My art definitely comes from my political and social consciousness, but I’ve never been billed explicitly as such. It was inspiring to be part of this lineup. More, please!

At UnCommon Ground: Radical Poetry & Song for Right Here, Right Now, I opened with songs about how privilege gets passed down, the dread of living in a time when you have no rights, and how I don’t want to be “clean” when I die (with help from the always-lovely Emma Undine Wiegand!).

Ant Thomas gave us spoken word about shackles and also “looking for a brighter feeling”.

S.O.U.P. brought us a trio of strong performances based on personal experience.

Aurora Levins Morales taught us about tostones, how food can be revolution, reminded us that whoever you are, it is not too late.

Danny Bryck wowed me yet again with his spoken word and poetry about yearning and shame and work and change and hope.

Thanks to Georgia Lyman and Outside the Box for having us!

 

20 Jul This entry was published on July 20, 2015 at 7:32 pm. It’s filed under Music, My Work and tagged Ant Thomas, Aurora Levins Morales, Danny Bryck, Georgia Lyman, Outside the Box Festival, S.O.U.P., social consciousness, Society of Urban Poets. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.