>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Mona Seghatoleslami borrowing the host chair today from my colleague Evan Dawson and our connection was made in Chicago in 1984, where some claim that Slam poetry was first created at a venue known as the Get Me High Lounge by Mark Smith, who was a construction worker as well as a poet, and his aim was making poetry more accessible, exciting, even competitive.

Many of the elements, though, can be found earlier in other performance traditions beat hip hop and others.

So today, as part of National Poetry Month, we're taking time to use our words to talk about the power of words in the art of slam poetry, what it's meant for generations of artists in Rochester, and we have some of the best with us here today.

Lou Highsmith, who, no matter which form she's chosen to exhibit her talents, each has been reflective of her passion for spirituality, sensuality and social consciousness.

She was the executive director and slam master for Rock Bottom Slam team, which was Rochester's first adult slam poetry team and very active from 2013 to 2017.

And when they disbanded in August of 2017, other poets went on to pursue other artistic interests playwriting, directing, theater, acting, hip hop and more.

But last year, a small group known as the Rock bottom family decided to start hosting poetry slams because there's still an interest from upcoming poets from the audience.

So after three months of very successful poetry slams, the North Star Poets formed organically.

So welcome, Lou.

>> Thank you Mona, thank you, thank you.

>> And thanks for bringing some of your North Star Poets colleagues with you here today.

We have Agape Armageddon Town's Commissioner of Deeds and North Star Poets.

>> Welcome to you.

Thank you for inviting me.

>> We also have here with us Matthew Edward Van Scott, a North Star poet who performs as a. What is that again, I don't know, right?

>> Mossberg.

>> Matt Mossberg.

Matt, welcome.

And also just joining us, one of the North Star Poets, someone who I've heard talking about his music also.

Chi the Realist.

>> Yes, yes, yes.

>> I guess performing it too.

>> Yes.

>> Well, I'm so glad to have all of you here to talk about this tradition, what it means for you, what it's meant as part of the community and how people can perhaps even get involved.

So I guess, Luke, can you start with what does slam poetry mean to you and where did you first encounter it?

>> Okay.

With slam poetry, I'm a little bit older than my, my friends here.

Um, but I was introduced to it when I was in college at Cheyney University, uh, back in 1990.

Something.

Um, and it was something that I had not experienced or seen before.

Um, and when I came back to Rochester, my dear friend Rina Golden was getting things together for teens who wanted to participate in Slam.

So she did slam.

Hi.

And that was through writers and books.

And because we knew each other as poets, she would invite me to be a judge quite often.

Um, with Slam the the judges are random, but I would get a message.

Are you coming?

If you're coming, you know, you may want to volunteer to be a judge.

So we followed the rules, but with the understanding that, you know, I know a little bit about poetry.

So I think I would make a good judge.

So interestingly enough, agape was one of the teenagers.

I think he was about 15.

I was a grown woman.

And so, yes, I really loved it and embraced it.

I loved the competitive part of it.

With Slam, you have to have the content and the ability to write well, but you also have the aspect of performance, being able to express yourself and not just a deadpan read your poem, you know, recitation type of way.

Uh, and then there's the judges where you have people pulled from the audience who can be a judge.

Um, so I love that aspect of it as well.

It's not some stuffy professor or academic person who's judging your work.

It's, it could be a professor, but it could be Joe Schmo off the street and you bringing him to a place of feeling and understanding what you're saying.

Um, I hadn't seen that in any other form at all, so.

Yeah, so slam poetry for me.

Um, it just draws so many different aspects.

So that's why I fell in love with it.

>> And that's agape.

Since you got mentioned here.

So you came across this as a teenager.

What drew you to it especially?

And make sure you right up to the mic there, tell us a bit about encountering this and what it meant to combine words and performance in this way.

>> So my, my father was a hip hop artist here in Rochester, New York.

Uh, he used to rap on w it and other things like that.

He went by MC storm and he was heavy to putting me into music.

So I, I didn't like mainstream stuff.

I liked gospel rap.

When I came to Rochester, I was born here, but I was raised in the South.

So when I came to Rochester, gospel rap didn't really, uh, wasn't a big market.

So, uh, happened enough.

I went to in control and individuals at control was like, yo, uh, you know, take your gospel raps.

Can you write a poem?

And I was like, all right.

And they had a fashion show.

And, uh, I wrote a poem called Nine Months Think Twice, which was geared towards teen pregnancy prevention and educating yourself or making the right choices and addressing that dynamic.

Uh, an adult cry when the adult cry, I said, oh, I wonder if there's more to this.

So I started snooping around and doing anything that got to do with poetry for In Control, in comes Rena, Golden and Kumba Consultants, and she's like, hey, we got this program where we want to have poets from schools compete.

And I had never really competed.

So, you know, uh, one of the, the, the, the number, the number two fear in this country is public speaking.

And this was a fear of mine as well.

So I took poetry and spoken word, mixed it with gospel and decided I would go be an inspirational type of poet.

I would compete, but I didn't really have much to compete about.

