breeze as they trail along the tops of the porch to the yellow siding of the house. It’s a humble home for a growing art form, and the warmth of the lamps and smiles on faces make you feel as if you are among long-lost friends.
But I suppose that was the missing piece. I was flying solo on this mission, a lone adventurer looking for inspiration and an outlet for expression. Expressing myself has always been difficult, especially as someone who has always been labeled as the “quiet kid.” When people call you something, you tend to reinforce your own stereotype by abiding by the expectations. Cracking my social shell is no easy task, but I thought spoken word could teach me a thing or two about speaking out. Letting my feelings loose. Not just keeping them inside.
I sat down and took in the scenery, not sure of what to expect. When a mother and her son found their place on stage, I realized I had stumbled across something special. They shared their joint struggle with suicide, and commanded the audience’s attention. As a mere viewer, the words struck at me like knives digging straight into my heart. The two took turns performing separate verses. The piece was not well rehearsed, but no one in the audience seemed to care. A deafening applause filled my ears as the pair smiled and left the stage only a couple minutes after their performance began.
The mother and son duo were no Odysseus or Ajax; they wielded no weapons or assistance from demigods. They didn’t sing of glory. They sang of sadness and destruction and the near loss of a family. Rooted in human history is a desire to share emotions, but here was a clear example of the evolution of verbal expression. It wasn’t self-gratification, but rather an outlet for pain. It wasn’t just a story of overcoming the odds, but rather a cry out against an unfair world that almost delivered a mother and child to Hades prematurely.
I started a poetry blog shortly after this event. I was inspired to start creating something, even if I didn’t have the confidence to express myself out loud. I wanted to be like that mother and son on stage; I wanted to shout out my problems and defy my inner demons. Tumblr became my new friend as I started a 30-day-long poetry challenge. I forced myself to write one poem per day, and I stuck to this schedule well.
Was it amateurish? Of course. Cowardly? Perhaps. But it was also therapeutic. Class and work kept me distracted for a while, but I eventually felt a gnawing desire to seek out another slam. The blog wasn’t going to satisfy my appetite.
I found myself back at that same venue. Despite my terrible parking skills, I managed to fit my beat-up Ford Explorer into the small lot on the side of AvantGarden’s dimly lit patio. After fumbling with my phone, paying the $5 cover charge and getting a nifty little sticker for following “Write About Now” on Instagram, my hand was stamped and I was motioned into that same backyard area filled with small little chairs, smaller little tables, and the smallest little crowd. I had arrived at 7:30 on the dot, but quickly remembered – in the midst of cigarette smoke, background chatter and clinging bottles of alcohol – being on time meant you were early here. Nobody was in a rush, or so it seemed.
I found a seat two rows from the patio’s stage, towards the entrance. Plopping down on the black chair in front of me, I pulled out my pink sticky pad and started to take it all in.
“Welcome to ‘Write About Now,’ where everyone is welcome unless you’re racist and orange, but nobody wants to judge here!” proclaimed the MC, a poet named Amir. I made a mental note of how many Trump jokes the host made and noticed that each one left the crowd clapping and roaring with laughter.
Write About Now isn’t a partisan group, but doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable topics. On the contrary, it sets up poetry slams to send poets to national competitions where they perform pieces about controversial subject matter and win cash prizes. Some slams are reserved for specific performers, but this was an open-mic event, which meant anyone could get up and share a new poem.
“This is our ‘new shit’ night, so if you have a new poem you want to read, come up and sign the list and we’ll get started shortly.”
The event was underway 30 minutes later, another indication that this slam was made up of people who honestly didn’t want to be held down by the clock. Ironically, the chosen poets for the night were allotted a brief two minutes to speak, but this was the nature of a slam competition. There would be several rounds of poems, the MC explained, and winners would be chosen from each round to advance.
It should be noted that Write About Now isn’t the first slam organization that came into existence, despite it being a popular refuge for poetry in Houston. As early as the 7th century B.C., poets were recounting episodes from the Iliad and Odyssey out loud and competing for prizes including bulls, wine and goats. African tribes have been sharing oral traditions from generation to generation for centuries, and influenced poets and members of the Harlem Renaissance, which still has influences on American art and culture to this day. While the prizes and settings have changed, the desire for verbal expression is still present.
“Before Trump bans free speech, let’s give it up for Jason!” The crowd laughed and applauded, while the MC motioned to a twentyish-year-old Asian guy with glasses in the front row. The man strolled onto the stage like he’d done this before. I was certain that he had, as his verses came out as smooth as silk and left the crowd in awe. He spoke about heartache and loss, telling the crowd that you “can’t nurse a burn if you hold onto the fire.” His arm outstretched, a cell phone in the palm, Jason continued to pour out his heart amidst the snaps of thumbs against middle fingers. The scent of cigarette smoke lingered from earlier, dancing in my nose but also giving weight to the words of this man’s emotional struggles.
