Pop Culture: Power of the spoken word

By LISETTE CORDERO - Asbury Park Press

"Def Poetry Jam," 90 minutes of in-your-face free verse featuring stand-up poets from the hit HBO series and Broadway show, is scheduled to make a stop at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank on Thursday.

Slam poetry is a derivative of hip-hop culture, which evolved predominately in African- American neighborhoods during the 1970s. Today, hip-hop is a way of life, one in which a society communicates with the language of the streets (ebonics) and identifies itself via rap music, stand-up poetry, contemporary street fashion and graffiti. Each medium has helped to spawn the next, spreading across geographic, racial and social boundaries.

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, creator of the "Def Poetry Jam" series, Def Jam Records, Def Jam Pictures and Phat Farm clothing line, saw the possibilities of hip-hop as a force in entertainment early on. He understood the creative connection between stand-up poetry and other, earlier African-American art forms such as jazz, swing, gospel and blues.


Breaking records in its first year, Def Poetry Jam is now on a 51-city "encore tour," which includes many of the performers who helped the show become the surprise sensation of the 2003 Broadway season, winning the Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. The cast includes eight performance poets representing various ethnicities and races, combining to create a new and current American voice. Those performers include Black Ice, Georgia Me, Lemon, Poetri, Staceyann Chin, Suheir Hammad, Shihim, Flaco Navaja and Ishle Yi Park.


The cast of "Def Poetry Jam" brings its streetwise style of entertainment to the Count Basie Theatre on Thursday.
DJ Reborn rocks the turntables when the poets enter and exit the stage. The poets' material is presented in a variety of styles, from lyric to narrative to dramatic to monologue, ranging in topics that include romance, realism, comedy and politics. It's compelling to see and hear their body language defining the moment, their voices filled with a range of emotion.

Jamaican poet Chin, winner of the 1999 Chicago People of Color Slam, among other prizes, says she fell in love with the play of words used by "canonized" poets: the imagery when one reads to oneself and how it sounds when read aloud -- a crucial factor in stand-up poetry.

"Canonized poets, for example Bob Marley, devoted their lives to poetry even though they didn't receive critical acclaim by elitist institutions for most of their lives, and now their work is appreciated by the masses," said Chin.

"Shakespeare used to put on a show for one penny," she added.

Chin said Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison inspired her to stand up for what she believed in, especially politics.

"Our government is chipping away our freedom and rights. As long as we keep the dialogue going, our freedom of speech can never be silenced."

Even though aspects of stand-up poetry as an art form are similar to stand-up comedy, it isn't so much about delivering one-liners as it is to "flow" lyrical verse around unpleasant or absurd everyday situations as experienced by the poets, due to their ethnic, social, and financial reality. In Chin's case, that means being openly gay but able to "pass" as a straight woman.

All in all, it's the harshness combined with the beauty of street life that makes the performances memorable. Also, Chin assesses, in stand-up poetry the artist talks about things that everyone is afraid to talk about.

"Bringing slam poetry to theatergoers is genius," she said. "We have colored lights, sets and a DJ, but that's just the packaging or commercial atmosphere. But slam poetry is all about being yourself without apology, even if it makes people uncomfortable. Many of us (poets) live life in a crossfire where we don't fit in with any one type of group. More often we are caught somewhere in the middle."