Campus spoken-word poetry group WORD! is performing three shows on campus this weekend at Rites and Reason Theatre, beginning last night.
Sarah Kay '10, one of the performers, said she has been involved in slam poetry since she was 14 years old, when she saw the film "SlamNation" and was "blown away by the idea that poetry and theater could somehow be combined."
Kay said she has always had "crippling stage fright" and loves theater "as long as I don't have to act." But spoken word, she said, "despite the fact that it terrifies me ... is also the thing that inspires me."
Spoken word is "like a drug when you learn how easy it is to make connections," Kay said. "When someone says, 'For one moment, I was right there with you' ... that's what makes slam poetry."
Kay and Paul Graham '09 both participated in the National Poetry Slam competition in Austin, Texas, last August, and were featured on episodes this season of HBO's "Def Poetry," a series that showcases spoken-word performances by slam poets, artists and celebrities.
Graham said he began participating in slam competitions last year when he arrived at Brown. He won a spot on the Providence Youth Slam Team, which made its way to the Brave New Voices poetry festival in New York last April. There, Graham performed a group piece, "Black Irish," with Eamon Mahoney, a member of the Providence team. A producer from "Def Poetry" attending the festival asked the two to send a video of the piece to HBO.
Graham described the taping of "Def Poetry" - and being in New York with guest celebrities - as "pretty surreal," not to mention nerve-wracking. Graham and Mahoney's piece was originally three-and-a-half minutes long, and they were asked to cut it down to two minutes. That was frightening enough, "not to mention that you were going to be on HBO with a lot of people watching," Graham said.
The poem Graham and Mahoney performed was inspired by violence Mahoney has seen in Ireland, Graham said, and the violence in Graham's hometown of Newark, N.J. Graham said he often writes about "inner-city youth, just because that's something that hits home for me" and that he tries to place these youth "in a light where people can understand ... and not be so quick to judge."
Kay said it was "bizarre" to get to the Hollywood-like "Def Poetry" studio, after being used to "small, dark, grungy New York City bars," but that it was exciting to meet the guest poets on the show, especially those who had been a part of "Def Poetry Jam" on Broadway.
Graham said he loves to write poetry and always will, but he is planning to attend law school after concentrating in Africana studies and political science. Kay "wants to do everything" when she's older but particularly loves filmmaking because she has "an appreciation of the mix" of visual art and words.
The spoken word community at Brown is a very different environment than the one Kay is accustomed to in New York, but she said it's been a "nice change," where she's found "a wonderfully talented bunch of people who are humble and inspired."