I didn't really know what to talk about, and all I had to draw from was people I knew my family, my friends, my surroundings.

So what is poetry?

Poetry is the articulation of life in motion or emotion, or how, however your expression it right expressing it.

Excuse me.

Pardon yourself.

So I took my struggle and my real life nuance of what I had gone through and expressed it in a, a way that was meant to be for God.

It meant to be for my personal, you know, expression, my own cathartic, uh, release to the heavens.

But in a rhythmic way where my friends could, like, flow with it.

So when I saw that, you know, people would listen like you, like they say the attention span is three minutes, but if I could hold you for three and a half to five, I must be doing something good.

So since it wasn't nothing crazy, I'm like, this is what I do.

>> And that's all.

Open it to our other poets here.

That's what we talk about.

What is the difference between slam poetry and reading a poem at an open mic?

What is the difference between slam poetry and performing a musical piece?

Or is it sort of akin to that?

And so I don't know if I'm shy, since you also do music and hip hop, do you consider what you do as slam versus hip hop as different things, or are they overlap?

>> Um, I. So when you get into the nuances of things, there's, of course the difference.

Um, but on a molecular level, I've always looked at it as there isn't too much of a separation.

And I say that because I have come from strictly being a hip hop MC where you found me and I was literally doing one of my long form raps acapella, which means with no beat.

And she heard beyond the rhythmic cadence of it, the, the, the subject matter and my delivery, my, my timing on it could easily be formatted to slam.

I didn't know what slam was.

Um, my great friend Shaq Payne was a slam poet and competed in Slam high underneath Marina Golden.

So he had already done that circuit and I've watched him do workshops with kids where I've attempted to do it.

And at first I thought Slam poetry was that it was something completely different.

Instead of realizing how easy it is to transform what I do and all it is is breaking the walls of the cadence that music has.

Music is a house.

It's a it's a it's a building, right.

And your words bounce from wall to wall, from ceiling to floor.

Whereas poetry, there's no wall.

You can linger a word as long as you want to.

You can shorten it as long as you want to.

And it's more of a conversation as a person whose music has transformed from punchline heavy and only melodic to more of a conversation of welcoming people into my stories and experiences, breaking that wall has allowed me to only reinforce it even stronger with my music, to where I can even now tell a make a rap and know exactly how to evoke the emotion in a way that I do in performance poetry and make people feel it even more in a song.

Um, so what, what it did for me was almost break me down and build me back up with new principles of knowing that I have autonomy over how I deliver, regardless if it's with a beat or if it's not, um, and also the subject matter, prioritizing that, understanding the power and vulnerability.

Whereas when I first started rapping, it was about impressing people and showing them that I'm the nicest out.

And though in Slam, I still can't do that, which I love to, to get up there and tell my very own story and still be a 30 out of 30, you know what I mean?

But more importantly, knowing that I'm excelling and showing that I'm nice, but in a very human and relatable way that hopefully somebody who walks out of here, regardless if they gave me a 10 or 1, whatever I did tonight, helped them.

And it's the, it's the kind of innocence.

And knowing that I could still be elite, but elite with a gift from God and with a purpose that God gave me.

So.

>> And that's I want to bring you in on this.

But first, I forgot to mention earlier, if you have a question for our guests, you can call 844295 Khork that's ( 844)295-8255.

That's the toll free number or locally the number is ( 585)263-9994.

You can also email the address is connections@wxxi.org wxxi.org or comment on the connection's live stream.

We're on the WXXI News YouTube channel, and while you're there, subscribe so you can keep in touch with more of these conversations.

So, Matthew, did you come to it from poetry and adding a beat, or you were a musician who found your word back to the word?

>> My way into Slam was, uh, a bit more complicated than these guys.

I came in a little late.

I also, uh, sorry, get back into this microphone.

That's something I something I encounter on stage as well.

So no, um, I started out writing poetry.

I've written poetry my whole life.

Uh, I got into rapping because it seemed like a way to reach people around me.

Uh, poetry wasn't something that seemed to hit.

I always knew when I wrote it was kind of like, uh, like def poetry.

I didn't know anything about Slam.

When I rapped, I would find myself with these long verses that I would have to almost tailor to the beat.

Like I said, confine them to that House of music.

Um, and then after, uh, music, I kind of hung it up for a little while, probably in like 2010 and just let life live.

Uh, something you kind of have to, you have to get back there, you know?

I mean, if it's in you, it just kind of creeps back.

So ironically, in 2017, I reached out to Miss Liu here and, uh, it was right about the time rock bottom had disbanded.

I had done a little bit of research and found out about them prior to my reaching out.

Uh, so my first introduction to Slam was actually in Boston or in Cambridge.

I went to the Lizard Lounge.

Um, it's, uh, about 34 year old poetry slam there.

I made some Connections.

Uh, Miss Liu put me onto some things here.

Um, first time I performed in Rochester was actually, uh, at an open mic for a show by Shai and Shaq Payne.

It's always a point of pride.

