{"id":5301,"date":"2012-02-02T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/?p=5301"},"modified":"2012-02-06T10:22:56","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T15:22:56","slug":"poetry-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/2012\/02\/poetry-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"POETRY IN ACTION"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Vicky Dickson<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"reader.100\" width=\"100\" height=\"100\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4092\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/reader.100-80x80.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 100px) 100vw, 100px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nTo those of us who grew up thinking of poetry as a formal, somewhat stilted art form, the whole notion of a poetry slam can seem anomalous.<!--more--> Not to mention intimidating: The idea of choosing to stand in front of a group of strangers and deliver a deeply personal poem of one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own creation \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a poem that is publicly judged in terms of both content and delivery \u00e2\u20ac\u201c well, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nearly incomprehensible.<\/p>\n<p>Until, that is, you start to get a sense of what the spoken word movement is all about. Until you talk to poets like Will McInerney, whose performance of his poem \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Life upon Life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at last fall\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Flyleaf launch of <em>27 Views of Chapel Hill<\/em> brought the house down.<br \/>\n<figure id=\"attachment_5302\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5302\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Reader1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Reader1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Reader1\" width=\"350\" height=\"490\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5302\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Reader1.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Reader1-214x300.jpg 214w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5302\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Will McInerney in Beit Jala in the Palestinian West Bank, where he taught poetry classes. Photo by Dana Abu-Dayyeh<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell our own stories, someone else will, and they will surely mess it up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the Chapel Hill native and UNC graduate says. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We are the only experts on ourselves, so we must embrace our roles as the bearers and transmitters of our own stories. Through telling our own stories, we not only can help ourselves grow, but we can help others who have experienced similar things cope with their own stories and experiences.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>McInerney himself grew up not knowing or caring much about poetry. But then his high school English teacher, Michael Irwin, and his longtime friend Kane Smego became an inspiration: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Their work with poetry and education were the sparks that pushed me toward poetry.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d So McInerney joined the Chapel Hill Slam Team, shortly before it changed its name to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sacrificial Poets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in homage to fellow poet Ira Yarmolenko (who was murdered in May 2008).<\/p>\n<p>He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now co-director of Sacrificial Poets\/YouTH ink, which has evolved into a poetry organization devoted to fostering social transformation. As McInerney sees it, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spoken word holds a unique and powerful place as an artistic medium suited for protest and popular movements. By appealing to people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s emotions, focusing on people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stories and utilizing the power of the human voice, spoken word works as a strategic and influential political vehicle.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taken that belief to protests against racism at UNC and gentrification in Northside, as well as to public school classrooms in Chapel Hill and Durham. In 2010, McInernery was invited to teach high school students in the Palestinian West Bank how to use poetry as a means of nonviolent resistance. <\/p>\n<p>Those experiences just whetted McInerney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appetite for pushing his own boundaries, so he and Smego (Sacrificial Poets\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 artistic director) conceived the <em>Poetic Portraits of a Revolution<\/em> project as a way of using \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the power and perspective of art to examine the complex and intertwining human stories that make up these popular movements in North Africa.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>The two, along with photographer Sameer Abdel-khalek and translator and spoken-word artist Mohammad Moussa, spent two months in Egypt and Tunisia this past summer, and returned with a collection of riveting poems and pictures that help to put a human face to the political upheaval. They presented some of their work at the recent TedxUNC conference, and are developing a theatrical performance out of their material that will debut in the beginning of March at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro.<\/p>\n<p>McInerney says that his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153experience with Sacrificial Poets has had a huge impact on my desire to continue working to change the structures of inequality that make up our world.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eventually, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to become a human rights lawyer \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00c2\u00a0a career for which all that experience getting up in front of people and telling deeply personal stories will undoubtedly stand him in good stead.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about the Sacrificial Poets, come to <strong>Flyleaf Books<\/strong> the first Wednesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. for the Sacrificial Poets Touchstone Open Mic. The event is open to people of all ages, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sure to witness some amazing talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Vicky Dickson To those of us who grew up thinking of poetry as a formal, somewhat stilted art form, the whole notion of a poetry slam can seem anomalous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5301"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5304,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5301\/revisions\/5304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/mill\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}