I felt better about seeing him hold his phone; it broke down my previous assumption that all poems needed to be memorized. Some performers came up without the aid of a piece of paper or touch screen, but nobody seemed to mind this guy’s lack of eye contact with the audience. They applauded as he finished, and I watched as his grinning face left the mic stand behind.
When Jason left the stage, a girl appeared in his place. “New shit,” she yelled, and the crowd yelled back. It is a common practice, a ritual for these people; when a poet is performing a new piece, and says the magic words, it’s the obligation of the audience to echo back. Her poem was clever and sarcastic; it was a list of rules for women on how to survive in a world dominated by presidents who want to grab females in the crotch.
Race-based lyrics, fast-paced rhymes and body shaming poems followed, but one stood out among the others. A large woman with a red cap came onto the stage, taking the microphone and beginning a heartbreaking piece about her struggle with weight.
“I’m a weirdo,” she sang. A Lady Gaga verse accompanied her own original lines, creating a pitiful bastardization of song and free verse poetry that was complemented by occasional screams. The judges gave her good scores, but the haunting feeling she left behind as she exited the stage was intriguing. It made me wonder why, and how, someone in such a vulnerable state would want to speak so openly and so beautifully to a crowd of strangers about her Achilles’ heel.
I looked down at the stamp on my hand, rubbing away the ink in a nervous frenzy as I anxiously thought about my own problems.
Several poets followed, but few matched her raw emotion. One poet’s piece about not being gender-binary stood out as one of the best of the night, but the screams and voice of the woman still flooded my ears and refused to leave.
There was a desire to be heard, and not be ignored. There was a deep wanting among the poets to be understood, to have a chance to speak on a stage before the world and explain “imperfections” that nobody else cared to examine in greater detail. I wanted to be her.
I wanted her confidence.
I decided it wasn’t enough just to attend an event as an audience member. I would need to speak with the poets themselves, peak into their brains and pry into their consciousness to fully understand the meaning of the art form. I needed to understand the artists, and perhaps even work up the courage to become one. If one thing had become clear, it was how accepting most of these audiences were of people who weren’t professional poets. I thought about how easy it might have been to pull up my poem blog on my phone and sign up on the list, but I thought against it. Plus, the slots for the night had been filled. I left at intermission so that I could get back to an essay for class, but I couldn’t get that woman’s voice out of my head. I needed more exposure.
While researching more poetry events and venues, I stumbled across a spoken word event being held on my campus that was being advertised in the residence halls. With a free evening and no plans, I walked my way over to the student center and sat in the auditorium among a crowd of roughly 20 other students.
It was a Friday night, but campus was more dead than usual. To be honest, I felt bad for the performers. I wished more people had shown up. Despite my reservations, I stuck around and shifted my focus to the poems. Three speakers took stage, but a young man named Jeremy ran the show. Along with hearing his Kendrick Lamar poem, a crowd favorite, I would later learn that Jeremy was the protégé of a slam coach named Outspoken Bean.
The Asia Project, a two-man poetry machine, followed Jeremy’s performance. I was baffled by how much the pair had overcome, as stories of abortion, death and cancer filled my ears. It was shocking to me how open the performers were about their deepest struggles, and I knew I needed to speak with them before they left.
An audience member volunteered to share a poem before the event concluded. As the girl got up to perform her piece, I realized Jeremy had taken a seat next to me. I took the chance to reach over and talk to him.
“Hey! I’m writing a paper on poetry! Mind if I get a few quotes?”
He looked at me, a bit confused, but agreed to chat. We waited for the final poem to end, and began talking about Jeremy’s involvement with the art form.
“So what got you involved with spoken word and writing poetry?” I asked. He took a moment to gather his thoughts and replied with a calm demeanor.
“Watching other spoken word poets and being inspired,” he said, chewing on his lip and wringing his hands in-between sentences. “When I first started, the subject matter that really spoke to me the most was growing up and experiencing all these changes through puberty and stuff. And it was like ‘ugh, what do I do about this?’ I ended up writing. That’s the avenue that took.”
After jotting down some notes, I was fast walking to the exit and luckily found the lead performer from Asia Project still standing at a merchandise table. For a man who had witnessed so much tragedy, and had gone through so much pain – from the loss of family members to battling cancer – he smiled like nothing fazed him. His poems were about chaos and misery, yet the man in front of me showed total control and happiness. I reached out and shook his hand. I asked the poet what advice he had for people who wanted to learn more about spoken word poetry.
“My first thing that I always tell people is write true to you, first and foremost. You know, a lot of people get into slam poetry and they try to sound like another poet, or they think a certain subject will get them famous or popular. Write true to you. And as long as it’s coming from inside you, it’s going to be amazing.”
He had echoed an idea present in poems that I had heard before, a genuine quality of transparency and realness that only an individual could develop and understand for oneself. DMX, a poet from an HBO poetry series called Def Poetry Jam, once performed a piece about something similar.