I'll throw out there.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I was fortunate enough to have, uh, Miss Liu and Shaq reach out to me last year when they formed North Star, and I was given the opportunity to join the team.

Here we are.

Yes.

>> So yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about this competition aspect?

Because sometimes in arts, we say unlike the sports, we're not competing, right?

>> Oh no.

>> It's but then also how that seems to not fuel a negative sort of competition.

There's so much that everyone's speaking about being vulnerable, being human, working together, being inspired and caring for people.

So I don't know who wants to speak about this mix of competition and community you have going on.

>> It's a challenge to see how many different ways you could be your best self.

It's like, well, I, when I, when I got with Slam hi, I, I'm the, I'm the writers and books champion.

I'm the first writers of books champion, but other champions came after me and when I won, I caught a bug.

It was like a bug, like it was nowhere for me to express myself and if I went to music, I would have to pay producers.

I would need to work with engineers.

Things would go wrong with the mic.

I was also a promoter, so I went to the shows in the nightclubs and understood there was a business aspect to this.

So on the business side, as a as a compete, a competitor and an entrepreneur, my business is my poetry.

Like a rapper's album, like a rapper's thing.

So I was never turning a stage down.

I'm most def came here in oh seven, same year Slam High was here.

You came to U of R. He let people ask him questions.

I was second to last person to ask him a question.

He turned me down.

But he said this ain't no overnight thing.

You got to stick your nose to the grindstone.

And after that I did six six shows a week.

I would do three shows a day, 4 or 5 shows a day, five times a week.

I would never say no.

Lucifer I want to do fluidic rhythms.

I was like, I'll be there.

She said, I want to do.

A s t lounge.

I'll be there.

Uh, Clarissa's, I'll be there.

If a venue I, I just wouldn't turn it down.

I practiced and I honed in and the competition's was like, yo, which agape going to show up today?

And it was like, it was like a, it's almost like to me, it's like a, a game where I get to pick which outfit I'm wearing, which weapon.

This is about to be great.

I'm about to go have a good time.

>> Yeah, yeah, it's definitely, um, my mama Lou will tell you I have this, uh, is this ritual, uh, when I, when my name gets called up to the stage.

I often don't know what poem I'm going to throw until after I take my final exhale, because I know that you know, the rules are slim.

Once you once you interact with the audience, once you say your first word, time starts, right?

And I know, um, time is very, very important in slam down to the millisecond.

Um, and so I'm, I like, I like strategizing and, and, and taking the, the, what I'm hearing from all the other poets and watching how it impacts other people.

I'm a, I like to move people.

I like to, um, make people feel things.

Um, I like to make people feel me and my story.

So I always am looking at what is going to move the audience the most, what is going to heavily impact them, right?

AM I going to do a poem or something that is a story of, um, you know, my upbringing, um, being a bigger, being a bigger guy.

AM I going to do an identity piece?

Um, am I going to talk about depression?

Do I feel like there might be somebody in this audience tonight that will be heavily impacted by something, um, related to mental health?

Or am I going to talk about love?

Is there somebody, is there a couple that just happens to be a judge?

Let me talk about love because I feel like it's really going to get them or the, the fun part of strategizing is throwing the monkey wrench in the competition, right where there might be a lot of heavy pieces that are scoring, maybe high or maybe in the middle throughout this night and let me go and do a comedic piece to break the tension and knowing what happens to the mind of somebody when they hear something fresh, they're automatically going to be like, oh, I haven't seen that.

It's going to score higher.

So it's the the playbook of poetry that I enjoy too, but also, you know, it's that it's the gamble, um, which is sometimes it's upsetting, but it's the game, you know, you never know if a poem that, you know, is a 30 out of 30, it's gotten a 30 out of 30.

And every time you've performed it, but tonight it might get a 22.

It might get you might get a five tonight.

You might get a ten.

You might get a six.

And you never really know.

And it's the gamble of it.

And I had to learn to not take it personally.

Like it's not my poem.

That was that sucked.

It was it didn't resonate with this judge.

Um, and we purposely, when we're hosting, tell the judges a very strict guideline that a ten means that this poem was ordained and blessed.

The, the people who heard this poem, the roof opened up off the top of the building.

God brought his hand down and shook hands with the poet.

And everybody saw fireflies and got $1 million.

That's a ten and a zero is the opposite of that.

It's the worst possible ear bleeding thing that you could have possibly heard.

You wish you could create a reset button to make sure the poet was never alive.

That is a zero.

And when you get those parameters and a poet does a poem, you're like, well, did God come here?

God didn't come here.

All right, that's a four, you know.

>> So let's say I see Matthew nodding there, but I will say I think it's Anderson Allen.

I've heard read at the little and I was sobbing.

I went there just, you know, to introduce some poets.

And I came out like, you know, shaking, walking into the night.

I've also heard Rina's students reading at Martin Luther King Junior Park or speaking, I guess I can't say reading.

And that's where I was really struck by the sense of like generations and youth, but adults also, we need an outlet as well.

