Jibber Jabber was crowded, though few people had come prepared to read. Ryan opened the evening with a few poems he read from his own little book of poems. The first was called “Down There”, and it was a hilarious and playful piece that culminated in feeding a turtle. The next poem was a piece about his grandmother. He called her a saint while claiming that he’s just the opposite. Naturally, this makes conversation about serious topics challenging. For instance, “she’s a saint, so gossip’s out.” However, this comical opening led into a serious critique of the problems within the church that culminates in a comical reprimand form the grandmother as she observes that the narrator really just doesn’t want to wake up early on Sundays.
Nicole read next. It was her first time at the microphone, and she read quickly and seemed nervous. Her poems seemed good, but it was hard to hear let alone fully appreciate them. The first discussed dead bugs and the second was a wry, comical piece about boogers.
I read next, Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California”.
When Dave took the stage with his guitar, I expected his focus on the music. However, his lyrics were powerful and prominent. Prior to performing the first piece, he plugged the record he’s about to record. This first song, “Best Friend,” was all about the bond of love and friendship he shares with his lover. He had a nice voice, and his guitar playing was minimal. He talked between songs and plugged his next performance. Dave’s next song, “Everything’s going to be Allright,” was a new song with syncopated, rapid lyrics.
Ryan next performed a new slam piece which punned upon technological terms and computer jargon to describe a relationship. “Baby, you’re the Wikipedia of my soul,” he began. “Like asdfjkl;”, he said, “you’re like my home row.” However, when the relationship went sour, he realized that “I only have three words for a user like you; ‘control, alt, delete’”. It was absolutely hilarious, and the audience loved it. Ryan next performed the piece about how his father is a hypocrite; he serves for the military and claims religiosity, but actually acts counter to many of his professed beliefs. “My father was the hand of God,” Ryan said, “which is how I know he swings to the right”. He described how the military seduces young men “with words like honor, strength, and character”, but really fails to deliver. Instead, Ryan called upon the United States to “drop knowledge” and to spread good rather than war.
Ryan then introduced Liz Bowen, the featured poet. Originally from Hartford County, she’s now a sophomore at Fordham University where she is studying languages. Though young, she is a Grand Slam Champion and placed on the Baltimore Slamicide team twice. She actually looked a little like Professor Wheeler. She’d started writing when she was 15, and then started performing when she was 16.
Her first poem opens by describing a man with a record-breaking ability to hold his breath. She shifts to discuss the travails and sufferings of beaten women. She culminates by describing the creative power of women, wondering “did anybody stop to think maybe God had a wife…or was a woman.” She tells how there are “no men on the moon”, and Liz culminated by uniting herself with the audience. “We are women, now breathe”.
Liz then described how she was going to try out a few new pieces. The first transitioned from fossils to the fossilized memory of her first love. “I was reading the Polar Express when he asked me to marry him”, she says of her preschool love before continuing to tell how she wishes love was still so simple. She says of remembered loves that “they wouldn’t die if we didn’t let them”.
Her next piece was called “Karopan” (phonetically spelled), and this described Honor Killings in Pakistan, working from the perspective of a mother confessing to her daughter the story. “I named you ‘Nawa’, which means ‘secret’ in God’s language”, the woman tells her child. She was born of love, not of an arranged marriage, which means that the mother may be killed by a family who does not approve. “We are their mothers and their whores,” she says of women. “We are martyrs of our beauty”.
Another new piece, Liz presented one she’d written that morning about dating in a mixed race relationship. In particular, she described how she talked about her partner to her grandparents, revealing his Caribbean/Thai heritage. His “skin was the color of the world” and “love is not a black or white issue”. She says that we “are brightest when we are together like light separated into colors”.
Liz wrote a piece discussing how she missed Baltimore, the good and the bad. Her final poem was a powerful piece about abortion and responsibility. In it, she described a woman who had received $100 from the man who impregnated her. “It was the least he could do”, he said, and she agreed. He left her with the heart wrenching decision of whether to abort and how to approach the issue. “I wonder how someone so obsessed with creativity can care so little e about what he creates,” she wonders.