“The industry,” he had said, “is about playing the game…I’m not an industry artist; I’m an artist in the industry.” He was a performer who knew what it took to get by, but also refused to sell himself out and become something fake in the process.
I think that was my key take away from these artists. They weren’t afraid to dive into uncomfortable topics, but knew how to discuss those subjects in a way that was honest and beautiful. They were just as human as me. Jeremy used poetry at a young age to express himself during a time of uncertainty and growth, while the Asia Project focused on keeping the art genuine. It made sense not to imitate others when the point of the art form is self-expression, not copying and pasting words. It isn’t about popularity, but rather about sharing oneself with the world. I took their advice to heart and made my way back to my dormitory. However, I still felt like I needed more information.
I found myself typing away at my blog when I came up with an idea that really set my investigation into motion. I decided to create a Facebook status about the project, asking for poets to provide me with personal interviews and opinions about spoken word poetry. I asked my friends and family members to share the status around, which ensured that people beyond my circle of friends would see it. I went to bed thinking that I would get a couple of solid leads, but was surprised to wake up and find myself staring at about 30 notifications and several messages from people who wanted to partake in the project. I was on to something. Within a week, I had several interviews and phone conversations lined up with Houston poets.
Black Hole coffee shop is another hidden gem where art seems to coalesce; a maze of turns and a drive over a bridge led me to a poet named Tammy, who discussed her love of poetry and performance over a vanilla latte. We took our seats on metal chairs on the concrete porch.
“I wanted to say for a while that it was a lost art,” she said as she folded her hands under her chin. Her gaze scanned the parking lot and returned to the camera and laptop in front of her. “Not a lot of people in our generation were really appreciating it anymore that I feel used to, but when I took a class my senior year I met so many people with different degrees…and they were all poets of their own regard.”
She went on to describe the mannerisms of the poets she has met, and told me she has been performing spoken word pieces since last year. She also made sure to point out the hidden nature of the artists who perform spoken word poetry.
“I feel like poets are really inclusive, so they’re not like ‘I’m a poet!’” She waved her hands a bit, raising her voice as if to imitate artists pursuing fame through their craft. “They do it for themselves.”
I asked her for any last bits of advice before leaving, and her reply rolled off her tongue as if it had been waiting to escape.
“Write a lot of shitty work. It’s a really good learning experience. We’re supposed to hate our work. That’s how we get better…I think more people should give it a chance….It’s storytelling, just in a different form.”
One day later, I found myself sitting in the exact same spot at the exact same coffee shop. This wasn’t just out of my desire to go there again, but rather the second poet’s request to meet me there. This man was a local master of spoken word poetry and went by the name Outspoken Bean. I won’t lie. He was intimidating, and not just because of his reputation for being one of the best spoken word poets in town. He was serious about his work and made it known.
“It’s a muscle. That’s what I wanted to say. You gotta be consistent and persistent. If you ain’t got the grit for it, just do your day job and be a fan.” He wiped his hands on his pants as he chewed rapidly on a cookie, readying the next sentence before his mouth was done chewing.
“I’ve lived in my car for this. I’ve damn near been on the street with a homeless man giving him my last when I had no money, for this. I created a job that didn’t exist, for this…You know what I’m saying? I’ve gone bankrupt for this.”
Outspoken Bean told me that he was a coach for young poets, and had worked specifically for events related to the Houston VIP poetry slam and Metaphor Houston competitions. He told me he had even coached a Miami youth team and had been flown out for two months to coach the students.
“It’s a hard life,” he said with a sarcastic grin. “I love it. I really do love coaching.”
I mentioned Jeremy, and his eyes lit up as he described their mentor-mentee relationship.
“He’s a phenomenal writer and becoming a better performer…Oh man, I see the things he’s doing and I’m like ‘OK change this up,’ and a lot of times its trial and error. I believe in pushing limits. I believe in taking away comfort zones.” Not only did Outspoken Bean take his own craft seriously, but he inspired other poets around him to do the same.
“Life is a poem, man…Whatever you do is writing. Make your story, bro.”
This was something I found ironic. Poets like Outspoken Bean, who excel at verbal expression, rely heavily on writing too. Jeremy and Asia Project had mentioned this as well. I made a mental note of this and left the coffee shop, preparing for class and the next wave of interviews.
Several poets called me over the phone in the days that followed, and a couple had even submitted recordings of themselves answering questions about their work and how they got involved. The influx of information was overwhelming; I honestly hadn’t planned for so many responses.
I even had the chance to speak with the creator of Write About Now, the event I had attended at AvantGarden. He wanted to express a misconception about spoken word that many people don’t realize.
“I want to distinguish. Slam poetry, to me, refers to the competition work. A lot of people say ‘I wrote this slam,’ but they read it in a non-competition setting. That’s not a slam; that’s just spoken word. Not that it diminishes it, but it’s kind of mis-categorized…That work could be slam, but in that moment it isn’t.”
