"I want this to be less of a presentation and be more of a conversation," spoken-word poet Amir Sulaiman told a full house in Salomon 101 Friday night. "I say some poetry. You ask some questions. You get some comments. You talk. You have a good time. Poetry. Everything is good."
Sulaiman, an African-American Muslim who has been featured on HBO's "Def Poetry" program, took questions from the audience and told anecdotes between reciting six poems. The event, which concluded Islam Awareness Month, opened with performances by Sarah Kay '10, Phil Kaye '10 and Amina Massey '08, members of WORD, Brown's spoken-word and performance poetry group.
In his introduction, Muslim Students' Association President Rashid Hussain '10 said the month's events showed "a side of Islam you don't usually see in the mainstream media." He said that poetry is central to Islamic culture but added that the views expressed in the night's performances "may or may not reflect those of the MSA."
Religious themes featured prominently in many of Sulaiman's poems. His first, entitled "Thief in the Night," began with the lines, "They say the Lord will come/Like a thief in the night/Perhaps the Lord will come/In the things that I write."
In "Vanilla Sky," Sulaiman said, "What was old and grief/Is now new and sweet/Like sweet sweat was swept off my feet/Like souls solaced in the sanctuary of God." The poem also included lines from the Christian Lord's Prayer.
In response to a question from the audience, Sulaiman said "Vanilla Sky" was about this world and the next, represented respectively by a pair of "chocolate" and "caramel" women in the poem.
"I'm speaking about ... coming into a state of consciousness, coming into a state of awareness that is divine," Sulaiman said. "So the poem's about life and death, but it's not just about physically dying ... one of the maxims of the Sufi (a mystical Islamic tradition) is to 'die before your death,'" he added.
In addition to spiritual themes, Sulaiman's poetry addressed race, drugs, materialism, love, violence and mortality.
One line in "Thief in the Night" - "Terrorism that precedes al-Qaida and Osama/Forget Bin Laden, Ben Franklin enslaved my great-great grandfather" - drew applause from the audience. When Sulaiman characteristically asked the audience for any "questions, comments or concerns" about the poem, one student asked him to elaborate on the Franklin reference.
The reference was "not necessarily about Ben Franklin the person but what he represents as far as our founding fathers ... this person, this idea, this archetype, this caricature of Bin Laden has not - nor do we even expect him to - cause the type of death and destruction to civilians as some of our founding fathers' actions," Sulaiman said. He also explained that two neighborhoods mentioned in the poem - one in his native Rochester, New York, and another in his former home Atlanta, Georgia - are notorious for their high crime levels.
Sulaiman also told anecdotes about his work. He said he was surprised "Danger," which he performed Friday and on season four of HBO's "Def Poetry," has become his most popular poem.
Sulaiman said he wrote "Danger" shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and thought it would be "too extreme" for a wide audience. The poem opens with the lines, "I am not angry; I am anger/I am not dangerous; I am danger" and continues, "Freedom is between a finger and the trigger/It is between the page and the pen/It is between the grenade and the pin/Between righteous and keeping one in the chamber."
"So I write this poem and I'm thinking to myself, 'This is gonna get me kicked out of, like, the little corner-store poetry club,'" Sulaiman said of "Danger." "Next thing I know I'm on TV."
Sulaiman said he was surprised to learn how many different types of people identify with his work. He cited a fan base that includes people of different religions and races as well as "pimps, whores, hustlers" and "strippers."
Shortly after "Danger" aired on HBO, federal agents called Sulaiman on the phone and contacted his coworkers and relatives, Sulaiman said, asking questions like "'Is Amir's poetry anti-American?'"
Sulaiman chuckled as he recounted the investigation, which he called "absurd" for two reasons.
"First of all, it's not like I have 'secret' poetry," he said, prompting raucous laughter and applause from the audience. "You give me 10 dollars, I give you a CD - investigation over!"
Second, Sulaiman said that he doesn't make any specific references to the United States or government figures in his poetry.
"I just say 'devils' and 'oppressors' and they show up," Sulaiman said, joking that the government must have "some self-esteem issues."
Sulaiman said the incident made him reflect on the freedom of speech, which he called a "universal and inalienable right."
"You know, God knows, I know that we are witnessing evil," Sulaiman said. "Everyone knows that we are witnessing evil." Drawing on a quote from the prophet Muhammad, he added, "Your victory, your freedom, your liberation is in the heart. And what is in the heart sincerely appears on the tongue."
Sulaiman's appearance was co-sponsored by the Cogut Center for the Humanities, the Sarah Doyle Women's Center, Students Against Sexual Assault, the African Students Association, the Department of Africana Studies and the Watson Institute for International Studies' Middle East and Islamic Studies Initiative Fund.
