Once a month--during my good months--I go to a local coffee shop and perform a few pieces of poetry that I've written. Nothing about the performance is very formal, and viewers will come and go with their drinks, and the machinea grinding up beans is a constant drone in the background.
When I tell people that I read poetry, they automatically assume a few things about what I perform: It's brooding, it's Shakespearian, it's pastoral, it's love-sonnets, and it's cliché. While, on occasion, I perform a poem to celebrate a milestone of my girlfriend and I, those assumptions are typically wrong.
Poetry, like music, is an art form, and like music, it takes many different forms, styles and meanings. Children grow up thinking all poetry follows Dr. Seuss, or Poe, or Silverstein, full of ABAB rhyme scheme and fantastical words. We all love to read whimsical works like this--but as adults, we know that art is often able to convey emotions and thoughts that cannot as easily be written down, or merely said.
My poetry is an opportunity to present an audience with perspectives they may be unwilling to entertain on their own. I bet on performing to a "captive audience", men and women sitting and waiting for their drinks, waiting for a friend to follow my performance, or otherwise unable to leave. My poetry, my art form, is my personal form of protest.
I take what many assume to be a vehicle of lilting, flamboyant phrases and passion-drenched promises, and instead use it to drive hard-hitting topics to my listeners' ears. I speak loud and strong, with emotion--sometimes bordering on hot tears--on race, on history, on politics and strife of the past. Sometimes, it borders on a rap piece, because the lyrics are harsh and cutting, accusatory and biting. I turn my art into a political statement, into a chant against my personal oppressions, against the challenges of racism and bigotry, intollerance and hate.
Art is capable of soothing, of eliciting emotions, of causing contemplation. But, it is also capable of protecting anger, of protecting pride and hope, fear and confusion. To take the expectation of sonnets on nature, or haiku, or childlike rhyming, and instead deliver words that break comfort zones and forcefully initiate conversations of controversial topics, is simultaneously empowering and terrifying.
You see the angry glance from the audience, the disapproving head turn, the tensing of a body, and you wonder if you crossed an invisible line in the room. But the protest lies in continuing: Continuing to defy the status quo, the "acceptable" means of producing art, shattering the expectation of mediocrity and peacefulness. The poetry is a challenge to what poetry is supposed to be in a casual coffee house. And the poetry is a protest, because you have instilled words of discontent, of unrest and an unwillingness to simply accept the state of things.
I go to a local coffee shop once a month to perform a few pieces of poetry that I have written. And when I walk on to that stage, I tell myself I'm facing both friend and foe with my words--and I speak to reassure the friend, and challenge the foe.