Over the course of the next three weeks, I found myself reaching out to other poets and venues to widen my perspective about spoken word poetry, and came across another astounding poet by a friend’s recommendation. Rayla, a poet who works for a local educational nonprofit group, is well connected in the spoken word scene. She is a friend of Jeremy and Outspoken Bean, and spends much of her time preparing for what she hopes will become a full-time performance career. Between describing her involvement and explaining the essence of a poetry slam, she spoke about the injustices faced by the African American community and how that struggle is expressed in poetry.
“Slam has opened my mind to see that that’s okay…to march to the left instead of the right. It’s toughened my skin to let me know that there’s people who don’t agree…Like, f-you if you think I don’t have to write poems as a black woman; f-you if you’re tired of black people dying; we’re tired of being treated like that…regardless of whether you want to hear it or not I’m going to say it.”
Rayla’s advice spoke to the tenacity of people like Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets, people who spoke out against the establishment during the Civil Rights Movement and paved the way for the emergence of hip-hop and revitalization of spoken word poetry. Gil Scott-Heron’s song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” speaks of a rebellious nature within human beings that cannot be captured in technology alone. It cannot be confined to a screen or page. Much like poetry, the “rebellion” needed the right outlet.
“You don’t have to be a cog in the machine,” Rayla stated. For whatever reason, this particular quote stuck with me. I thought about it and heard it repeated over and over as I came to the realization of why spoken word appealed so much to me.
Anybody can perform it. There is no age restriction, no limit on speech. There is no true barrier to what can be said and to whom it can be said. Spoken word is freedom, and perhaps one of the freest forms of art that exists.
As I tipped my metaphoric hat to the Greeks and civil rights heroes that came before me, I began to write my own poem to be performed live.
…
Geo fits his blue sedan into an empty lot at AvantGarden on a Wednesday evening. I’m his copilot, but I don’t need GPS to help him navigate. I know the directions like the back of my hand now, and I tell him to expect a lot more people. We’re here super early, just to make certain I get on the sign-in list.
We wait for a while and order some drinks to pass the time, but the ticking seconds that pass make me more nervous about performing. As a few people begin to congregate near the stage, I stand up and make my way over just to be sure that it isn’t a line for the sign in list for readers. Sure enough, the list appears and I’m eagerly waiting to put my name down.
My heart sinks. 14 poets are allowed to perform tonight. Alternates from previous weeks who weren’t able to perform are given priority, meaning the list is already halfway full by the time the real line begins to sign in. By the time I get to the list, I’m the sixth performer on a new alternate list.
“Please don’t leave! If you’re signed in as an alternate, you may still get a chance to perform.”
Geo asks me if I’m alright. I shrug, telling him that I wish I had gotten to the list sooner. I take a sip of my vodka cranberry and wonder why, out of all weeks, the list had to be packed on the night I came to perform. I try my best to hide my disappointment, and listen on as the performances begin.
“Next up, Kyle! I mean, Kayla!”
I swear the MC is playing a sick joke on me. I’m nervous as hell, and my stomach flips as I realize the name she called is not my own. Another performer walks to the stage and performs. I’m too distracted at this point to pay as much attention as I should.
I shouldn’t have come. This was a dumb idea.
“Next up, we have Kyle Knight!”
I’m shocked. I panic, to be honest. Realizing some poets have gone missing or have been skipped, I walk up unprepared but ready to dive in.
You wanted to express yourself, right? You wanted to see how it feels? Well, here’s your chance. Do your thing, Kyle.
“Can you hear me?” I ask nervously, as the crowd responds with head nods and a quiet chorus of “yes.” I grab the mic, tilt it to my mouth, and take out my phone.
“This is my first time performing, so I’m a bit nervous.”
The crowd begins clapping out of nowhere, and suddenly my shaking hands give way to calmness. A grin appears on my face, and I look out at the faces below.
“New shit!” I yell.
“New shit!” The crowd echoes back. And so I begin.
Life Is a Poem, Man
Kyle Knight
He was a Maori man, tan and large. His sunbaked hands flew down to his knees, a sign that the ritual was about to begin. New Zealand was his home. This stage, however, was his battleground. He stood at the microphone but didn’t use it. He didn’t need to. His booming voice silenced the whispers of coffee drinkers and beer guzzlers. Taking a step back, he began to stomp. Stomp. Stomp. The haka had begun.
For the residents of Wellington, this wasn’t out of the ordinary. For a student studying abroad from Texas, it was quite terrifying. The haka, a native war cry and dance performance, is a common cultural activity among the Maori tribes of New Zealand. Loud shouting and wild arm motions are almost always an expectation, but this often occurs as the performer – or performers, in some cases – speak in a native tongue at special events or ceremonies. His shouting was in English, and took the form of a free verse poem.
This was my introduction into slam poetry. It was at a small bar on the other side of the world, but I found myself hooked. I wasn’t the only one inspired. A classmate had the guts to get up and perform a piece before we returned to the U.S., but I hadn’t mustered up the courage to join her. I watched as a member of an audience at several slams during my time abroad, wondering how anyone could feel comfortable enough to perform on stage in front of complete strangers. As the weeks went by, and upon my return to Houston, I found myself researching local venues to immerse myself in the art form.
