ad-free
Channel / Source:
TEDx Talks
Published: 2017-08-29
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2AeDs8ljvw
the fastest way to kill a poetry performances to be generic the fastest way to kill a dream is to suffocate squeeze out every last with which it between the words realistic and unattainable wrapped in blankets of self doubt until it it has no place here ostracized and outcast until no one recognizes that space or speaks its name kill off passion make sure that if the dream
ever dares to show its face here again the dream has no friends and no where to stay so when they tell you anything you want they mean something within reason within the constructs of society that dictates what is acceptable find a job that is acceptable financial a silent movie on repeat when I tell them I'm a poet when I tell them I am a poet they
look at me like a failed business ventures sorry we can't be with you all cost but we have a stronger proposal poets and entrepreneurs but to convey convenience we used to convince ourselves that our dreams are worthless but we are worth less than is customary convicting us with no judge effect biking jury your honor I move to dismiss the motion of the notion of the he
was quote status quo you can't call my concern yes you can direct quote me on that let's recap they say they like my flow but I know that means that we object to this rejection let the record show we know it is never about the final destination badly we want to get their this is for people who want to get there the underdogs who know they
can beat the odds with that is clearly stacked against them these are people who know what can happen when muggles believe in magic they look through horizons like Frodo leaving the shire scared but determined they're not mismatched they're perfectly placed apostrophe difference between what I owe you up posture B. R. E. Edward this is about survivors like skin grow thick like armor writing through life like
a battlefield your knuckles bruised from knocking on doors that said they'd never open because our ideas were never good enough but I think people the same people rejecting us are the same people who use the flower crowned filter through that Snapchat was a startup those who thought the makers of chains like monsters in boxes and bedtime stories forced to roam around under cover of darkness the
ones who forgot how sleep feels because their dreams are more and yes no wonder it's a two way it was made for the artists we know this is not the quickest way to become famous it is about looking at what is in figuring out how to change it is about life flopping you across the face and you scream back I got this voice is me is
me being asked to spell the word unnecessary in the sixth grade spelling bee replacing the seed when it S. two S. is with over my words not seeing what I was saying stuttering stage in shame and coming back a slam queen this is for him who knows is up can revolutionize the way we see business saves his allowance because investors won't take a chance on someone
or even just a dream and a business plan under the age of shin I can outshine the stars in a voice like an anthem we've lost too many stars this life brutal clenched is not a motivational speech the call to create communities of creators engineers of ideas it is knowing that no amount of training and social conditioning can change what you believe and so open your
hearts out welcome porch light starless night far too dreams no no I love I am I'm afraid to even though they tell you to snap at me or something you like but I don't want a plus if you're something you love please I let me know that I'm doing a good job I love spoken word poetry I'm a spoken word %HESITATION poets and spoken word basically
is %HESITATION poetry that demands to be experience or something about spoken word that leaps off the page and if it comes to the stage it's it's meant to be experienced as a holistic artistic just and involvement and it's it's something that I did something that I love I mean the only thing that it's like it's food and spoken word poetry there is really nothing there is
really nothing in the and %HESITATION spoken word poetry I mean that's the key no definition but let's face it there's nothing conventional about me at all and I tried to figure out a definition that wasn't as conventional something that was different and so I started looking and the most beautiful definition that I found for spoken word poetry is %HESITATION a lot of people say it's a
shot in my book but I prefer to call it a shot of hot %HESITATION that literally translates to free verse poetry but what I love about it is that it's not actually free verse poetry so shouldn't count is the shit out Billy to help a lot but it wasn't what coffee and so it's poetry the has been liberated from the confines of meter and rhyme how
amazing is when I started this %HESITATION doing poetry I I I had this idea as many people do that it's something new and I'm doing some the colleges might move and this is me and I'm gonna stage they're gonna cop for me and yeah and you know and we're gonna get fat afterwards obviously trips there are a lot of people who think that %HESITATION spoken word
poetry is is new and I would respectfully disagree with that's because it's not new to the region if you look at people like %HESITATION but the shock say out if you look at NAS commit I can these are people who have been practicing this this art form of free verse poetry for a very long time within the region so they're in there I'm very proud and
blessed and humbled to be part of that a key part of that legacy that continuing journey and so when I started doing spoken word poetry I started talking about you know you you think big they tell you to think bank think don't think this but think about big think big enough that you can't even figure idea into a room and would never want to and so
I started writing about all of the things that bothered me about the work I started talking about the big issues in the things that I thought my poetry was going to change and what happened was I started losing myself became very externalized it was me looking up these issues talk when I look at these poems and I think okay that's great when it's talk on these
issues but where is a thrilling officials so official a host of had more fully and so I started telling my story and I wanted to talk about things that were relatable in so I went back to my childhood on the quintessential quintessential middle child if I tell you anything about me and %HESITATION I wanted to write a poem about my childhood so this is a poem
about my childhood and %HESITATION here something you'd like a cop and yeah the smoke but Pacific what you have done that I think about yeah yeah shout a bit out of me when I think about childhood I think about innocence I think about backyard swings and tires things the good old days Yamabe it has been more than ten years since I've seen the inside of a
classroom with a fifteen since I've seen a block or to talk I remember the days we had a blackboard I remember when you couldn't talk the talk you needed to walk the walk in the playground I remember when you couldn't wait to get the fourth grade because that may you didn't have to write with pencils riven a pretty pens I remember when you bought a home
