By Michèle De Meglio
“Spoken word is our generation’s rebel music.” Eighteen-year-old Anthony McKoy’s astute sentiment has become the mantra for young poets throughout the city. These aspiring writers will speak their piece at the Eighth Annual Teen Poetry Slam, hosted by Urban Word NYC, a Manhattan-based organization promoting literacy and offering writing workshops to teens. “It’s like a huge national phenomenon – poetry slams,” said Michael Cirelli, executive director of Urban Word NYC. For the Teen Poetry Slam, which is open to youths 13-19 years of age, several preliminary events will be held in the five boroughs. The winners of those competitions will advance to the semifinals, then those winners will head to the finals, which will be hosted by legendary rapper Pharoahe Monch. The grand prize winners will form the team that will represent New York in the National Poetry Slam Competition in April. The city’s team came in first place at last year’s nationals and second the year prior. “The New York team always represents well,” Cirelli said. What’s the prize for winning nationals? “It’s bragging rights,” Cirelli said. “The prize is making the team and being able to go to nationals…and performing in front of thousands of people.” Brooklyn Academy of Music’s BAMcafé, 30 Lafayette Avenue, will be the site of a preliminary poetry slam on February 27 from 6-9 p.m. More than 500 emerging poets are expected to compete in the entire citywide competition. The talent in the slams is the best of the best, said Cirelli, a poet in his own right. “They have amazing presence,” he said. “I think we outdo the adults,” he added. “I think the Urban Word slam is usually one of the toughest slam teams to make.” To make the national team, teens will perform an original piece about the subject of their choosing. “They talk about everything. There are a lot of really confessional poems about their background, their heritage,” Cirelli said. “A lot of kids are very political so there are a lot of political poems about the state of affairs in our country. They’re very politically savvy people.” Here are some excerpts from pieces teens have read at poetry slams: “What about this prison educational complex and how loopholes for fat cats make room for more conquests?” wrote Keith Nealis, 17. “Take me out of the ghetto away from this life. I’m told that one day I will be gone from here but that time seems so far ahead of me,” penned Daghrib Shaheed, 15. Writing about dreams and goals, as Shaheed did, provides an outlet for teenagers to express their deepest emotions. “It’s definitely therapeutic,” Cirelli said. “Any kind of art form where people are making themselves vulnerable and writing about their personal experiences is going to be healing on some level.” Their words also allow adults to see the world through the eyes of teenagers. Audience members at poetry slams “see what’s going on in the lives of our young people, our teenagers in New York City. You really get abreast of what they’re thinking about and what they’re going through as young people living in New York City in 2006. It’s always enlightening to hear what they have to say and to see how they process and evaluate the world around them,” Cirelli said. Tickets to the poetry slam at BAM are $3 for teens and $5 for adults. Performers get in free. To register to perform, teenagers should send an email containing their name, age, address, phone number and/or email address, and date they would like to perform to SignUp@urbanwordnyc.org. For locations of other preliminary rounds in the Teen Poetry Slam or more information about workshops offered by Urban Word NYC, log onto www.urbanwordnyc.org.
