We Made It to Semi Finals!!!

In Slam the scores tally up kinda like golf scores, in that the lower the number the better off you are. The way we made it to Semi’s is that we had a 2 for placing 2nd int the first bout and a 1 for placing 1st in our 2nd bout to make a grand total of 3. Doing all of the math pretty much meant we were in the Semi final bouts.

On the way to the Museum of Contemporary Art

We woke up Friday morning feeling energized and anxious for our upcoming challenge. It was scheduled to be us, Hawaii, Miami and New Jersey. We were shuttled over to the Museum of Contemporary Art and arrived around 11.

Maxis Made, Diego Leon Mosquera from Miami

There was a sense of true family as we stepped of the bus. Thomas from New Jersey encouraged us all to support one another in this upcoming bout, to look at one another as brothers and sisters and not as opponents.

The bout was hosted by the dynamic poet Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo. If you have not heard of her I encourage all to check out her gift(http://www.iyeoka.com). We decided in the spirit of  brotherhood/ sisterhood we would not keep score and to celebrate the real reason why we were there- poetry. The poems we heard that day were beautifully crafted vocal gems. We ended up in second place to Hawaii. I think we all felt with more than hands, we felt with our hearts. The most wonderful part of this whole event is the sense of family and that we are all artist that support one another.

We then had the afternoon to ourselves before preparing to see Saul Williams, Beau Sia, Iyeoka, Queen GodIs, Lemon and Alix Olsen at Bringing the Noise. Some of us went to eat, others took naps and we reconvened at the Merle Reskin Theater at 730 that evening. The theater is simply beautiful. The show began with Beau who did a freestlye poem that was seamless. We couldn’t even tell he was freestyling! The show continued to get better and better as the night went on. If you are interested in seeing some of these performances visit: 

http://www.youtube.com/user/compositionink

The rest of the night was spent enjoying the company of the rest of the teams from all over the world. A lot of the young folks there were musicians so they brought their instruments. Our dorms were vibrating with the sound of poetry and music.

Plays From The Coaches Comp Book

This day was so real for me. James reminded me of life lessons I had been taught but hadn’t been putting into action. Everything about his personality reminds me of my Uncles and the older men in my family. The message rang in my soul that, we are all apart of one human race and to some extent we are our brothers keeper. I have a lot of uncles James’ age and I cannot imagine any of them going through some of the things that James Shared with us about his life. There was a moment for me within the maybe 15 min conversation we had with him that the biggest lesson came to my attention. Given that there is a set number of resources, we have because others have not. In consequence, I have a human responsibility to not feel guilty, but realize that there is no such thing as disposable income. I began to question myself questioning others. It is said that in Chicago the homeless people lie to you and make up stories to get money out of you. If this is true perhaps 1 out of every 10 people is telling you the truth. I decided that I’m not willing to miss the one honest person nor do I feel like its my responsibility to question.  In this I also recall growing up in a Southern Baptist church where people were weary of tithing and trusting that officials would do the right things with their money. Faith taught me that the karma and blessing is in giving and not what gets done with what is given. I also think about being given the gift of Spoken word and how we give our voices to open ears and often don’t know how its taken or whats done with whats heard.

This was my favorite day of the entire festival. I was moved to tears at several points during the day and really got a chance to see the power of the work that we do. The kids team poured their hearts out on the stage that day. G, Alicia, Charli, Zach, Colette, Adam Go In Poets!

The Slam Begins!!!!!

On Thursday the part that we had all been subconsciously waiting for begins. Our bout stated at 12pm that day so we had an opportunity to sleep in just a wee bit.  It was held at 618 S. Michigan which is an amazing venue if you have ever been to Columbia. We highly encourage you to see any event that they may have going on there when you’re in the city. We arrived at the venue around 11:30 just in time to see the end of the first bout between Atlanta GA , Skokie IL, Minneapolis MN, Baton Rouge LA and Ft. Lauderdale, FL. In slam often times people save their best pieces for the final round so we showed up right on time.

Special recognition to the Atlanta team and all of the other first year teams in the competition this year. Ft Lauderdale won the bout with some amazing pieces and fantastic performance. We then began to prepare ourselves for our bout between Prince George’s County MD, Worcester MA, and Cleveland, OH.

There was a few moments of down time and then the call was made for team representatives to come to the front in order to draw letters for the order. In Slam there are letters to decide what order the teams go in(e.g. A-D=1-4). We chose D. The way order works is the first round iss the order that you chose(D=4) then the next round the first letter is the last letter(1st:ABCD, 2nd: BCDA…) and the  process repeats. We would like to say befoe we go any further that Brave NEw Voices is NOT about the competition and as you will see it is only a smal part of what  goes on every year.

