Category Archives: NaPoWriMo

NaPoWriMo #17: Eulogy – For Guru (1966-2010)


Guru.
Originally uploaded by Pieter Baert

I’m still workin through the deaths of Guru and Malcom McLaren. Two hip-hop pioneers with very little in common except for their desire to broaden their art. McLaren came to NYC to add some concrete to what was already a sensational (literally) career. Guru took it from BK to le Champs-Élysées to give hip-hop a deeper taste of jazzmatazz and did it with no apologies. Words manifest, indeed.

To help my figure it out on the page, I’ve created this collage poem from the titles of the Gang Starr and Jazzmatazz singles plus the names of the man himself. Peace.

Eulogy
For Guru (1966-2010)

[Poem was here.]

NaPoWriMo #15: Poem That Begins With a Line From My Spam Folder

Ya know I’m playin’ catch up here and tryin mah damnest to get this 30/30 challenge done.

For those looking for a writing prompt, try this: Before hitting delete, peep some of the titles of that random spam that hits your inbox. Some of it is high-la-ree-us and comes with a little bit of musicality to it.

Here’s my riff off one of my spam folder titles. For an added flavah, feel free to click the embedded YouTube at the bottom to give this poem a soundtrack to go to.

Poem That Begins With a Line From My Spam Folder

[Poem was here.]

NaPoWriMo #14: Tribute for Malcolm McLaren

I got word that Malcom McLaren passed away right as I was arriving in Denver for AWP and it really shook me up. Not in the same way it would if a friend or loved one passed but in the way that I feel a lil bit more of my childhood is slipping away.

I also feel a big sense of loss for the hip-hop culture as a big part of what made ole skool hip-hop also begins to disappear and by that I mean serious cross-collaboration. I’m not talkin’ bout a rapper laying some rhymes in the middle of a pop song or some glitzy marketing campaign jazzed up with a random lyric. I’m talkin’ bout the days when a DJ would dig deep in his crate and pull out the most left-field joint he could find and challenge the crowd to move to it. That was the true spirit of Afrika Bambaata and Kool Herc, not the auto-tune world it’s turned into.

Damn, I sound like such an old man.

Let’s take a step back and think: If young adults don’t even know the 40 year history of hip-hop; how do we expect them to know about the Civil Rights Movement, the Holocaust, Apartheid, United States Expansionism, the Aztecs, the Incans?

Yeah, I am an old man.

The quick hip-hop history you need to know is that not only was Malcolm McLaren the genius behind the Sex Pistols but he was also one of the first outsiders who saw the true possibility of hip-hop. How a dude from London walks into a house party in the late 70s Bronx and says, “This will be a global phenomenon,” is beyond me. Here’s the poem:

Tribute
for Malcolm McLaren

[Poem was here.]