Anything goes during Pride Week….no stone will be left unturned, there will not be anything unheard or unsaid….there will be music, and food and oh…wait a moment….did someone say POETRY?
The Eastside Poetry Gathering washed the audience in the sea of Babylon back in April for National Poetry Month. You can hear about it here, you can see it on the websites, but you can’t experience spoken word without being in the midst.
Poets Lewis CoIyar and Jessica Levine, Vincent Zepp, Lioness and Germaine Carter aka Kassa Lewis put the evening’s entertaintenment together. This June, you will see these spoken word and literary kings and queens first hand.
Jes offered the sacrificial poem to the stage with the Poet’s Ladder that night then released the microphone to the poets. But first the Zepp pulled a 180 and turned the microphone to Amsterdam.
Lewis CoIyar read from Langston Hughes, and featured poets from his foundation the Langston Hughes Poetry Society of Pittsburgh, taking things back to 1938. Then Lioness grabbed the mic and with a Slave Narrative she set off the night, for smooth sounds and amazing beats alongside a friend of poetry.
Lioness and Bekezela Mguni from the Westinghouse Lighthouse program, featured a young man from the High School. “The young man inspired every person in the audience,” said Jessica Levine the host of the night and Sales Manager forthe Borders. The two women from the program, as leaders and partners, agreed to a roundtable discussion with women of the community. “Poetry is a powerful tool of inspiration,” said Jessica Levine, “When Chassity offered a round table discussion to talk about sexuality, with women among women, I was hooked.”
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All of the beautiful women that came to the stage were magnificent with strong roots and strong dreams. One man before leaving the bookstore for the night, asked, Will there be more? I just stopped in here and stayed for three hours! He said.
Before the mic was hot, now the thing was on fire, and stepped to the stage was none other than wordsmith Sarah Fitzgerald.
In Memphis, “where should I walk?” asked spoken word queen Vanessa German to a woman walking by her on the street. Just follow the river the woman said. “I walked 1 1/2 mile to the National Civil Rights Museum,” and it looks like nothing moved from the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot on April 4th 1968, she observed while spinning her story to the audience.
Vanessa German, closed the show with a powerful piece and left the microphone empty, but the fire still burns. She will be one of the featured entertainers on the stage at PrideFest, on Sunday June 22nd.
German looks up to room 304 and tells the story of reliving dreams and following the path of Justice. “You cannot kill justice…hope….love,” and she asked one question to the audience. If you could go anywhere and cry without fear or shame, where would you go? She was in Memphis for the 40th anniversary of MLK’s death, she spent a day and a half there and traveled Boston.
This year at PrideFest we will get to see her again, she will be featuring her show, “Testify” on the 20th and 21 st at Harris Theatre, with a special appearance on the stage at PrideFest!
Don’t miss out on the other amazing works of poetry and sound happening all week during Pride. The Queer Cafe will also be a hot ticket spot for the young and old on the streets of Liberty during PrideFest, Sunday, June 22nd
For everything in between you simply have to walk down Liberty Avenue either on the Saturday, or Sunday of Pride Week, but don’t forget the corners of the city and the three rivers because you can follow the dreams of poets around the city all week.
