My other pen is poetry. The first time I read at an open mic was in Harlem’s legendary Frank Silvera Workshop. I had just begun teaching writing to young incarcerated males on Rikers Island and was introducing them to names like Sonya Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Wole Soyinka and other wordsmiths I studied during my undergraduate years at CCNY. And in turn, they introduced me to the new generation of jalis who we now know as KRS-ONE, Tupac Shakur, Lauryn Hill, Mos Def, The Roots, Chuck D, Talib Kweli; and still keeping the focus on community, Kendrick Lamar.
Mention my name at Sister’s Bookstore and Café, and you’ll hear stories of me and other local griots harmonizing through word. You can also find me in the very first issue of J Journal – New Writing on Justice of John Jay College (CUNY); Durham Center for Documentary Studies; and Chicken Bones, the coolest on-line pan-African think tank. Whether it takes three pages to say it or one word says it all, the human expression on paper and in art form allows us to continue the tradition of interpreting the complexities and contradictions of life, and of the self.
"The art of poetry, for as far back as has been recorded, has generally served as an undercurrent narrative that is separate, and in most cases, in direct opposition to mainstream thinking. To see poetry evolve to become the voice of an alternate viewpoint is to witness the continuing arc of an art that, at its core, is one of the purest forms of expression. Today's poets, from Hip-Hop artists chanting stories of urban challenges and triumphs in rhythmic cadence to Slam Poets, reciting with captivating verbal dexterity the nuances of their own stories, they are all following in the tradition. There have been movements and shifts. But the evolution of urban poetry has become more powerful. Our words now are opportunities for healing. They gave us the microphone and the stage that we lacked in the 1960's when, until communities started burning down, our rallies and meetings were merely back-page news. Our voices have never been louder or stronger. Our platform for expression, never larger. It is the job of the modern griot to use this to their fullest advantage and make way for even more voices."
--Keith Horton