This story begins as any real adventure should – a young protagonist finds himself asking a question. In this case, I asked myself why people perform spoken word poetry. What’s so special about it, and how do people become comfortable enough to do it? With nothing better to do on a hot summer evening, I found myself sitting in a black armchair in a dimly lit patio bar, looking up at a microphone stand.
Enter AvantGarden. This palace of beer and finger snaps is nestled smack-dab in the middle of Montrose and Midtown, right off Westheimer Road. You’d pass right by it if you didn’t know it was there. Green shrubs and vines of ivy adorn the metal fence surrounding the three-story historical house run by Mariana Lemesoff. When you manage to find a parking space, you’ll walk through a tiny little gate and find a pathway leading to a backyard complete with its own bar. Steel chairs and small tables surround the roof’s support beams, and lights sway like leaves in the breeze as they trail along the tops of the porch to the yellow siding of the house. It’s a humble home for a growing art form, and the warmth of the lamps and smiles on faces make you feel as if you are among long-lost friends.
But I suppose that was the missing piece. I was flying solo on this mission, a lone adventurer looking for inspiration and an outlet for expression. Expressing myself has always been difficult, especially as someone who has always been labeled as the “quiet kid.” When people call you something, you tend to reinforce your own stereotype by abiding by the expectations. Cracking my social shell is no easy task, but I thought spoken word could teach me a thing or two about speaking out. Letting my feelings loose. Not just keeping them inside.
I sat down and took in the scenery, not sure of what to expect. When a mother and her son found their place on stage, I realized I had stumbled across something special. They shared their joint struggle with suicide, and commanded the audience’s attention. As a mere viewer, the words struck at me like knives digging straight into my heart. The two took turns performing separate verses. The piece was not well rehearsed, but no one in the audience seemed to care. A deafening applause filled my ears as the pair smiled and left the stage only a couple minutes after their performance began.
The mother and son duo were no Odysseus or Ajax; they wielded no weapons or assistance from demigods. They didn’t sing of glory. They sang of sadness and destruction and the near loss of a family. Rooted in human history is a desire to share emotions, but here was a clear example of the evolution of verbal expression. It wasn’t self-gratification, but rather an outlet for pain. It wasn’t just a story of overcoming the odds, but rather a cry out against an unfair world that almost delivered a mother and child to Hades prematurely.
I started a poetry blog shortly after this event. I was inspired to start creating something, even if I didn’t have the confidence to express myself out loud. I wanted to be like that mother and son on stage; I wanted to shout out my problems and defy my inner demons. Tumblr became my new friend as I started a 30-day-long poetry challenge. I forced myself to write one poem per day, and I stuck to this schedule well.
Was it amateurish? Of course. Cowardly? Perhaps. But it was also therapeutic. Class and work kept me distracted for a while, but I eventually felt a gnawing desire to seek out another slam. The blog wasn’t going to satisfy my appetite.
I found myself back at that same venue. Despite my terrible parking skills, I managed to fit my beat-up Ford Explorer into the small lot on the side of AvantGarden’s dimly lit patio. After fumbling with my phone, paying the $5 cover charge and getting a nifty little sticker for following “Write About Now” on Instagram, my hand was stamped and I was motioned into that same backyard area filled with small little chairs, smaller little tables, and the smallest little crowd. I had arrived at 7:30 on the dot, but quickly remembered – in the midst of cigarette smoke, background chatter and clinging bottles of alcohol – being on time meant you were early here. Nobody was in a rush, or so it seemed.
I found a seat two rows from the patio’s stage, towards the entrance. Plopping down on the black chair in front of me, I pulled out my pink sticky pad and started to take it all in.
“Welcome to ‘Write About Now,’ where everyone is welcome unless you’re racist and orange, but nobody wants to judge here!” proclaimed the MC, a poet named Amir. I made a mental note of how many Trump jokes the host made and noticed that each one left the crowd clapping and roaring with laughter.
Write About Now isn’t a partisan group, but doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable topics. On the contrary, it sets up poetry slams to send poets to national competitions where they perform pieces about controversial subject matter and win cash prizes. Some slams are reserved for specific performers, but this was an open-mic event, which meant anyone could get up and share a new poem.
“This is our ‘new shit’ night, so if you have a new poem you want to read, come up and sign the list and we’ll get started shortly.”
The event was underway 30 minutes later, another indication that this slam was made up of people who honestly didn’t want to be held down by the clock. Ironically, the chosen poets for the night were allotted a brief two minutes to speak, but this was the nature of a slam competition. There would be several rounds of poems, the MC explained, and winners would be chosen from each round to advance.