cut and the quantum got to to pull the cook to develop a style and doesn't go passing notes in class I think notes in class are you my friend circle yes or no circle yes or no certainly externally always wrote maybe back to the days when punishment was I thought go stand in the back of the class turned around take one foot off the ground and
state I stay there but as soon as the teacher would turn his back I would say establishment of come on no one cares about calculus were never going to use it again don't like to we talked we talked through MSN messenger and nothing says embarrassment like your first username and yes I'm looking up to my door clam up because I couldn't reach you for the job
hundreds weekends were special weekends were from watching the birthday parties when the cake with captain Majid came out nobody paused I say let him up we learned about relationships in Korean to pay and let's face it everyone wanted to have an uncle Jesse entertainment one month watching TV and not counting likes and repost drama was built in the beautiful we watched VHS on tiny screens and
will Smith was the freshest fresh prince relationships were often none of this instant still like instability it's the I'd tag points toward with is installed now I drown my institution my we played Tara my dear dear Atari Xbox has nothing on you an iPad can't compare with your with your better than set up PS two three four Nintendo Cuban sixty four all rolled into one of
my favorite song though we started with Donna doneness Nokia phones Nokia phones taught us about pain when it says some texts may be missing something is missing stricken from the record for the record I we we survived the break up of Boyzone Backstreet boys and NSYNC Britney spears and Justin Timberlake we remember once upon to bring a cat hair because we were the kings and queens
of image we were nineties we're the generations of tape recorders and walkmans before their MP threes and DVDs were the nights of my time are you afraid of the dark spirit that graphic to may or may not have had spice before the plain white tees showed up we are the gene of crystal maze have the memory stored on floppy disks we are we are viewfinders where
birthday parties in hardy's we are hated by not we are at the handsome sum a blob would apply the all five have now become via Prada forced to be reckoned with for all the world to see would you please so if you are like me and you're feeling slightly old after things %HESITATION it was a good time and I think that times were I think that
times were simpler and you know that when you know they tell you things like how many times have you heard this follow your heart go confidently towards the direction of your dreams the journey of a thousand miles starts with one step nobody tells you that it's one step in the next ninety stops and week they tell you to shoot for the moon they tell you all
of these motivational things but nobody actually tells you that the reality of going after her dreams and finding something that you love is actually it's beautiful but it's also painful and very very ugly nobody tells you that when you follow your dreams I used to be %HESITATION had a very corporate cushy job and I left that job to become a poet and so now I'm a
full time poet and I've never been happier but it hasn't been easy nobody tells you that when you decide to follow your dreams and pursue your passions you are going to end up with less friends when you started out with nobody tells you that they're going to be days when you don't even want to get out of bed nobody's gonna tell you that things are maybe
not going to workout you're gonna hit seventy five speed bumps before you get like I know this much of like normalcy and then you go back to the speed but nobody tells you this that there are no green lights in the land of stops and I'm not here to discourage you from pursuing what it is that you want I love poetry and I love performance as
much as I love food and I was very hard for me to admit but the thing is when you do when you find that thing that that makes you have and sometimes it's a purse I have found that the stuff I am told that there will be a person yeah but when you find those those things that make you happy it's it's completely worth it and
I think with poetry the people often underestimate poetry how have you walked in here today thing arts poachers can be really boring you can tell me it's okay it's like one hand in the audience okay I know that there's more but it's okay but the thing is we underestimate the weight of words so I'm going to share personal story and then and with the poem %HESITATION
the personal story which nobody before Ted exposure has heard %HESITATION when I was twelve years old a long long time ago when I was twelve years old there was a boy and this boy was talking to one of his friends and he said all we heard school buses we heard that you like after twelve years old no the boy said the boy said I could never
love after she's ugly twelve years old I have carried that with me for the past twenty years so I will defy anyone who tells me that words are just words because they are never just worked we know happened as I carried that way for twenty years and then I wrote a poem about it twenty years later as I wrote a poem about it and I I
performed and I I put it on I think I put on you to broaden the reply but it put it out there and when you do when you perform poetry when baring your soul it is literally like taking your soul and putting it here this is my and I put it out there and I get this message on on social media from this girl she says
I went through that and I didn't know what to say I thought it was a one off thing I thought it was me and in her in her thing she says I went through that and it helped me that you were talking about this and I know that I'm not alone I know that I'm not the only and this is my message if you forget anything
that I have said to you in the last I don't know how long it's been the last ten minutes if you do not remember anything else from what I tell you are what I say or you laughter you snap in poetry reproduce you are important your stories are important your words matter you matter and this is what I call to she said you showed me that
I matter and I a cry for a couple of hours after that night I I have her letter like I printed out the night my friend and so on days when I feel like I can't do this and I don't want to do this and I want people to see my soul that I want no I don't want people to know past twenty years I've been
you know think about founded flung said he could never Love Me but he's not too by the way vannatter and the it's it's a constant reminder that things are worth it and that your words matter and so I want to leave you with this last poem it's called an open letter to Sir and poetry forces you to confront things that you would never normally confront so
I this is an open letter to concerts very personal poem it's a very special poem because it %HESITATION is an award winning poem it's a poem that won the ability music and art foundation creativity award and it was the only poem that's everyone this award I click for me it's like Fitbit reminds me this political edition this was that the fine but said okay this is