Reyes: Detox the ghetto.

Detox the ghetto Detox the ghetto.

Love, tagged on the ghetto grottos of closed stores and main avenues.

It's when the doors of businesses shut that the church outside the churches restore their session.

-Turn back Harlem into Chicago.

Turn back Bed-Stuy into Brownsville.

Turn the Bronx back into Gaza, back.

You will taste this strange and bitter American history.

-See, infant me was afraid to be seen.

Petrified of other sight while marching in line with the infantry.

Fatigued by fatigues, taking toddler steps past death's defenses.

-I was wind and they tried, to make me language.

Tried to translate, to empire me.

-I had a dream that they played God with lives they did not own.

Fake prophets profiting off the apocalypse.

-Connected to the pulse of Mother Nature Embrace her and you're in the shaman.

Shaman, integrated darkness, illuminated chakras.

My influence, a virus inspired.

An entire League of Titans, we're site beyond site.

Black, brown, red, yellow, white.

ThunderCats of the light, on the door from the Bronx.

Rodriguez: And spoken word is not meant to be put in a museum.

It's meant to expand and grow every single time it's done.

And that's the excitement of Dodge poetry now.

It has a message, it has a meaning, and it allows artists the tools to do their job and the license to do that in an expansive manner.

-What you call me.

-We've also included hip hop artists to draw in crowds who may be familiar with Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, MC Lyte.

And then you throw in some fantasy poets like Mahogany Browne and Caridad de la Luz, La Bruja, and you spice it up and they say, hey, oh, there's totally a tie in here.

There's totally a connection here.

-Can we rock it side to side, a little U-N-I-T-Y?

I met him in a club, hangin out one night.

He said hello, uh, highlight.

How's everything going, huh?

How you doing?

Hope everything's fine.

Oh, and, uh, can I call you sometimes?

Can I get your digits and the address so I can come visit?

I gave him the digits -How do we let folks know that poetry is everywhere?

And poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

-Welcome to Newark, New Jersey, y'all.

Baraka: Poetry is very important to this community, to this city.

Brick City.

There's a long history of, uh, spoken word artists here in this town.

[ Scatting ] [ Scatting ] You can't own the sky.

[ Scatting ] You can't own the sky.

You can't ban the sun or its rays.

The heat in the palm of our closed fist.

You can't arrest the wind or the birds wings high above the mountains.

You can't reverse the earth on its axis or unlearned the learn, no matter how many books you burn.

[ Scatting ] -It would be impossible to be more fortunate than to have a mayor who's an artist, who grew up as an artist.

LaTorre: We always say we are a city of poets.

Our mayor, Ras Baraka, is the son of Amiri Baraka.

There's poets who serve in the city council and work for the mayor's office.

So I'm glad that Dodge has recognized and welcomed in a lot more Newark artists because as a Newark born and bred kid, I feel incredibly valued being invited here.

De La Luz: What Dodge Poetry is in Newark is what Nuyorican Poets Cafe is in the Lower East Side.

Poetry is treated often just like art is treated, kind of like a hobby, where we treat poetry as a necessity.

Hatred planted a seed whose branches bleed from the heart of the leaves that hang from the trees.

Strange fruit pitted against the land and the free.

Bastard child, call it patriarchy.

-I want to break tradition.

Respecting elders can no man respect.

And keeping in touch with distant relatives that don't give a flying coño about me.

Because blood is supposed to be thicker than arroz con dulce.

But you see, my friends are my family because they love and accept me as [ Speaking Spanish ] and don't consider me one una desgracia de la familia.

-We're changing the face of the festival.

Might as well give Nuyorican a home here.

We worked with La Bruja and the Children's Arts Education program, and we're going to have them back because they're one of those pillars of the poetry community.

-Since high school... -I've been the girl with a big ass bag.

-That always took up too much space.

-The spare seat on the subway.

-The whole school hallway.

Gonzalez: Social justice can truly be joyful work, and that's something we often lose track of.

We think of this as this gritty thing, which it is, and it can be.

But also there has to be time for restoration, for praise, for reclamation.

-[ Rapping indistinctly ] Rodriguez: We had done the program Represent the first time last year, based on the same focus of social justice and racial healing, and it really celebrates spoken word artists, whether they be in hip hop or whether they be traditional poets.

-Like, um, with lyricism, you have a way of expressing your thoughts, your life, what you're going through, what you've seen other people go through, and when you express it properly, you never know who you may affect.

-When you're reading poetry and you're writing poetry, you're saying something about the world, about yourself, about your relationship to it.

You can't reverse the earth on its axis or unlearned the learned, no matter how many books you burn.

And sometimes you express the things that other people are saying that they can't express.

Gonzalez: The Dodge Poetry Festival carries a long tradition.

We've always had diverse poets.

We've always showcase folks like Lucille Clifton.

I mean, we've always highlighted the greats.

But here I think we are in a moment where we can take it just one more step further.

We have to create spaces where folks see themselves represented on the stages, of course, but also feel like NJPAC can be their home.

-What is your best piece of advice for a young, um, Latino artist who is trying to navigate through this space right now?

-Tell the truth, you know?

Speak your truth, even if it's something that you think people don't want to hear.

-If they don't call her by her name, will she remember she was once someone's baby?

A dream they wished for, wished on, that she was born on any day the lord made.

If they don't say it to you, then I will.

You belong, sis.

You deserve, sis.

You are good.

[ Applause ]