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Catching up on my Defness
Dec. 1st, 2005 08:44 pmSo, after years of only catching occasional clips, I finally sat down and watched the entire first seaon of "Def Poetry Jam." And you know what? I didn't hate it. I mean, it's not like it was stellar or anything, but hey, I can sit through 2 hours of mediocre poetry any night of the week, and it least with this we heckle out loud.
But no, didn't hate it. Obviously, I liked the bits by Nikki Giovanni (So I hear you're a rap star now?" snerk!), Sonia Sanchez and the Last Poets, all of whom I normally like, although the Amiri Baraka bit didn't do it for me. And Willie Perdomo, as always, blew me away.
Even a couple nice surprises along the way -- like Shihan's poem better there than when I've seen it before, and Beau Sia & Poetri amused me. Didn't hate Jewel as much as I usually do, but the poetry voice needs to go. Oh my, yes it does.
What struck me most was how little vulnerbility in the work. That's a fault you find in a lot of the performance poetry these days, where the political rhetoric, comic timing and frenetic anger often serve to obscure emotion as much as they convey ideas. They make it difficult for what's human in a listener to connect with what's human in the poet.
Perhaps that's why Dawn Saylor's performance stood out so much for me -- she really lets real emotion shien through. Oddly, the other one I saw that in was Cedric the Entertainer, who managed to convey a sort of humility and respect in his otherwise straight-forward funny piece.
It was an odd experience, and I know full-well my own work wouldn't work in that format. And a lot of it was trash, but hey. Whatever. I still don't think I wasted my time.
But no, didn't hate it. Obviously, I liked the bits by Nikki Giovanni (So I hear you're a rap star now?" snerk!), Sonia Sanchez and the Last Poets, all of whom I normally like, although the Amiri Baraka bit didn't do it for me. And Willie Perdomo, as always, blew me away.
Even a couple nice surprises along the way -- like Shihan's poem better there than when I've seen it before, and Beau Sia & Poetri amused me. Didn't hate Jewel as much as I usually do, but the poetry voice needs to go. Oh my, yes it does.
What struck me most was how little vulnerbility in the work. That's a fault you find in a lot of the performance poetry these days, where the political rhetoric, comic timing and frenetic anger often serve to obscure emotion as much as they convey ideas. They make it difficult for what's human in a listener to connect with what's human in the poet.
Perhaps that's why Dawn Saylor's performance stood out so much for me -- she really lets real emotion shien through. Oddly, the other one I saw that in was Cedric the Entertainer, who managed to convey a sort of humility and respect in his otherwise straight-forward funny piece.
It was an odd experience, and I know full-well my own work wouldn't work in that format. And a lot of it was trash, but hey. Whatever. I still don't think I wasted my time.
