Holy Thursday

In honor of Holy Thursday I'm posting a slam poem by Karen Grace called "Push: On Holy Thursday":

Deaf Slam Time

Ok. This is my final slam poetry post. At least, for now.

All of my other slams were videos with speaking and since they weren't captioned they were horridly inaccessible. For today's slam I'm going in the opposite direction and posting a very famous ASL poem by Clayton Valli called "Dandelion":

Basically the poem describes someone removing dandelions, mowing them over, etc but every time they do the seeds scatter and create more dandelions. The dandelion remover in the poem represents the hearing community and dandelions are the Deaf and Deaf culture. Every time the hearing try to mow over them, the Deaf not only come back but spread. The poem echoes attempts to get rid of ASL in deaf residential schools.

This poem reminds me of a Mexican proverb I really love that's used a lot by the Zapatistas: "Quisieron enterrarnos, peru no sabian que somos semillas." In English it translates to "They tried to bury us, but they didn't know that we were seeds."

Black and white photo of a protest sign that says
"Quisieron enterrarnos, peru no sabian sue somos semilla."

Slam of the Week

This week's slam is Keith Jarrett performing "A Gay Poem":

Slam of the Week

Today's slam is Joanna Hoffman performing "Pride":

And on a side note - blogger does this neat map thing of where my website visitors are from by country. It's an aggregate - not creepily giving me your addresses or something. Anyway the top place was the USA which makes sense since I live there. The next two I don't understand at all: Russia and Portugal. I speak neither Russian nor Portuguese and while I do know some Russian ex-pats and an American who lived there for a while, I don't know a soul currently or formerly living in Portugal. I have more readers in each of these countries than I do in France, England, Australia, Spain, Israel, and Canada combined and those are all places where my friends live. So what gives? If you're living in Russia or Portugal, how did you manage to stumble upon my blog? 

Slam Time!

This is the last week of my slam poetry workshop. Wah! I may keep posting slam poetry for a while because I've kind of gotten into the groove of it. Anyway, this week's slam poem is Kai Davis performing "Homicidal Rainbow":

And although it's unrelated to slam, I'm just going to let you know that spring has sprung near my house in the form of this lovely tree:

Isn't it gorgeous?!

And also someone has painted a bunch of the utility boxes near my work in Harvard Square. I think it really brightens things up so I'm happy about it!

Box with an evil red panda and good normal panda
sitting on separate hills in front of mountains and sunset.

Box with a sunny beach scene.

Box with sunflowers on the front and a waterfall on the side.

Box with a rainbow, some cherry blossoms, and the ocean on it.

Slam of the Week

Today's slam is Javon Johnson performing "Cuz He's Black":

Slam of the Week!

This week's slam is Rachel Rostad performing "To JK Rowling, from Cho Chang":

And on an unrelated note I'm letting you know that because it's 4/20 Ben and Jerry's is having a buy two get one free deal on their Brrritos. Two scoops of ice cream, chocolate cookie crumbs, and fudge - wrapped in a waffle wrap. So personally I think you should use this opportunity to follow my brilliant plan. Get a friend to agree to buy a Brrrito if you buy one, then find a homeless person nearby and ask if they want to come along and get the free one. You get ice cream, your friend gets ice cream, and the brand new friend that you just met gets ice cream. And as an extra special bonus, you get to feel happy that you helped someone's day be more delicious than it otherwise would have been. Smart, right? What are you waiting for?!

Slam Poetry

Friends, I'm taking a French Slam Poetry Workshop at the Alliance Française of Boston. Today is the second week and so far the class is both exhilarating and terrifying. I've decided that for the duration of the class, I'm going to post a slam a week - in English since I my blog is in English and I want my monolingual English speaking friends to enjoy it.

Since this is week two and I just had this whole idea I'm going to post two videos for you to make up for the lack last week. The first is Gabe Moses performing "Stimming" and the second is Guante performing "Ten Responses to the Phrase 'Man Up'":

Maybe when I'm in France visiting my friends and taking my immersion classes, I'll ask around to see if I can find an open mic night where I can perform.