It should be noted that Write About Now isn’t the first slam organization that came into existence, despite it being a popular refuge for poetry in Houston. As early as the 7th century B.C., poets were recounting episodes from the Iliad and Odyssey out loud and competing for prizes including bulls, wine and goats. African tribes have been sharing oral traditions from generation to generation for centuries, and influenced poets and members of the Harlem Renaissance, which still has influences on American art and culture to this day. While the prizes and settings have changed, the desire for verbal expression is still present.
“Before Trump bans free speech, let’s give it up for Jason!” The crowd laughed and applauded, while the MC motioned to a twentyish-year-old Asian guy with glasses in the front row. The man strolled onto the stage like he’d done this before. I was certain that he had, as his verses came out as smooth as silk and left the crowd in awe. He spoke about heartache and loss, telling the crowd that you “can’t nurse a burn if you hold onto the fire.” His arm outstretched, a cell phone in the palm, Jason continued to pour out his heart amidst the snaps of thumbs against middle fingers. The scent of cigarette smoke lingered from earlier, dancing in my nose but also giving weight to the words of this man’s emotional struggles.
I felt better about seeing him hold his phone; it broke down my previous assumption that all poems needed to be memorized. Some performers came up without the aid of a piece of paper or touch screen, but nobody seemed to mind this guy’s lack of eye contact with the audience. They applauded as he finished, and I watched as his grinning face left the mic stand behind.
When Jason left the stage, a girl appeared in his place. “New shit,” she yelled, and the crowd yelled back. It is a common practice, a ritual for these people; when a poet is performing a new piece, and says the magic words, it’s the obligation of the audience to echo back. Her poem was clever and sarcastic; it was a list of rules for women on how to survive in a world dominated by presidents who want to grab females in the crotch.
Race-based lyrics, fast-paced rhymes and body shaming poems followed, but one stood out among the others. A large woman with a red cap came onto the stage, taking the microphone and beginning a heartbreaking piece about her struggle with weight.
“I’m a weirdo,” she sang. A Lady Gaga verse accompanied her own original lines, creating a pitiful bastardization of song and free verse poetry that was complemented by occasional screams. The judges gave her good scores, but the haunting feeling she left behind as she exited the stage was intriguing. It made me wonder why, and how, someone in such a vulnerable state would want to speak so openly and so beautifully to a crowd of strangers about her Achilles’ heel.
I looked down at the stamp on my hand, rubbing away the ink in a nervous frenzy as I anxiously thought about my own problems.
Several poets followed, but few matched her raw emotion. One poet’s piece about not being gender-binary stood out as one of the best of the night, but the screams and voice of the woman still flooded my ears and refused to leave.
There was a desire to be heard, and not be ignored. There was a deep wanting among the poets to be understood, to have a chance to speak on a stage before the world and explain “imperfections” that nobody else cared to examine in greater detail. I wanted to be her.
I wanted her confidence.
I decided it wasn’t enough just to attend an event as an audience member. I would need to speak with the poets themselves, peak into their brains and pry into their consciousness to fully understand the meaning of the art form. I needed to understand the artists, and perhaps even work up the courage to become one. If one thing had become clear, it was how accepting most of these audiences were of people who weren’t professional poets. I thought about how easy it might have been to pull up my poem blog on my phone and sign up on the list, but I thought against it. Plus, the slots for the night had been filled. I left at intermission so that I could get back to an essay for class, but I couldn’t get that woman’s voice out of my head. I needed more exposure.
While researching more poetry events and venues, I stumbled across a spoken word event being held on my campus that was being advertised in the residence halls. With a free evening and no plans, I walked my way over to the student center and sat in the auditorium among a crowd of roughly 20 other students.
It was a Friday night, but campus was more dead than usual. To be honest, I felt bad for the performers. I wished more people had shown up. Despite my reservations, I stuck around and shifted my focus to the poems. Three speakers took stage, but a young man named Jeremy ran the show. Along with hearing his Kendrick Lamar poem, a crowd favorite, I would later learn that Jeremy was the protégé of a slam coach named Outspoken Bean.
The Asia Project, a two-man poetry machine, followed Jeremy’s performance. I was baffled by how much the pair had overcome, as stories of abortion, death and cancer filled my ears. It was shocking to me how open the performers were about their deepest struggles, and I knew I needed to speak with them before they left.
An audience member volunteered to share a poem before the event concluded. As the girl got up to perform her piece, I realized Jeremy had taken a seat next to me. I took the chance to reach over and talk to him.
“Hey! I’m writing a paper on poetry! Mind if I get a few quotes?”
He looked at me, a bit confused, but agreed to chat. We waited for the final poem to end, and began talking about Jeremy’s involvement with the art form.
“So what got you involved with spoken word and writing poetry?” I asked. He took a moment to gather his thoughts and replied with a calm demeanor.
“Watching other spoken word poets and being inspired,” he said, chewing on his lip and wringing his hands in-between sentences. “When I first started, the subject matter that really spoke to me the most was growing up and experiencing all these changes through puberty and stuff. And it was like ‘ugh, what do I do about this?’ I ended up writing. That’s the avenue that took.”
