.Words Go Live

Poetry gets remixed and redefined at the 8th annual Living Word Festival.

Spoken word is clearly at a different place than it was twenty years
ago, when cafe audiences would heckle a poet for using a solecism or
dangling modifier. Today’s spoken-word poets don’t care too much for
grammar rules, prescriptivist language, or old-fashioned literary
devices. What they do care about is poetry as a heightened (read:
“live”) form of expression. Most of today’s young stars came up during
the early 2000s, at a time when spoken word was dominated by
performing-arts majors like Saul Williams, who wanted to give the form
a Shakespearean quality. Thus, contemporary spoken word is not merely
spoken, but performed; it mostly occurs in a cutthroat,
one-on-one battle format called a poetry slam; and, as Russell Simmons’
Def Poetry Jam proved during its six-season lifespan on HBO, it
overlaps heavily with hip-hop. In fact, hip-hop and spoken word appear
to have a reciprocal relationship: Today’s poets borrow their cadence,
flow, syncopation, and slang from today’s rap artists; meanwhile, the
tightest rap artists in the game had their genesis in spoken word.

Which goes to explain why Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s annual Living
Word Festival
incorporates so much hip-hop into its annual ten-day
program. In fact, Joseph gives the word “hip-hop” a lot of latitude by
including not only live emcee performances but also hip-hop theater, an
annual graffiti battle (hosted by local muralist Estria Miyashiro), a
Hood Games skateboarding expo, scraper bikes, and a B-boy competition.
Now in its eighth year, the festival boasts its best lineup yet. It
kicks off with Live from the Edge, a fascinating
“fusion-theater” performance by the New York group Universe, held at
San Francisco’s CounterPULSE (1310 Mission St., 8 p.m., $10-$20).
Oakland-raised poet Chinaka Hodge will also present an excerpt from her
play Mirrors in Every Corner, co-commissioned by Living Word and
Intersection for the Arts, and directed by Joseph. Then, on Saturday,
comes the event to write home about. Called Life Is Living, it’s an
all-day celebration in West Oakland’s Defremery Park (16th St. at
Adeline St., 11 a.m.-5 p.m.), featuring Hood Games skateboard
concourses, Estria’s 3rd Annual Invitational Living Word Graffiti
Battle, a youth town hall on health-care reform sponsored by President
Obama’s nonprofit Organizing for America, and performances by Linda
Tillery & the Cultural Heritage Choir, Kev Choice Ensemble, and
Pharoahe Monch — an emcee whose intricate, narrative rap style
draws heavily on the spoken-word form.

Living Word caps off next week with the Oct. 17 Brave New Voices
Teachers’ Conference at Lick Wilmerding High School (755 Ocean Ave.,
San Francisco), and a gospel-oriented event held at 2 p.m. the
following day in Glide Memorial Church (300 Ellis St., San Francisco),
during which YouthSpeaks poets will showcase material about faith.
Music will obviously be a huge draw at this year’s Living Word, not to
mention that the words will have a musical quality. Perhaps that’s what
brings them to life. Oct. 8-18. YouthSpeaks.org

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

East Bay Express E-edition East Bay Express E-edition
19,045FansLike
14,598FollowersFollow
61,790FollowersFollow
spot_img