Not many people in this world can so freely speak their minds, especially about their federal government. Over the years, U.S. citizens have found many different and creative ways to take advantage of the First Amendment. The ’60s sparked a new way of getting the point across. People began to use their poetic talents to entertain and inspire anyone who would listen. These traditions carry on today and are now known as a large form of entertainment across the country such as Def Poetry Jams and National Poetry Slams.
WCU’s Student Activities Council (SAC) brought in two national champion poets to host and entertain Spoken Word Night: “Creative Minds” on Friday, November 3. Admission was free and about 30 students took advantage of the night’s entertainment.
Rives and Carlos Gomez performed several poems and also allowed students the stage to free style and read their original poems.
Gomez recited a poem about boxes which was a metaphor for stereotypes, in which he explained his feelings on how people always tried to put him in a specific box because of his half Colombian heritage.
He also performed a poem about genocide which he related back to his time spent as a teacher in New York. He explains in the poem that his supervisors and principals told him he must teach poetry without using profanity. He responds to them that he does not understand why profanity is such a problem when there are 13- year-old girls infected with HIV and teachers are not allowed to suggest the use of condoms to their students.
Carlos Andres Gomez is a former social worker and teacher who has become a well-known poet and AIDS awareness facilitator.
He uses his first hand experiences spending three months in Africa working with HIV+ youth to educate people all over the world on HIV/AIDS with poetry. Since his return from Africa, Carlos has performed poetry at over 100 colleges and universities and toured across North America, Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa. Carlos also ran an HIV/AIDS educational college tour called the “Fight Apathy Tour.”
Gomez tells a specific story in the poem where he began a class one day by asking his students if they knew what the Holocaust was. Most answered yes. He then asked them if they knew of the Rowanda genocide. One student slowly raised his hand and then quickly put it back down after being asked to explain it. Quickly, another student asked, “What’s genocide?” The rest of his poem relays many messages of the terrible things that go on in the world.
He has gained much recognition in the poetry world as he became the 2004 Mid-Atlantic Spoken Word Festival Grand Slam Champion and won the 2004 North Carolina Poetry Grand Slam. Most recently, Gomez has gained increasing attention as an actor and appeared in the Spike Lee film “Inside Man” alongside Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Clive Owen.
Rives was a cast member of the Tony Award-winning Broadway production that brought Def Poetry Jam to the UK and his slam team, Team Hollywood, won the national Poetry Slam title in 2004, as seen in the documentary “Slam Planet.”
Rives was also the Los Feliz Team Grand Slam Champ for 2002, and the winner of the Berlin International Poetry Slam last October. At the 2002 National Poetry Slam in Minneapolis, Rives’ impromptu free-style about his fellow competitors on the Finals Night stage earned him a standing ovation from the crowd.
Rives style of poetry was a little less of world issues and more of pure entertainment. For his last poem, he first explained to the audience that he had always wanted to be able to tell a poem in a way that had the entire audience picturing the same thing that he was trying to explain.
He recited a poem about a hobo in a comic strip, so detailed in a way that it would be nearly impossible for each person in the audience to not have the same picture in their head. It was almost as if the comic strip moved through the audience’s minds.
Gomez and Rives brought many books and CDs which were on sale at the end of the night. To read some of their poetry, Rives’ site is shopliftwindchimes.com.