We started competition and it was fierce. The teams were sooo amazing. We feel like some poems could have been scored better. We ended up doing very well falling behind Cleveland only a couple points(115.7 to 118.8 out of a possible 120) to place 2nd!  We left the bout feeling energized, hype and anxious for the afternoon quarter finals. At 2:30 BNV provided a delicious lunch of fried chicken, potato salad, fries and cole slaw. It made us feel like we were home in the south again.

After we finished lunch we met a man named James who was homeless and shared with us his story. James was the King of catch phrases. He encouraged us to continue to educate ourselves and to use the gifts we were given, all the while cracking  jokes and telling us about his late wife and 2 daughters. We wrote down a few of James’ quotes…

Our Friend James

“I don’t stand tall but I stand up”

“If I fall I fall looking up and when I get up we gona party and they not going to like my music”

We had little bit of time before our bout at 6pm at the Hokin Lecture Hall on Wabash. Again if you all have the opportunity to visit theses places or take classes at these venues they are picked with purpose. We walked around downtown a bit and then headed to the venue where we prepared our selves for the upcoming challenge.

a lil nervous before a bout

We picked a D again but this time there were 5 teams in the bout. These teams were San Jose CA, Skokie IL, Hampton Roads VA, and Austin, TX. Much respect to all the teams that were in the bout it was crazy some of the poems we heard. We ended up placing first  with a 117.2 which placed us into Semifinals for the next day.

If you would like to see videos from these bouts visit www.youtube.com/sacrificialpoets

The Wonderful Work We Do

So as you all know Brave New Voices is not only a competition but a festival and conference for the young people who attend. Our second day there was all day workshops and learning opportunity’s for not only the youth but the Coaches and adult chapperones as well. The young ones got to attend workshops with active poets such as Jared Paul, Kelly Tsai, Queen Godis, Greg Corbin and many more. As for the adults the man behind all of this Mr James Kass taught a workshop on building a non-profit organization and gave some tools and pointers in starting a sustainable non-profit. There were two workshop that morning and then we had a wonderful lunch provided by Subway which was delicious.  After this the youth then went to a Town Hall Meeting. This meeting was restricted for adults and was an opportunity for the youth to speak on behalf of themselves to figures in positions of political power. The theme of this meeting was “Do We Value Life in Our Communities?”. This was amazing for the youth to see happen as well as to realize that they have voice in the way their lives are influenced by government.

We then had some free time to walk around the city for a bit before Speak Green was to start at 7:30 that night.

Jake @ Speak Green

For the fourth straight year, Youth Speaks partners with the Redford Center and USGBC to
present a spoken word program on global warming and the green movement as part of the Brave
New Voices Festival. This year, 15 final poets and/or group poems were selected to participate in the Speak Green event during Brave New Voices, on Wednesday July 15th in Chicago. Among those 15 two of them were from Chapel Hill! Congratulations to Jake and G on being selected.

G @ Speak Green

We arrived at Speak Green to a packed building of hungry ears. The poetry that night was amazing. Much respect to all those poets that graced the stage that night. Some of the poems are up on Youtube already, feel free to check them out. You can go to our page (youtube.com/sacrificialpoets) or search Speak Green 2009. We continued watching as the Kuumba Lynx kids gave another stellar performance.  At  the end when they announced the winners and we would like to extend a special congratulations to G for winning the opportunity to perform at Sundance and meet several heavy hitters in the green community. The evening was closed by a poem from Michael Dorsey and embrace of all the poets on stage.

Kuumba Lynx

Later that night we went to watch Chase give a hype crazy good performance at the MC Olympics. Chase is one of our own Sacrificial Poets who has the ability to move people with lyrics and rhythm that takes us back to the roots of  Hip Hop when it was about a message.

Stay tuned for more updates. If you think this was good wait til we get to the competition and the rest of the week!!!!!!!!

Alyssa Langworthy with Ashley Campbell

Jazmine Williams

Jake, G, and Zuki

Catching Up

So it’s been a bit since we’ve blogged. Things got quite busy after the day in Ohio. So busy in fact that we didn’t get to keep you all in the loop and we will be going over each day as this week goes by, so stay tuned in!

So we got to Chicago around 1pm and boy is it aesthetically pleasing. The skyline strethes farther than any of us have ever seen. This was an awesome experience because none of us have ever been to Chicago outside of connecting flights.  We arrived on the campus of Columbia University to plush rooms with full kitchens and huge living  rooms. Were quite surprised at the space being that they are college dorms. Everyone was pretty tired from the drive so we decided to take some short naps before going to the opening plenary taking place at 7pm that night with Kevin Coval and Marc Bamuthi.