So what is this play in our life in different parts?

So as an amateur musician, I think about that a lot of being in community orchestras, but this is a whole 'nother one.

So Matthew, you were nodding along a bit with.

>> Speaking to the competition and whatnot.

I was nodding as far as, uh, the judgments concerned.

She said, I mean, someone can score you a 30 or a 22 on any given night.

You really can't let that affect you.

And coming in, I always tried to say, I don't care about winning.

I don't care about the competition.

I want to do as many poems as I can.

Meaning is, if I advance in the competition, I do more poems.

Um, I try to keep that like communal, that communal attitude as I, you know, add that to my approach.

Um, you'll, you'll encounter people that are really competition heavy.

I don't really see that in our city.

Um, and I think that can take away from it.

So, so it's very important to like focus on the art, the poetry.

Again, what she was saying, look to how you can affect somebody in the audience.

The more people you can affect, the better, but less about the scores than it is about the people that come up to you after and say, this really touched me.

Um, I'll tell you what, you'll hold that you'll hold on to that a lot longer than any victory.

>> For sure.

>> Uh, that's the beautiful thing about Slam and the competition.

You're almost in competition with, with yourself to, to outdo yourself.

>> So are those things that all of you have learned over time.

I mean, when you first started, perhaps as a kid, was it more about the sort of the external or I guess you've sort of alluded to that maybe, Lou, you can talk about building the community, bringing kids up, and then finding how adults find their way into this, how it's grown over time for you, who you've worked with, because I think a lot of people look to you as Mama Lou, who, who's been there for them, right.

>> Um, I feel that that name was given to me.

Uh, it isn't something that, um, I consciously did.

It's just my natural way of being nurturing, encouraging, uh, creating a safe space.

Um, making sure I have iron sharpening iron if I see the potential in somebody and I see someone who they remind me of that individual when they first started, I may put them in the same space, um, just to see what, what naturally happens and gets cultivated.

So with rock bottom, I feel like over a four year period, we probably had 11 poets come through, like some leave and then get more.

Um, but the family aspect was really strong as far as being involved in each other's lives, knowing, you know, the children bringing, oh, I don't have a babysitter.

Bring your child to rehearsal.

So just really making sure we cultivate that.

Um, and North Star Poets, it's a totally different vibe and energy.

Not worse, not better.

It's just different because it sprang out of just, hey, let's just have some, some poetry slam competitions and Rochester again, because after Rock bottom disbanded, you know, there were a few here and there, but there was no consistent monthly slam poet poetry events happening.

Um, so I'm just that type of person.

That's how Rock bottom started.

We had no slam team in Rochester.

Syracuse had one, Buffalo had one.

I was like, why doesn't Rochester have an adult slam team?

Reno was done.

She was doing plays and theater.

Um, so I said, you know, I think I know enough to kind of get this going.

So anytime that I've done something, it's because I felt the community wanted it and needed it.

Um, so when you approach it from that standpoint, I think organically, things like rock bottom happen and North Star Poets happens.

Um, but with the poets, I just try to make sure that they know how talented they are.

If I see potential, I'm going to do my best to try to bring it out.

And then whatever happens after that, they just go and saw and do what they do.

>> I'm excited also that we'll be hearing some slam poetry during the hour, perhaps in a few minutes after the break.

But one question that someone asked me that is of course, an obvious one.

I should ask where can people go to hear this?

Or if they're curious about trying it?

So are there places in Rochester that if you're like, I want to hear some slam poetry, where would you these days go?

>> We have a monthly event at the Vault Cafe on Culver Road.

Uh, it generally started out as rock bottom Family Slam before North Star really became a thing.

So it's pretty much rock bottom slam.

Family presents North Star Poets.

But we do that generally every, uh, third Friday, um, we start usually around 8:00.

Uh, doors open at 730, but people show up at 7:00 ready and hungry for it.

Um, but for that, for the most part, it's consistently every third Friday.

But, um, this month we're doing something a little different because if you don't know, it's National Poetry Month.

So, um, this coming Sunday, we will be at the Vault Cafe and we will be doing, um, a little bit of slam, but we're going to open up the mic a bit to get more, more poets out.

So I don't know about other places.

>>, but like a spoken social.

>> Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

>> Okay.

Yes, I like this.

Oh.

>> Do any of the rest of you have places where, you know, people should sort of go to seek this out, I guess follow also nowadays, we can probably see you on YouTube and Instagram and everything.

>> Yeah, yeah.

Um, I mean, I try to spread the word.

Um, I work in the schools, so I try to get all of the, the district staff and students who are trying to, you know, experience poetry.

But a lot of people don't know that it's here or it exists or I'll show them a video or they'll see me perform and I'll be like, yeah, you know, that's homegrown right here.

And right here is where we do it.

Oh, that actually happens here.

Like, yes, please come bring everybody.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

>> So yeah, we're about to take our only break for the hour, but when we come back, I am going to put our guests some slam poets on the spot and ask them to share some words with us, and we'll be back in just a minute.

