Slammin' the words

In the early 90s, I dragged my mom to a coffee house for a poetry reading. Some kid read a poem about "bloody turds in the toilet" like the day his girlfriend left him. I will never forget my introduction to a coffee house. What the heck was this poetry thing?

Fast forward to Kelly Ruff. She started a coffee house tradition at the Brown and that took off into student writing that got better and better every year. Anthologies were written. It evolved into Michael Turner doing spoken work, an invitation to Improv4Quarterbacks, a play with ten-minute scripts, and a fusion of the power of words.

I met word artists of many ages, and now I am seeing it alive, locally, as new schools try to begin such traditions. Open a mic and see what young people have to say. This, I believe, is the seed planted within me by my Grannie Annie of yesteryear. She taught me the art of words and the color purple. I found Alice Walker's novel on my mom's shelf and read it.

There's so much still needing to be written.