Another forgotten page in the history of early hip-hop: The Art of Noise.
Nuthin would get a circle of breakers together faster than the break beats this group put together. I know I’m runnin short on ideas for 30/30 so I may have to return to this soundtrack again to drum up some more new poems. Soundtrack is embedded after the poem:
Close (to the Edit)
[Poem was here.]
Day 20 is the real crunch time for the 30/30 challenge as far as I’m concerned. It feels like the time when my ideas are running dry and it feels like I’m stealing from myself. It also feels like a good time to dig into my own personal toolbox of writing prompts and see what I can find in there.
I’m thinking that the hardest part about writing poems is the actual mechanics of poetry: line breaks, distinct syntax, metaphor and simile. If I can’t find those things in the first three lines, I just start to give up. What to do? Write what comes to mind while telling my internal editor to go out and get me a burger. Most times this leads to me writing prose (a very dangerous prospect for me since I don’t claim to be a prose writer), then worry later about shaping the poem. I’ve written at least two good poems with this technique and credit Patricia Smith for first putting me onto it.
Here’s the story which will become a poem:
Why A New Car Is More Dangerous Than An Old Girlfriend
[Poem was here.]
[Poem was here.]
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.]
Sketches and Testimony from the Undocumented
[Poem was here.]