>> I'm Evan Dawson Tuesday on the next Connections.

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Talk to you Tuesday.

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More at RH support.. >> And we're back here on Connections.

Speaking with Slam poets from Rochester, including Lou Highsmith agape, Armageddon, Towns, Chi the Realist and Matthew Edward Van Scott, also known as Mossberg mat.

And they are going to be showing or sharing some poetry with us, but also want to invite you to join the conversation.

You have a question for our guests.

You can call 844295 Khork that's ( 844)295-8255.

You can email Connections at wxxi.org, or if you're watching on YouTube, comment on the live stream that's on the WXXI News YouTube channel.

And we do have a comment from YouTube that says have agape spit the truth.

So I think, uh, I don't know if I'm supposed to, I see some head shaking there, but we also have a call from Frederick from Rochester, who wants to speak about his poetry book.

Hello, Frederick.

>> All right.

Um, I my name is Frederick.

I work at the University at Buffalo.

I'm a librarian, full professor.

I'm working on a manuscript right now called The Poetics of Climate Change.

When I was listening to, um, to this piece, it was.

I was really intrigued.

I have not included anything, um, with regard to hip hop or rap.

And I sort of like get a real quick search and I'm missing a big chunk of poetry and I have to figure out how to incorporate it because I'm doing right now, they're more like books, but I just wanted one thing just to say thank you for, you know, telling me about this whole, this new, this genre that I've heard about.

Um, but, um, we're seeing, I hope that we're seeing that we're reaching people and telling them the message of the realities of what climate change is, what it does.

Um, I've got books that talk about despair and destruction.

They talk about I've got poetry that's written on hope and everything in between.

And it's just amazing how people can learn and learn the emotion and the, I guess you say the emotionality of, of the dangers of climate change through poetry and now through hip hop and rap.

So I just wanted to say thank you.

I wanted to hear if you know of anybody that's doing any of this kind of work.

>> Um, absolutely.

In, uh, in Buffalo, um, there's a monthly slam for the poetry slam team at the, uh, empty coffee shop.

>> Empty cup.

Yeah.

>> And one of the North Star Poets is actually in Buffalo.

Absolutely.

Rose.

>> Rose Buffalo.

>> In Buffalo.

So if you, if you look up a rose in Buffalo, um, or the North Star Poets reach out to the North Star Poets.

We have poets and orators ready to assist you with your endeavor or to help guide you in that in that direction.

That's what the North Star is for.

>> Yes, yes.

>> I do believe Rose has been experimenting with some music and whatnot.

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

>> She has expanded to music and, uh, also expanded to, uh, working on her own book.

So, uh, Rose in Buffalo.

Caller, uh, reach out to her and look around and Wednesday, Wednesday nights, Thursday nights, go to drive down Broadway.

You will see an open mic.

>> Yeah, you.

>> Will see.

>> Open mic.

>> Well, and I love it.

Thanks so much for calling, Frederick.

I love that we're making this connection here on Connections, because when people talk to me about our music scene or our art scene, there's so many different scenes.

And the more that we sort of bridge different aspects of arts and our community and culture is really makes me happy to hear.

So glad to have that.

You're mentioning right before the break, a few other things.

We are part of a great region for arts that it's easy to travel to Buffalo, to Syracuse, to other places.

So there are some other groups or venues people should know about.

>> Absolutely.

Um, well, uh, North Star just, uh, took place in October in the Empire State Poetry Slam in Troy, New York.

Let's go.

It's part of the greater, uh.

Let's go.

Uh, unspoken word festival, I believe.

Yes.

And, uh, we left with a first place prize.

>> Congratulations.

>> Yes, yes.

It's all.

>> Around snaps and parades.

>> We didn't really.

>> Not really shouting out any other teams.

I apologize for the team.

I believe from Albany there, I think we had.

>>, uh.

>> All.

>> The poets were great.

>> Amherst.

>> Yes.

>> Everybody points is not the points.

It's the poetry.

Y'all did.

>> Great.

>> Did you did great all the way from Rochester community.

>> But I don't want to talk over anybody.

However, we we, uh, created a trifecta, uh, pretty much with pure ink in Buffalo.

Um, Rochester at the time it was rock bottom, but it's North Star right now.

Yes, yes.

And Syracuse is picking back up as well.

They took a little hiatus, but the underground poetry spot in Syracuse.

So we are looking forward to, um, I guess revitalizing that trifecta.

So if you're in Syracuse underground poetry spot, check them out.

Uh, and also pure ink in Buffalo.

And if you're in Rochester, anytime North Star Poets is involved in anything, we're doing our monthly slams, but we've also been invited, obviously, to the little theater, uh, as well as, uh, quite a few other places.

So generally if it's like Juneteenth or National Poetry Month or Black History Month, at some point in time, North Star Poets is probably going to be involved in something.

>> And of course, perhaps one of you can, uh, in case people don't know, in Rochester, where the name North Star comes from, share the origin of that.

>> Okay.

>> Okay.

