Campus Progress Rocks the Mike
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I went with a good friend to Campus Progress' "Spoken Word: A Vehicle for Progressive Change" last night at their D.C. office.
It was glorious.
I'm a veteran of my old local spoken word scene back in PA, but I'd been woefully performance-poetry-free for more than a year since I moved to D.C. and the rigors of a soul-deadening law school education came a-knockin. This event certainly got my creative juices flowing again. The event featured the verbal stylings of Al Letson, Aya de Leon, Harlym 125, and Kelly Ken-Yie Tsai. They all had a very unique style to their poetry.
Al Letson had several very personal poems, including one about his daughter, entitled "Venus."
For Aya de Leon, she spoke of feminism and foreign policy wrapped into one when she performed a heartwrenching poem about the U.S. colonial island of Vieques, anthropomorphized into a young girl with an abusive step-father. She also performed a biting and hilarious poem extolling the sexiness of "the sensitive man."
Harlym 125, a Brandeis University Dean during the day (we were all surprised), had the audience on the edge of their seats (and standing) with his explosive poems on both his personal life in Harlem and larger issues of race and class in American society.
Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai (a.k.a. Yellowgurl) was in top form last night, her most memorable poem being one about Hurricane Katrina, originally commissioned for a relief fundraiser. She also reflected on her childhood Chinese language lesson books, and the perfect, idealized chinese children illustrated therein, in her poem "Little Red Books."
Several friends and I were hoping there would be an open mic afterward, but no such luck, which is a shame, because I know there were many local performance poets in the audience; if anything gets you in the mood to go up and perform, it's seeing others do the same. I hope for future events Campus Progress will be more participatory in its planning, but for the main event, CP really came through (CP staff took photos and video, and I hope both will be on the site soon). These performers are at the top of their games, and I was beyond impressed.
Now here comes your job: Help these poets out! Invite one (or all of them!) to your campus, and get as much stipend from student government as you can. It's hard to make ends meet as an artist of any stripe in our economy, and we each have a responsibility to support the arts whenever we can. Here's their contact info:
Al Letson's website
Aya de Leon's website
Harlym 125's bio & contact info
Kelly Ken-Yie Tsai's website
It was glorious.
I'm a veteran of my old local spoken word scene back in PA, but I'd been woefully performance-poetry-free for more than a year since I moved to D.C. and the rigors of a soul-deadening law school education came a-knockin. This event certainly got my creative juices flowing again. The event featured the verbal stylings of Al Letson, Aya de Leon, Harlym 125, and Kelly Ken-Yie Tsai. They all had a very unique style to their poetry.
Al Letson had several very personal poems, including one about his daughter, entitled "Venus."
For Aya de Leon, she spoke of feminism and foreign policy wrapped into one when she performed a heartwrenching poem about the U.S. colonial island of Vieques, anthropomorphized into a young girl with an abusive step-father. She also performed a biting and hilarious poem extolling the sexiness of "the sensitive man."
Harlym 125, a Brandeis University Dean during the day (we were all surprised), had the audience on the edge of their seats (and standing) with his explosive poems on both his personal life in Harlem and larger issues of race and class in American society.
Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai (a.k.a. Yellowgurl) was in top form last night, her most memorable poem being one about Hurricane Katrina, originally commissioned for a relief fundraiser. She also reflected on her childhood Chinese language lesson books, and the perfect, idealized chinese children illustrated therein, in her poem "Little Red Books."
Several friends and I were hoping there would be an open mic afterward, but no such luck, which is a shame, because I know there were many local performance poets in the audience; if anything gets you in the mood to go up and perform, it's seeing others do the same. I hope for future events Campus Progress will be more participatory in its planning, but for the main event, CP really came through (CP staff took photos and video, and I hope both will be on the site soon). These performers are at the top of their games, and I was beyond impressed.
Now here comes your job: Help these poets out! Invite one (or all of them!) to your campus, and get as much stipend from student government as you can. It's hard to make ends meet as an artist of any stripe in our economy, and we each have a responsibility to support the arts whenever we can. Here's their contact info:
Al Letson's website
Aya de Leon's website
Harlym 125's bio & contact info
Kelly Ken-Yie Tsai's website
!
What, do we really think anyone in the crowd was going to vote Republican and changed their mind based on spoken-word poetry?
Would we want anyone who could have their mind changed by spoken word poetry on our side?
1) You're helping finance people who are outspoken in progressive causes. That's a good thing. Performance poetry won't change people's minds politically and immediately, but they can raise fundamental issues in a visceral way, in a way more immediate and compelling than any position paper. Three of the performers are also playwrights; their plays certainly have an impact on those who watch it.
2) It also is an event that creates progressive bonds of community. There was a lot of interaction between people who didn't previously know each other, both before and after the performances. Networking between liberals is a Very Good Thing. It's important to have fun as well as do serious work. If it's all one and none of the other, the organization will fail.
No it's not! The outspoken people are generally the least useful. We need to stop mistaking fanaticism for "commitment" within progressive circles.
The theater is a circle-jerk for people who already think that way. No swing voter's mind is going to be changed by a play.
Art is not a means of change.
No, it really isn't. It's the insularity of liberal circles from the outside larger culture that hurts us in the long run.
Makes sense if you're a business, and you're using your profits how you see fit. When you're running on donations, people expect real results from their money.
But the event was very good, and for those of you worried about money, the artists didn't get paid, they volunteered because they care about their art, youth and progressive politics. It didn't cost us that much, and besides encouraging networking, it allowed us here at CP.org to reach out to a new audience and (to be frank) expand our contact database of young progressives. You can't organize a progressive movement without getting people involved.
But intellectually, we should all be supporting progressive art and culture. This kind of public expression is important to a healthy society and enshrines the kinds of values we should support as progressives.
TNR, CampusProgress... you're all over the place these days, Tim. Props on the Busby campaign, by the way - it came close and it was a strong run.