I went to the second poetry slam held at Humphrey's in New Haven. This bi-monthly event is organized and hosted by my colleague Croilot. He believes in light, love and truth. I'm grateful for our paths merging.
The slam was awesome. The poets were so giving of themselves. These poets shared the deep, the dark, and the hope.
I will work on posting some of the poetry delivered by the poet that earned the judges favor. It was also so cool that he was the crowd favorite.
During Summer school my students leaped out of the comfort zone and offered their own original poetry, to an audience of their peers.
Here was my attempt at waxing poetic during the event. I got up there and recited my poem. My voiced cracked at times.
I kept going because the risk I took was nothing compared to what my students faced with honesty and bravery.
American CheeseI’m from the land of milk and little money
A world where pennies mattered
A place where Mami would send me to the corner bodega
To buy a dollar’s worth of ham, sliced real thin
So that there would be enough to go around
These slices of swine were paid with 100 pennies
Wrapped in aluminum foil
It went all so well with the sloppy slices cut from
A big thick block of government cheese
Cheese in a yellow color I never saw in nature
A cheese that had 10% milk
A Cheese where the ingredient of milk was an afterthought
And it was called American.
