Isis Speaks

After Campbell's performance, slam poet Isis Speaks took the stage and presented original poetry that reflected aspects of her life that have shaped her as a person.

Speaks is a first generation college student and touring musical artist with a recently released CD, "It Is What It Is."

"We have responsibility for the children after us," Speaks said. "We are paving the way for them."

Speaks also teaches a creative writing workshop and strongly believes in teaching as a way of public service.

"There is a statistic stating that 90 percent of African-American college students will drop out before graduation and that just isn't right," Speaks said.

She went on to give an intuitive performance consisting of original poetry pieces. In one powerful monologue, "Honeysuckle," she reminisced about the simple aspects of her childhood that inevitably contributed to her emotional growth.

Speaks, who is originally from New Jersey, now resides in Denver and performs at several poetry venues.

To date, she has sold several hundred CDs and was the sole opener for the Def Poetry tour in Denver.

"People died for me to be where I am, so it's my duty to set a positive example," Speaks said.

Both Campbell and Speaks are accessible on MySpace and have pages that provide links to original songs and video performances.
- Indiana State University, Terre Haute

Some might call slam poets harbingers of lyrical anger, young men and women who spout their pain, their disgust, their fears and anything else that gets in their emotional way on stage, competing with one another, performing for applause and fame and notoriety.

Sometimes, such wordsmiths come together, creating an art larger than the sum of their parts. To be at Poetry Slam 101in the Half Moon Room at Arapahoe Community College on Nov. 15 was to pay witness to Denver's slam scene, to peer just a little bit into the lives of six individuals who have adopted spoken word as their vehicle for expression.

Isis, of the 2006 Denver Slam Team, said that "Individually, we're egomaniacal poets" when she helped introduce the team to a crowded Half Moon Room.

Collectively, the team has defeated 500 poets and 72 slam teams in their last competition.

During the Nov. 15 workshop, Denver Slam Team slam master Paulie Lipman told how poet Marc Smith got tired of the open mic poetry scene in Chicago decades ago, when Smith began to create the art of spoken word. "The audience was bored to tears (from all the polite clapping). Why do (the poets) need an audience?" said Lipman.

It was time to shake up the stage, to strip poetry away from the beatniks, to splatter it with color, to force the poet to earn his time on stage, to have judges rate their offerings and "get a number to someone's pain," said Lipman.

"At a poetry slam, you can react at any point, at any volume," said Lipman. And as audience members, you are expected to let the judges know if you don't agree with their scores.

Not only is such an environment entertaining for the audience, it also has significance for the slam poet. Every single night, there is an E. E. Cummings or other great poet waiting to emerge, said Isis.

"We are the contemporaries," she said.

Denver Slam Team member Ken Arkind used fellow contemporary Kay Crowne, a Denver poet now transplanted to Chicago, to explain slam poetry. He said she called it "the re-birth of Shakespeare," adding his own definition of "beautiful poetry put in the theatre realm."

During the slam workshop, Lipman advised performers to genuinely return to the psychological and emotional state that fostered the poetry they want to present. "As long as you are honest, you will be rewarded," he said.

Denver Slam Team member Jen Rinaldi, an English and drama teacher at South High School in Denver, spoke of rewards slam poetry has given to her circle of influence. She said that her students can now see themselves as poets, after going to the monthly spoken word competitions she helped establish at her school. She said the competitions are the most popular events at the school and that it helps her get students interested in Walt Whitman and other poets.

"The point is (for you to think), 'I can do that!' Everyone can do this, That's what a slam is," said Lipman.

A listen and view of this podcast and this video will give you an idea of Denver Slam Team member Panama Soweto's performance at ACC. He performed the second poem, What Would George Bush Do? at ACC on Nov. 15. - Tabitha Dial, YourHub.com