After jotting down some notes, I was fast walking to the exit and luckily found the lead performer from Asia Project still standing at a merchandise table. For a man who had witnessed so much tragedy, and had gone through so much pain – from the loss of family members to battling cancer – he smiled like nothing fazed him. His poems were about chaos and misery, yet the man in front of me showed total control and happiness. I reached out and shook his hand. I asked the poet what advice he had for people who wanted to learn more about spoken word poetry.
“My first thing that I always tell people is write true to you, first and foremost. You know, a lot of people get into slam poetry and they try to sound like another poet, or they think a certain subject will get them famous or popular. Write true to you. And as long as it’s coming from inside you, it’s going to be amazing.”
He had echoed an idea present in poems that I had heard before, a genuine quality of transparency and realness that only an individual could develop and understand for oneself. DMX, a poet from an HBO poetry series called Def Poetry Jam, once performed a piece about something similar.
“The industry,” he had said, “is about playing the game…I’m not an industry artist; I’m an artist in the industry.” He was a performer who knew what it took to get by, but also refused to sell himself out and become something fake in the process.
I think that was my key take away from these artists. They weren’t afraid to dive into uncomfortable topics, but knew how to discuss those subjects in a way that was honest and beautiful. They were just as human as me. Jeremy used poetry at a young age to express himself during a time of uncertainty and growth, while the Asia Project focused on keeping the art genuine. It made sense not to imitate others when the point of the art form is self-expression, not copying and pasting words. It isn’t about popularity, but rather about sharing oneself with the world. I took their advice to heart and made my way back to my dormitory. However, I still felt like I needed more information.
I found myself typing away at my blog when I came up with an idea that really set my investigation into motion. I decided to create a Facebook status about the project, asking for poets to provide me with personal interviews and opinions about spoken word poetry. I asked my friends and family members to share the status around, which ensured that people beyond my circle of friends would see it. I went to bed thinking that I would get a couple of solid leads, but was surprised to wake up and find myself staring at about 30 notifications and several messages from people who wanted to partake in the project. I was on to something. Within a week, I had several interviews and phone conversations lined up with Houston poets.
Black Hole coffee shop is another hidden gem where art seems to coalesce; a maze of turns and a drive over a bridge led me to a poet named Tammy, who discussed her love of poetry and performance over a vanilla latte. We took our seats on metal chairs on the concrete porch.
“I wanted to say for a while that it was a lost art,” she said as she folded her hands under her chin. Her gaze scanned the parking lot and returned to the camera and laptop in front of her. “Not a lot of people in our generation were really appreciating it anymore that I feel used to, but when I took a class my senior year I met so many people with different degrees…and they were all poets of their own regard.”
She went on to describe the mannerisms of the poets she has met, and told me she has been performing spoken word pieces since last year. She also made sure to point out the hidden nature of the artists who perform spoken word poetry.
“I feel like poets are really inclusive, so they’re not like ‘I’m a poet!’” She waved her hands a bit, raising her voice as if to imitate artists pursuing fame through their craft. “They do it for themselves.”
I asked her for any last bits of advice before leaving, and her reply rolled off her tongue as if it had been waiting to escape.
“Write a lot of shitty work. It’s a really good learning experience. We’re supposed to hate our work. That’s how we get better…I think more people should give it a chance….It’s storytelling, just in a different form.”
One day later, I found myself sitting in the exact same spot at the exact same coffee shop. This wasn’t just out of my desire to go there again, but rather the second poet’s request to meet me there. This man was a local master of spoken word poetry and went by the name Outspoken Bean. I won’t lie. He was intimidating, and not just because of his reputation for being one of the best spoken word poets in town. He was serious about his work and made it known.
“It’s a muscle. That’s what I wanted to say. You gotta be consistent and persistent. If you ain’t got the grit for it, just do your day job and be a fan.” He wiped his hands on his pants as he chewed rapidly on a cookie, readying the next sentence before his mouth was done chewing.
“I’ve lived in my car for this. I’ve damn near been on the street with a homeless man giving him my last when I had no money, for this. I created a job that didn’t exist, for this…You know what I’m saying? I’ve gone bankrupt for this.”
Outspoken Bean told me that he was a coach for young poets, and had worked specifically for events related to the Houston VIP poetry slam and Metaphor Houston competitions. He told me he had even coached a Miami youth team and had been flown out for two months to coach the students.
“It’s a hard life,” he said with a sarcastic grin. “I love it. I really do love coaching.”
I mentioned Jeremy, and his eyes lit up as he described their mentor-mentee relationship.
“He’s a phenomenal writer and becoming a better performer…Oh man, I see the things he’s doing and I’m like ‘OK change this up,’ and a lot of times its trial and error. I believe in pushing limits. I believe in taking away comfort zones.” Not only did Outspoken Bean take his own craft seriously, but he inspired other poets around him to do the same.
