in addition to the spots i frequent weekly for my poetry fix, i will be slamming on friday, june 12th at the 14th & v street, nw busboys and poets. only $5 to get in, and tickets go on sale in the bookstore starting at 10pm.
this slam determines who will be on the dc slam team going to compete in nationals in august. so come out and show your love. i’ll keep y’all updated.
peace.
woke up on an old friend’s couch this morning, and made my way back to the city thanks to a crucial ride from my sister. thanks steph!
looking forward to the spit dat open mic tonight on u street. i’m bringing that old friend and introducing him to my spit dat family. sorta like a merging of two worlds for me, which is always fun. add in a few cyphers and some good food and dancing, and this night is gonna be hella chillified. yeah, i said hella. and chillified. we had a discussion last night about the usage of “hella” “mad” “wicked” and other such slang sayings which all pretty much Continue reading
the hard-working, lovely students of city at peace invited me to headline their fundraising event at busboys and poets on march 28, 2009. 
i was very humbled and surprised that they even asked me, so i made sure to put on a great show. i’ve been volunteering at city at peace since october, and it has been one of the most meaningful endeavors ever. i’ve worked with many youth-focused non-profits before, so i know a legit operation when i see one, and city at peace is by far the most legitimate i’ve seen. the levels of trust, cooperation, honesty, and intensity demonstrated by these teenagers and the staff are just unmatched elsewhere. dealing with real life issues that teens face, like depression, suicide, and homophobia (just to name a few), city at peace teaches nonviolent conflict resolution and coalition building across race, class, and gender lines. it is hard to describe with words alone, but if you know anything about liberatory pedagogy, or you’d like to learn, this is the org to study.
the event was packed, sold-out, and standing room only. i sold a few chapbooks at special inflated prices to help contribute to the fundraiser. all told, we exceeded our fundraising goal of the night by thousands!
one of the students, jessica, is going to college next year in wisconsin to study performance poetry specifically. she is grrreat! she did this wonderful piece about columbus day and all the eff’d up stuff columbus did.
jessica rocks!
not the best pic of her ever, but i had to include her here. she was very impressive with her poetry, and we all expect big things from her in the future. and right now too.
this was my last featured set, and it was all the way back in march. i need to get back on my grind, huh?
good day people of the interweb. thanks for checking my site. there will be lots more to come soon. i just set this piece up, so i gots to add lots of content. basically, this site is my way of … Continue reading
so i volunteer with a great group called Level-Ten, and soon we will have our crazy awesome poetry collaboration video up on their new site (www.levelten.tv) so check back for an update on that. basically, three of my talented poet friends got down with me on the metro to speak about the achievement gap in education. we came up with a powerful piece that offers four different perspectives on the issue. also, check out www.closetheachievementgap.org if you are interested. i used to run that piece with Level-Ten.
if you live in the DC or Atlanta metropolitan area and are interested in volunteering with Level-Ten to help close the achievement gap, please do hit me up to learn how to get involved.
support my work doing spoken word performance poetry workshops in schools by donating here.
you can purchase my book of poetry, I Got The Matches, securely online through paypal by clicking on the image below.