>> Hey, as we know, as we for those who don't know, uh, uh, KP aka Rochester, New York is the home of, uh, many, many great leaders and, and, and patriarchs and matriarchs.

One such founder as the name of Frederick Douglass happens to be the home of his very own newspaper, printed at 42 favorite street.

Happens to be my home church A.M.E.

Zion.

549 Clarence Street.

You come on Sundays, we open.

>> Um.

>> Just letting you know.

But that newspaper is Frederick Douglass newspaper.

This is the this is the the paper that led not only the abolition and not only the, the mark of literature and freedom, but it it gave a clear and unequivocal path for the American scholar, the American academic, the American literary novice, the American poet to expand and express himself right here in Rochester, New York.

So we say, hey, since since there was a drought, there was an emptiness, there was a nothingness, there was a darkness there in the distance, shining in the light right behind Cirrus B, b a star, c a Polaris type star.

And that's where we got North Star.

Every last one of us shines from inside with a guiding light.

>> That's it.

Let's go.

>> Perhaps that will bring us to, uh, the part where we demonstrate some slam poetry and, uh, are each of our artists here willing to share?

Just a few minutes each?

Who should I put on the spot first?

>> We all.

I'm always ready.

Okay, we got time.

I started off, um.

I'm gonna do something light to get us, you know, in the zone, right.

All right.

This is the slam piece that, uh, I competed in with, uh, uh, the southern slam, southern fried slam poetry.

Shout out to North Star Poets going to the southern flight, southern fried slam, poetry slam this year in Orlando, Florida.

>> Yes, sir.

>> Okay, okay, so this was when it was in, uh, Tennessee.

When you see a Y in, tell em boom.

And if you forget that, tell em.

McGee, don't say to keep your heads high.

Cause they might kill you.

For what you know they might kill me for sure.

For this flow.

And I must never lie.

So ancestors say the truth must be spoken.

So now here we go.

Now.

I mean, really, really.

You gotta figure.

Deal me eight years I've been a slave and still evolved into a triple king.

I'm from behind that wall with all those really real G's.

Just for my 23 and ones that won't get to hit me.

I pull up on every little homie.

I let them know that they are never lonely.

I tell em build with the real and never with the phony.

On God I am chosen.

But I'm not the only shots from my cops leave mothers in bereavement.

Strange fruit trees start blood leaking.

I'm not safe from these clans.

Policemen.

But marching in circles won't make it stop.

Shots on my block leave families torn and weeping.

Blood flows daily.

And on the weekends.

I'm not safe from the dope or the wee man.

But making it rain won't bite my block.

They cattle herders in a line.

And shave our heads clean.

Make us bend and spread them like some strippers in a club scene.

And if you're speaking out, the response is plenty plain.

They speak fluent baton, but the translator is pain.

My soul is so sovereign.

Strausman has so much clout.

House joint resolution is what that line's about.

Gel is the new Jim Crow.

The whole hood is dancing now.

Hip hop is full of millionaires, but not a soul is bailing out.

MM.

Singer say they selling sacks right outside the trap house.

Not a charge or rat and wrap.

Someone tell me how everyone's a gangster.

That's a fantasy fact.

I never met a rapper who I thought was Geronimo Pratt.

Call me Mandela cause you couldn't hold me.

They had gave me 17, but that did not fool me.

I gave it back at three.

Oh, pay me what you owed me.

They call me OG.

But still.

I'm just a young homie.

Gangster.

You're not.

You never stood firm in your freedom.

And I mean no, you're a weakling.

Popping pills and lean your drink.

And you probably turn your queen into a Blaine.

You all right?

Walking dead?

I go catch you sleeping.

When revolutionary come creeping.

I can make you choose slavery or freedom.

Cause you sold your soul for a shiny watch.

Watch.

I'm a Phoenix king.

Calling forth the phoenix.

And you keep Nipsey Hussle alive.

This marathon continues.

Two apocalyptic Fred Hampton.

I was bred for action.

Shaka Zulu mixed with Toussaint.

So I'm ready to rise.

I'm set to blaze em in the court like I'm Jonathan Jackson.

But call me George when you see the blood in my eyes.

You got a long list of prophets.

I'm the next in line.

El-hajj Malik El-shabazz mixed with the divine.

I turn my pen into a shotgun.

Got on Tom Homan grind.

That means I'm free and slave so far.

144 if the others knew that they were slaves, I would have freed some more.

Still having trouble with Decepticon swine.

Then call on the Unicron.

I'm the original prime.

I feel her soul and I love for soaking.

Showed her a God.

No, goddess posing.

And if you can't speak, then we'll be your spokesmen like shots by opp Iraqi freedom fighter.

My Marine to a bleeding.

To the servicemen and vets who squeezed them.

I might be gone, but I have not forgot.

Comrades dying in the street in the war on drugs and poverty.

And my government ought be charged with treason for turning my home into a grave plot.

>> Who.

Turn up.

>> To Armageddon towns sharing some poetry with us as part of today's episode of Connections.

