Art & Style
Brave New Voices Offers Youth Platform for Expression
The annual Brave New Voices Youth Poetry Slam Festival, recently aired on HBO, offers teenagers from around the world a platform for spoken word, civic engagement, and youth development.
By Yaro Celis
Human Nature magazine
LOS ANGELES — Tim Woods II, a 20 year-old poet from Houston, says he writes poems about “whatever pulls or pushes me.”
This past summer at the Brave New Voices Poetry Festival in Los Angeles, Woods took to the stage to deliver a gripping poem that addressed human damage to the environment.
“The only color that matters now is green,” Woods annotated. “…a cheap paper-like imitation, with a uncanny resemblance to what we destroy everyday is now the sole we reason we breath. “
Free expression reigned supreme at the 13th Annual Brave New Voices poetry series, which features teams of teenage poets from across the nation competing in a poetry slam.
The emotional, creative and inspiring poetry was recently captured by HBO, who aired competition’s final round Oct. 23. In the Brave New Voices finale, which was hosted by hip-hop artist Common and actress Rosario Dawson, featured teams from New York, Denver, Albuquerque and the Bay Area competing with their best spoke word poems.
Brently Caballero, a 21-year poet from Austin, TX, has been attending the Braves New Voices competition since 2006. Caballero says in poetry he seeks take the audience out of their comfort zone.
“I’m hoping to affect people in a way they wouldn’t want to be affected…to make them a little bit awkward because our comfortability has put us in a place we really can’t be for a very long time,” Caballero says.
Judges for the poetry slam included poet Mayda Del Valle, from HBO’s “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry”; TV host Penn Jillette, “Penn & Teller: Bullshit!”; hip-hop artist Talib Kweli; actress Sanaa Lathan, and poet Beau Sia from “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry.” The televised finale was co-produced by Stan Lathan and Russell Simmons, creators of HBO’s Def Comedy Jam series.
Ultimately, it was the New York team that won this year’s competition, with a series of emotional and creative presentations.
The Brave New Voices Youth Poetry Slam Festival, which is organized by the spoken word non-profit Youth Speaks, has quickly become the largest youth poetry festival in the world.
This year’s event was held in Los Angeles, with more than 600 youth in attendance for five days of spoken word, civic engagement, and youth development programs. The festival also included the Brave New Teachers Conference, a professional development event exploring the educational properties of spoken word.
“It really represents the voice of 21st century America,” says James Kass, Executive director of Youth Speaks and founder of the Brave New Voices poetry slam. “It’s about the changing demographics, it’s about art, it’s about education, it’s about civic engagement. If you’re interested in hearing what teenagers in America are talking about then Brave New Voices is where it’s at.”
Brave New Voices was spawned in 1996 when Youth Speaks held a teen poetry slam in San Francisco, the first of its kind in the country. The slam generated so much interest that organization decided to expand to other parts of the country.
In 1998, the first year of the national Brave New Voices Festival, Kass says there were only four teams in the competition. This year, the roster has grown to 70 teams apply for slots in the competition.
This year’s event featured a timely competition that featured poems centered on global warming called Speak Green, which is a partnership with actor Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute. Van Jones, a renowned environmental advocate and President Barack Obama’s former Special Advisor for Green Jobs, was a speaker at the event.
Ceez Live, a 19 year-old poet from Philadelphia, was one of the performers in the Speak Green competition. In his poem, Ceez Live torn into former BP CEO Tony Hayward for his controversial comments during the recent Gulf oil spill.
Ceez Live said it was important for youth to be leaders in the going green movement. “This competition is important because it’s the youth, “Ceez live said. “The youth being the next generation the people who are going to become your presidents, your lawyers, your doctors and your environmentalists.”
Kass says he hopes that the Brave New Voices competition will help break down some of the barriers between the youth and older generations’ perception of them.
“My real hope is that this work will shift our perception in the country about what we think about teenagers,” Kass says. “I think a lot of times we’re scared of kids, so we invest in locking them up in jail but we don’t invest in their education really, we don’t invest in their development, or health and well-being. But to me, this is the future.”
Brave New Voices will be re-aired on HBO networks several time through Nov. 6. Please check your local listings here.
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