V o l u m e I V, N u m b e r I V
Celebrating The Precious Human Tapestry
September 18, 2009
“Just once I need somebody to show me all [that] I can’t see” B.O.M.S kicks off with inspirational poet Iyeoka Okoawo
BY JUSTIN PIERRE-LOUIS Staff
This past Tuesday on September 15th in the season opener of the Brandeis’ Open Mic Society or B.O.M.S. for short, the nationally acclaimed Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo graced the stage of Castle Commons and was, for all that listened, the guidepost that she so yearns for in the above excerpt from “In the Blink of an Eye”. Her presence was a welcome treat for poetry enthusiasts throughout campus, as well as guests from as far as Boston University and Lowell, Massachusetts. All came to share in the light, warmth, and mutual therapeutic catharsis Iyeoka proliferates and shares with her audience. This event was sponsored by the Brandeis poetry club, Vocal, a Brandeis club geared towards combining poetic arts and community involvement. Vocal will hold open mic sessions every second and fourth Tuesday of the year to facilitate an open reading space for all creative writing and performance art. These sessions will allow guest appearances from prominent names in the world of poetry such as Iyeoka herself, and will choose the members of Brandeis' own Poetry Slam team by means of slam competition.
Before the competitive portion of slamming begins there is also a guest feature from one of Brandeis' own. Last night, accomplished poet and member of the 2009 Brandeis Slam Team, Usman Hameedi, performed for about 15 minutes and brought pure intensity. His subject matter ranged from the flames of the heart to the burning sting of gunfire and, somehow, despite the changing nature of his subjects he managed to maintain an overarching theme focusing on the power of loss, not only to lay waste to our pasts but to lay out the ground work for the building of new and, possibly, better futures. Even at the angriest and most despairing moments in his work, Usman never let us forget that, as Iyeoka puts it, “everyday you breathe is another day’s opportunity left to dream.” Usman is an exemplar of what Vocal represents and what Brandeis has to offer. He really got to shine and gathered nods of approval from all in the audience including Iyeoka, who stayed after her set and was, seemingly, very glad that she did. For any poetry buffs willing to become a member of Vocal, show off their work, or involve themselves in Brandeis’s poetry-related events, check out Vocal at www.vocalpo-
etry.org and/or become a member of the B.O.M.S. (Brandeis Open Mic Society) group on Facebook. Now that I’ve successfully plugged the poetry group (and oh so subtly as well) I can turn the spotlight on our lady of the evening, Ms. Iyeoka Ivie Okoawo. What struck me as the most refreshing and humbling about Ms. Okoawo was her humility; the genuine nature with which she approaches her fans and her work. Even after receiving numerous accolades such as a the 2006 New England Urban Music Award for best female poet, and despite being recognized for her talent on the CBS hip hop show, "The Source, All Access," and Russell Simmons’ Def Poetry Jam, she still approaches our simple Castle Commons stage with a perfect balance of composure and excitement that people are willing and ready to come to for the journey that she will take them on. Furthermore, she really likes people. Iyeoka emits an aura that makes it almost impossible to frown around her. As I slinked towards her after arriving late to the show, I was greeted with an “Oh, so now you show up,” which had all the inklings of the familiar joking tone of a sister and gave off anything but a “celebrity” vibe.
PHOTO BY Yuan Yao/The Hoot
STIRRING WORDS: Slam poet Iyeoka Okoawa entertains at first B.O.M.S. event.
After meeting her in person it is not hard at all to believe that Iyeoka genuinely loves people, a sentiment established in her
self-proclaimed goal to “move the world one poem at a time.” Each of Iyeoka’s masterpieces See B.O.M.S. , p. 11
The times, they are a-changin’: Thoughts on last week’s TMI conference BY SAMANTHA SHOKIN Editor
Yale Spector ‘11 sits casually in the Village B2 lounge with the three of us. We are surrounding a table atop which perch our four glossy, multicolored Macbooks. “So how are we going to do this?” he states, not so much a question as a call to our attention. We briefly tear our eyes away from the illuminated screens. Jamie Fleishman ’11 taps a few keys on his keyboard. My cell phone rings. “We are going to need a Twitter. And a blog, obviously. But what about a live stream? Could we get some camcorders set up? I could easily upload a few clips to YouTube and embed them later.” Such questions are posed and a general course of action is agreed upon. We’ve decided that Yale will be in charge of tweeting while Jamie and I will be blogging, and it goes without say that we’ll all be linking live via Facebook, primarily through status updates. These were the kind of tasks I partook in over the span of about 40 hours, from the evening of September 9th until the morn-
PHOTO BY Max Shay/The Hoot
DIGITAL DISCUSSIONS: Audience member offers her perspectives at TMI.
ing of the 11th, as part of the TMI Conference’s “student verdict”—an experiment using inter-
net media to report and determine pros and cons between new and traditional journalism. The
students participating, myself included, signed up to do what we’ve been doing so enthusiastically for over a decade now—fiddling around on the web, or “flexing our internet muscles” as Yale so aptly proclaimed. But it’s one thing to goof around on Facebook between (and during) classes, or web-surf to pass time, or troll up some forums to get a laugh or two. It’s another entirely to use the internet to make a serious point about the power it holds over journalism, and the major changes continuing to take place in the world of communication. As I write this, I am checking my friends’ Facebook statuses to scrape up any shred of information I can about the potential hostage situation going on in my neighborhood back home in Brooklyn. I read about an occurrence on Facebook just a few hours ago, and now a local news blog has picked it up, saying, “posters to a local forum say the Starbucks is being held up by a man with a machine gun. The commenter later said he heard from someone on the scene that
it had to do with a domestic dispute in the residence above the Starbucks.” This is the first time I’ve ever seen a forum post cited in a news story. As the TMI Conference demonstrated, we are living in a hyperconnected age. News broadcasts are instantaneous, and commentary is all-inclusive, worldwide. Everyone is involved. Everyone is wired, tapping away furiously at their respective keyboards, iPhones, and Blackberries. It goes without saying that social norms are being adjusted accordingly. Some people choose to text instead of call. Others choose to dismiss human interaction altogether, save from behind the anonymity of a screen name. During the conference, Yale, Jamie, and I experienced loosely what today’s journalists experience when covering an event. We had at it, sitting at our designated “press” table, in complete silence except for our unanimous and violent key-tapping, using three different though simultaneous means of communication (email, See TMI, p. 11