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‘Cut, Bleed and Die poetry’

Written by Mecca Ali

Monday, 21 January 2008 06:56 PM

As Jaoquin Zihuatenejo stood in a dark room filled with black-clothed tables decorated with white flowers, he spoke lyrical sentences about acceptance.

“‘If they can’t speak our language they don’t belong here.’ This poem was inspired by a man who heard me speaking Spanish to my daughter. ‘Lincoln and Douglass, Kennedy and King — we all want the same thing’,” Zahintoejo said.

Nearly two hundred people attended the poetry slam in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the University Center Bluebonnet Ballroom on Saturday.

For $10, guests snacked on strawberries, grapes, turkey and if that wasn’t enough could help themselves to the cash bar. This could have been a date night, an information night or get-down-and-dirty-into-poetry night.

Spoken word, racial equality and various forms of art were the focus of this second annual MLK Day event.

The event was gift wrapped and packaged in the name of Dr. King, but when unwrapped, his dream was in full form.

Inside the gift were blacks, whites, Asians and Indians all coming together to celebrate the power and love of all people. They were laughing, eating and talking to one another.

A poetry slam is a competitive form of poetry. Five team members have three minutes and 10 seconds to perform.

“I like to call it cut, bleed and die poetry. We have people walking out crying,” said AJ Houston, Fort Worth Slam Team member.

“You have to hold and captivate the audience.”

Although the event was hosted by the Slam Team and Arlington’s Martin Luther King Jr. committee, the event was open to other performers as well.

HBO’s own Def Poet Rock Baby also attended and performed. Lisa Thompson, university Upward Bound director, and interdisciplinary senior Junichi Lockett Jr., participated as well.

When guests arrived, they were greeted at the door by three Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity members. King was a member of the organization.

“James Hawthorne asked for some support. This was my first time being in something like this and it is really inspirational,” said mechanical engineering sophomore Dmitri Mitchell, also an Alpha Phi Alpha member.

Fort Worth Jazz Combo members serenaded the audience with songs by Stevie Wonder and Dizzy Gillespie. As a surprise, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner was the featured film of the evening that silently played in the background.

The poetry flowed from the lips of people from all backgrounds, ages and ethnic groups. They shared their words and the audience snapped, clapped and yelled in delight.

“People my age weren’t familiar with spoken word. It’s refreshing and a great alternative, there are always activities for young kids [in honor of MLK Day],” said James Hawthorne, Arlington Deputy Police Chief, Alpha Phi Alpha member and committee member. “The message that we have will hopefully increase unity,” he said.

Between artists, host Mike Guinn, Fort Worth Poetry Slam founder and performer coordinator, shared his inspiration for one of his poems.

One night he was picking his daughter up in a bad part of Sacramento, Calif., and two men tried to rob him, he said. A man shot a gun four times and could have fatally wounded him, but the gun jammed twice and his life was spared. Guinn was shot in the leg and the thigh.

“God meant for me to be here,” he said. “But I wondered why our people see our lives as so indispensable.”

Information

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal. This will be the day when all God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning. And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro sprititual;
Free at last! Free at last thank God Almighty, WE ARE FREE AT LAST. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 12 February 2008 03:20 PM )

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