We don't have too much time left for comments, but I do still want to let you know.

You can call in at 844295 Khork or also comment on the WXXI News YouTube channel.

And now who is willing to go next?

>> All right.

Um, so this poem is my most jubilant triumphal poem I've ever written in my life.

Um, and it goes.

Today I woke up.

That's it.

That's the poem.

That's the climax.

That's the conclusion.

That's the blessing.

That's the blessing, that's the birth of new lessons.

The death of my stress and the death of my fear of death.

The death of my questions, my questions of death.

Questions of life.

Questions of the rest of mine.

Questions of time.

Questions on if I'm wasting time.

I realized I've wasted time worrying about wasting time.

And now was the only time in my mind.

And my mind is timeless.

Even these rhymes are timeless.

The time reminded me that my life is vibrant and today I'm alive.

And that's better than I was last night.

Well, last night was almost my last night when my brother hitting my brother's blunt was always my last flight.

When my battle with depression was almost my last fight.

Last night was a past life that I would never have to live again, because I woke up with the chance to live again.

I woke up, I woke up, I woke up even saying that gets me choked up.

Pride in my throat, emitting thoughts of suicide is a tough pill to swallow.

Suicide was a tough pill to swallow.

Life isn't a thing I can borrow.

Even if I take my own.

I can't give it back.

>> Home.

>> So today I woke up a new chance.

A new man, a new canvas ready for the opportunity.

I'm drawn to a new task to be taught.

A new mistake to avoid a new correction.

A new floor.

No, a new example of perfection, a new strength, a new strength for a new rep, a new rep.

When I bench press my depression.

Another excuse to get something off my chest, my chest.

I fill my lungs with new breath, a new chance to breathe.

I have the chance to breathe.

We have the chance to breathe.

I no longer say.

I can't.

I won't let a dying man's words live in me.

I let my words live through a dying man.

Speak life because today I can speak life.

Because today I am.

Speak life because today I stand.

My vocal chords.

Be the elastic to spring back.

When you fall.

You haven't seen your best day yet.

Don't quit after you're worst.

Depression is only a cloud.

The sky gets bright when they disperse.

You want to know why we don't lose fighters?

Because our script wasn't written this way.

Not tonight.

Depression.

Not tonight.

Feelings of inadequacy.

See, your mind will try to demean your accomplishments and call it logic.

But logically, today I'm alive.

And may this Phoenix rising actions forever be my rising actions.

Today I woke up boom.

>> Boom.

>> Come on.

>> That's Chi the Realist.

You're on Connections as we share slam poetry and talk about it as part of National Poetry Month.

And we have a few more poets in the room.

And I was wondering then if Mossberg mat would grace us with some words.

>> Absolutely.

Just like she said, it's right up until that last breath.

You kind of wonder what you're going to say.

So I'm not from Rochester.

I was born here.

I'm from Lyons, New York, and we're experiencing a urban renewal, if you will, some gentrification that's coming about.

And, uh, you know, this place I'm from, it's more like a superorganism.

It's subjected to attempted suburbanization from what was urban landscape of many faces.

As gentrification races to the forefront, chipping away the bricks of our four storey tenements to their cores, tearing at the heritage saturated into the plaster and lath and studs within the walls and Joyce's under the floorboards.

To think before I'd want for no more, but for the commonality found in that corner.

A dime bag of dirt, weed and some cash to get some fillies and snacks at the store, a slice of pizza from Nima.

Remember, we'd be arrested on the street with misdemeanors, loitering eyesores more or less brothers than friends, more like conjoined twins from many mothers and different dads.

Multiple >> A mutual father figures had us exchanging cash for paper stamps for cash at Frank's General store.

From a young age, indoctrinated to the double up.

And it all came back fast as they sent in specialist rats Andrew Chambers to try to tame us.

Those attempts were made in vain.

Yes, pay that man and send them back to where he came from in jest.

Wayne.

Task force, we didn't talk to your strangers.

No.

Instead you got our own people to play us using the same method applied to the steps by which we came up.

You call it fiends?

With direct sale charges.

Released them to set up the larger target.

Once their feet were on the front porch, you proceeded to kick the doors in, dogs barking at the raiding, kids crying, afraid, women screaming, pulled from the bed, naked and agape amid the epitome of all acts of intimacy.

No shame displayed on covered faces masked up to hide the terrorizing of the innocent.

From the headlines.

As the war on drugs was levied against a bare minimum, sentences.

Of shock camp to most 17 year olds who would dabble in the clandestine practice of making something from nothing.

This place has laid claims to its history, yet it is selective of such as it labels inhabitants that have gifted it with greatness as the enemy from within.

The window is left open for the devil.

While the door was slammed shut on the forward progression to be naturally made by its residential composition.

It's the same way New York changed Hell's Kitchen and made Clinton skeletonize it until it's unrecognizable.

Move the rich in displace the undesirable and those considered vile who don't fit into the framework of a developer's vision and his property values rise.

Homeowners will cash out and move on.