We arrived at the Chicago Art Institute around 630 to a building full of high spirited teenagers who’s passion for life was as strong as their love for poetry. To see about 1000 people from all over the world in one room was amazing. The amount of love and the feeling of family was prolific.  During the ceremony a group of local kids 9 to 13  performed a spoken word piece on their city environment and how it effects them. They were amazing! In closing the program Bamuthi come out with two men with voices like the sun. IT was truly powerful and moving to hear these young men sing about Emit Till as Bathi explained the importance of life and living. He used Emit as an example of how people in this country have lost their lives as a result of doing what we are doing freely now. He encouraged us to not take our voices for granted and to truly live life. In cosequence theme of the entire festival this year was Life is Living. Life is Living is also a national campaign that uses a new form of green spoken story telling — one that represents the diverse and changing perspectives on what it means to be environmentally just.

We then went to the Brave New Voices Peoples Championship where our very own Sacrificial Poet Will McInerney was participating. Quick shout out to all the poets that participated in the peoples champs.  Will gave a hair-raising performance of his poem My Religion and made it to the second round that would be held the next evening.  After that it was back to the dorms where we  enjoyed reuniting with some of our old friends who we hadn’t seen in quite a while and fell asleep in the arms of the city while dreaming of the poems to come.

Off to Chicago

For those of you who don’t know the Sacrificial Poets will be posting to the Blog everyday(tentatively) to keep you all in the loop as to where we are and what we’re up to.

It’s a beautiful morning in Columbus, Ohio and the house is full of sleepy eyes and anxious hearts as we wake up and get ready to take off for a trip west to the city of wind. We had a wonderful trip no snafoos, glitches , or unexpecteds:-).

We’d just like to thank our amazing hosts in Ohio. We arrived from a long day on the road around 6pm to the wonderful smells of Barbeque chicken, hot dogs, Bratwurst, watermelon, salad and the list goes on. Understanding that it is not everyday you have 11 people show up to your house we deeply appreciate their hospitality and wellcoming us into their home with open arms and an open fridge.

We’ll be adding more pictures a little later for your viewing pleasure

Well, It’s time for us to take off! More to come….

Sac Poe Bar-B-Q Was A Successss!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apologies  everyone for the delay….

We are eternally grateful for everyone who came and gave us their support Friday evening at the Mansion. Thanks for all of your generous contributions and being a wonderful audience. It means a great deal for the young ones to have a receptive audience and the support in things that are positive.

Special Thanks to Brad  of the Mansion, DJ Maaly Maal, Carolyn & Cleveland, Anzelette, Suepinda, Nancie and Myra who all helped to make this event happen. And of course we can’t forget about the musicians Ian Leinbaugh( guitarist), Bo Roberson (guitarist), Danny(drummer).

Also special Thanks to those that Gave Donations for the Raffle

Joe Van GoghWalt’s GrillNancie McDermottBliss Bakery

Also Don’t forget to come out to Rita’s(Carr Mill Mall) this Thursday
from 5-8pm for our final fundraiser and show!

AliciaMarie Droppin Knowledge

Adam and SP Supporters

G in deep thought

Amazing Chef Aka Papa Suitt Aka The Best Dad in the World!!!!!!

DJ Maaly Maal spinnin....was Bananas!!!!

Send Them Off Event at Barbs

We would like to thank Barbara for being so kind as to host an amazing event on Monday. It was truly wonderful to see people from the community rally together behind our vision to get to Chicago. There were delicious cucumber sandwiches a bon fire and if any of you know Barb you know it was fun. We had such a good time that our 1 hour event turned in to 3!

We  would like to send a special thanks to all those who donated and were such a wonderful audience. We look forward to seeng you all as well as working with you all in the future.

Sac Po Bar-B-Q!!!!!

Carmines Was A Hit!!!

Carmines was a great success. We stayed at Carmines all day and greeted guests as well as had some of the most delicious food in the city. This wonderful restaurant is a hidden Treasure in Chapel Hill tucked in the corner of Eastgate shopping center. We highly encourage anyone who didn’t get a chance to check it out the day of our fundraiser to do so.

We also performed. I must say it was the first time performing in a restaurant for may of the poets but suprisingly Gourmet Pizza and Poetry not only sound good but is quite choice. The combination of  a good meal and food for thought provided for a dazzling reception. We hope to see you all at the July 3rd event!

P.S. We’ll be posting Pictures soon:-)