AT the very end of every Open Expression in Harlem, our host, my friend Cece reads the group poem aloud to the audience. The theme is different every month. It's usually a line like "If you really love me..." This line is written at the top of a piece of lined paper that gets passed around the entire room so that anyone who wants may contribute a line; those people who didn't sign up for open mic at the door, those who said they didn't have anything to read that night or those who have never read in front of an audience before.
And I have to say that nine times out of ten, the group poem, when Cece reads it back to us, is amazing. Collectively, each line represents the whole in a surprisingly cohesive sounding way. I've never heard a bad one. And in the end people are not only cheering for the feature poet but also for their own own unique collaboration together. It costs nothing. All you have to do is show up, listen and participate. It always inspires and awes me, the love, magic and generosity that flows from Open Expression and I'm honored to have been apart of it from the very beginning.
It's a place where I feel I can be comfortable being myself around a bunch of friends and strangers, people who get to see me exercise a muscle that I used to work out about 90% of the time. It's like returning to an art form that I used to identify with in a very serious way. I guess I still do, although I no longer harbor the same romantic aspirations I once had of being a poet, who supports herself with poetry alone.
Still I think it would be erroneous of me to say that poetry does not still support me in many ways. I've just begun to explore a broader version of it in the years since I left the safety of being supported as a full time student. I still love to watch spoken word poetry performed in the way in which it is most traditionally known, mixed with music and instruments, improvisational and or formatted. It is so very close to something ancient and universal as a form of communications between peoples about issues both political, and personal. It is a report straight from the village, straight from the mouths of generations, live and direct. It's a prayer and a song. It's one of the very few soul connections I experience that requires me to engage willingly with the energy of others and I am eternally thankful for it. The opportunity to put down my technological devices, look up from all the blinding screens and participate in life should happen way more often than this.
And I have to say that nine times out of ten, the group poem, when Cece reads it back to us, is amazing. Collectively, each line represents the whole in a surprisingly cohesive sounding way. I've never heard a bad one. And in the end people are not only cheering for the feature poet but also for their own own unique collaboration together. It costs nothing. All you have to do is show up, listen and participate. It always inspires and awes me, the love, magic and generosity that flows from Open Expression and I'm honored to have been apart of it from the very beginning.
It's a place where I feel I can be comfortable being myself around a bunch of friends and strangers, people who get to see me exercise a muscle that I used to work out about 90% of the time. It's like returning to an art form that I used to identify with in a very serious way. I guess I still do, although I no longer harbor the same romantic aspirations I once had of being a poet, who supports herself with poetry alone.
Still I think it would be erroneous of me to say that poetry does not still support me in many ways. I've just begun to explore a broader version of it in the years since I left the safety of being supported as a full time student. I still love to watch spoken word poetry performed in the way in which it is most traditionally known, mixed with music and instruments, improvisational and or formatted. It is so very close to something ancient and universal as a form of communications between peoples about issues both political, and personal. It is a report straight from the village, straight from the mouths of generations, live and direct. It's a prayer and a song. It's one of the very few soul connections I experience that requires me to engage willingly with the energy of others and I am eternally thankful for it. The opportunity to put down my technological devices, look up from all the blinding screens and participate in life should happen way more often than this.
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