“Life is a poem, man…Whatever you do is writing. Make your story, bro.”
This was something I found ironic. Poets like Outspoken Bean, who excel at verbal expression, rely heavily on writing too. Jeremy and Asia Project had mentioned this as well. I made a mental note of this and left the coffee shop, preparing for class and the next wave of interviews.
Several poets called me over the phone in the days that followed, and a couple had even submitted recordings of themselves answering questions about their work and how they got involved. The influx of information was overwhelming; I honestly hadn’t planned for so many responses.
I even had the chance to speak with the creator of Write About Now, the event I had attended at AvantGarden. He wanted to express a misconception about spoken word that many people don’t realize.
“I want to distinguish. Slam poetry, to me, refers to the competition work. A lot of people say ‘I wrote this slam,’ but they read it in a non-competition setting. That’s not a slam; that’s just spoken word. Not that it diminishes it, but it’s kind of mis-categorized…That work could be slam, but in that moment it isn’t.”
Over the course of the next three weeks, I found myself reaching out to other poets and venues to widen my perspective about spoken word poetry, and came across another astounding poet by a friend’s recommendation. Rayla, a poet who works for a local educational nonprofit group, is well connected in the spoken word scene. She is a friend of Jeremy and Outspoken Bean, and spends much of her time preparing for what she hopes will become a full-time performance career. Between describing her involvement and explaining the essence of a poetry slam, she spoke about the injustices faced by the African American community and how that struggle is expressed in poetry.
“Slam has opened my mind to see that that’s okay…to march to the left instead of the right. It’s toughened my skin to let me know that there’s people who don’t agree…Like, f-you if you think I don’t have to write poems as a black woman; f-you if you’re tired of black people dying; we’re tired of being treated like that…regardless of whether you want to hear it or not I’m going to say it.”
Rayla’s advice spoke to the tenacity of people like Gil Scott-Heron and The Last Poets, people who spoke out against the establishment during the Civil Rights Movement and paved the way for the emergence of hip-hop and revitalization of spoken word poetry. Gil Scott-Heron’s song, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” speaks of a rebellious nature within human beings that cannot be captured in technology alone. It cannot be confined to a screen or page. Much like poetry, the “rebellion” needed the right outlet.
“You don’t have to be a cog in the machine,” Rayla stated. For whatever reason, this particular quote stuck with me. I thought about it and heard it repeated over and over as I came to the realization of why spoken word appealed so much to me.
Anybody can perform it. There is no age restriction, no limit on speech. There is no true barrier to what can be said and to whom it can be said. Spoken word is freedom, and perhaps one of the freest forms of art that exists.
As I tipped my metaphoric hat to the Greeks and civil rights heroes that came before me, I began to write my own poem to be performed live.
…
Geo fits his blue sedan into an empty lot at AvantGarden on a Wednesday evening. I’m his copilot, but I don’t need GPS to help him navigate. I know the directions like the back of my hand now, and I tell him to expect a lot more people. We’re here super early, just to make certain I get on the sign-in list.
We wait for a while and order some drinks to pass the time, but the ticking seconds that pass make me more nervous about performing. As a few people begin to congregate near the stage, I stand up and make my way over just to be sure that it isn’t a line for the sign in list for readers. Sure enough, the list appears and I’m eagerly waiting to put my name down.
My heart sinks. 14 poets are allowed to perform tonight. Alternates from previous weeks who weren’t able to perform are given priority, meaning the list is already halfway full by the time the real line begins to sign in. By the time I get to the list, I’m the sixth performer on a new alternate list.
“Please don’t leave! If you’re signed in as an alternate, you may still get a chance to perform.”
Geo asks me if I’m alright. I shrug, telling him that I wish I had gotten to the list sooner. I take a sip of my vodka cranberry and wonder why, out of all weeks, the list had to be packed on the night I came to perform. I try my best to hide my disappointment, and listen on as the performances begin.
“Next up, Kyle! I mean, Kayla!”
I swear the MC is playing a sick joke on me. I’m nervous as hell, and my stomach flips as I realize the name she called is not my own. Another performer walks to the stage and performs. I’m too distracted at this point to pay as much attention as I should.
I shouldn’t have come. This was a dumb idea.
“Next up, we have Kyle Knight!”
I’m shocked. I panic, to be honest. Realizing some poets have gone missing or have been skipped, I walk up unprepared but ready to dive in.
You wanted to express yourself, right? You wanted to see how it feels? Well, here’s your chance. Do your thing, Kyle.
“Can you hear me?” I ask nervously, as the crowd responds with head nods and a quiet chorus of “yes.” I grab the mic, tilt it to my mouth, and take out my phone.
“This is my first time performing, so I’m a bit nervous.”
The crowd begins clapping out of nowhere, and suddenly my shaking hands give way to calmness. A grin appears on my face, and I look out at the faces below.
“New shit!” I yell.
“New shit!” The crowd echoes back. And so I begin.