Some will hold on for a while, but in due time be taxed out as they won't have enough income or cash to cover the value of that house.

And it's so sad how it's been packaged and sold.

As if removing cracked facades like rubbing blood away from their mouths, will somehow erase the open wound that will remain.

This place is beautiful truth because it can never escape its soul, no matter how hard they try to knock it down and burn it and bury it next to the riverside.

It's funny.

Rip the heart out of something and stand back and watch it die.

>> HMM.

>> No more.

>> My apologies.

I am so tripped up a little bit.

There.

>> Haven't.

Nobody new.

Nobody knew.

>> Nobody knew.

That's a punchline.

That's the whole point.

>> That's.

>> That was fire.

See.

>> This is amazing.

>> This is what happens at a slam.

You don't know where it's coming from.

When I went to BMV, BMV was brave.

New voices was 400 poets, 36 cities, 45 teams between the ages of 14 and 25 coming together for a week to a weekend doing this right here.

What you see.

Sharing the knowledge and understanding of their reflections in such a way that it methodically teaches you and pulls you into their life.

Not only did every was every piece structurally different just now, but they were interconnected.

And as a personal, I related to both of those to the fullest.

I don't know about people listening, but this is why I come to slam.

This is why I do.

But to see who's gonna help me think about what I'm going through in such a way that I can think myself through it.

>> Yep.

>> Instead of it forgetting me.

>> Or even sparking that creative spark in you again to create again, period.

>> That's what it is.

It sparks growth.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Instantly, instantaneously.

And it's continuous.

And then the repertoires and the growth, it's just we ain't, we ain't got enough time.

>> Yeah.

That's why.

>> We need our own.

>> Personal experience.

>> Some people on YouTube are ready to start hiring all of you and also want you to do a lyrical rap together, um, combined.

I don't know if we have time though.

>> We do lyrical laps.

>> Let's see, we got, uh, but I think they might have to come out to one of your shows.

We've just got 2 or 3 minutes left for the show.

But I want to say, as someone who.

>> 60s.

>> Yeah, okay.

Lyrical rap 60s.

>> 60s.

>> When I first when I was first doing lyrical laps, right, it was me and Dot right before we got Asian, we used to just use parts of pieces that we have from our own repertoire and cut it off where we thought it was hot.

Okay.

All right.

You ready?

>> Yep.

>> So just start and go.

>> Me first.

Like the bad balled up report card in your pocket.

It was in your jeans to fill.

>> Will I be all that I was meant to be?

Will I have all that was made for me.

Or will these devils laugh as they lay.

Wait for me.

Will I wander a slave's path far, far away from free.

>> The dominoes fall as time passes.

Like strobe lights that streak over prolonged exposure.

Photographs.

I hold the Instamatic and focus it onto the past tense and essence is released via Instagram and Snapchat, released into the grasp of.

>> Always wanting to be a baller, he never given a sense of direction you needed.

But instead of asking for a compass like the North Star, you decided to continue being a lost poet, encompassing yourself in a circle of real poets whose authenticity messed that of a politician.. >> Somewhere in the darkness of my unconsciousness, I am forever conscious with images and flashes ever splashing in the blackness.

I left myself somewhere in a chasm, backwards.

And then I learned, maybe through my spines, through alignment.

I could grow in time with six more bones, spread them out, spread them wide.

Seraphim full of pride.

Six winged.

I might fly into the sky and pass it by.

And bye bye and bye bye and bye.

>> And I toss from my chest this Molotov, with an underhanded back spinning glass, shattered, expressive ignition of gases, incinerating facts from these alternative factions.

The domino effect of a right sided chain reaction to bigotry winning bigly fig leaf of Eden's in fashion and bitten off forbidden fruit positioned within the windpipe of Adam, isn't exclusive to a talisman of masculinity.

No, that fallacy has been slashed within the nails of Lilith, who scratched from the hands of banishment and scratched her grip on class action.

Hashtag vengeance as it TikToks.

Beyond the misogyny and the fascism at present and past Christian nationalist rhetoric of homeland tacked on ribbons and pinned on ice badges and automatic white privilege against black disadvantage and semi-automatic and Kevlar vested behind extended magazines against young upturn.

Black palms in front of hoodies and tees.

Black life matters, as does that of the huddled masses of Latins, Africans and Arabic.

And freedom has an inherent narrative that it's equality's cherished.

>> Yeah, no.

>> It isn't.

It's Uncle and embarrassing.

Milot Mossberg.

>> Mossberg.

Match Chi the Realist and agape Armageddon towns.

Sharing a lyrical rap with us.

Lu Highsmith.

Thank you for bringing together this group.

We got to hear some of your poetry more sometime.

>> Eventually.

>> Yes.

Thank you to the whole crew working on the radio show and the YouTube stream behind the scenes here at Connections, especially Julie Williams, who helped arrange so much of this this week.

Be sure to follow the North Star Poets and the rock body and family Slam to keep up to connect to more of this.

Thank you so much.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

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Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

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