Slammin’Racism and Heartbreak with Poetry By Jenn Von Willer
PHOTO / MEG FALLEY
The SUNY New Paltz Slam Team pummels the collegiate spoken word competition at the Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis Poetry Slam Invitational
This sign was put in front of crowded Multi-purpose room. Over 1,100 people showed up for the two-day event.
crowd inside the Multi-purpose room of the SUB.
T
he words were powerful; the competition was rigorous but the messages were clear. Themes stemmed from nostalgia, the sea, dreams, heartbreak, sex, racism with lines like “only one month to celebrate black history”; gay marriage “remember that half her face is yours”; and video games “I’m searching for my Princess Peach”.
workshop early Saturday that drew unexpected crowds. The free event collected monetary donations for the Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis Memorial MRP Scholarship Endowment, a scholarship she heavily worked on to raise $1 million for students to attend SUNY New Paltz.
The second night featured HBO Def Jam poet and two-time National Poetry Slam Champion, Anis Mojgani, as the opening act before the slam teams waged a fun, lyrical storm. He performed favorites such as “Shake the Dust” and “The Fisherman”. Top-ranked collegiate slam poetry teams including the SUNY New Paltz Slam Team, Wildcard and Storm Team, two New Paltz-based teams, SUNY Geneseo, UMASS at Lowell, Berklee College of Music, Yale University, SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Binghamton and Jersey City University. The bout was fairly drawn on video out of a hat and can be seen on http://wlpsi2010. wordpress.com.The team members were ranked from scales of 0.0 to 10.0 by anonymous audience members that were not affiliated with any of the teams. New Paltz PHOTO by Jenn Von Willer Slam Poet Megan Falley, 21, won an award Cans like these were passed around the MPR to collect money for Dr. Wade-Lewis’ for Best Female Poet Scholarship Endowment Fund. after her slam about
Hundreds of students crowded inside the Student Union Building’s Multi-purpose room at 6:45 p.m. on Friday, February 26, 2010, at the State University of New York at New Paltz. The anticipated Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis Poetry Slam Invitational prevailed through the nasty snowstorm that cancelled other campus events.. The slam was named after SUNY New Paltz professor, Dr. Margaret WadeLewis, who was the Chairperson of both Black Studies and Linguistics. She worked at SUNY New Paltz for nearly 36 years and strongly encouraged her students by teaching Rap and Spoken Word classes in addition to supporting the school’s Poetry Association and Rap Poetry Music club. Dr. Wade-Lewis passed away from cancer on December 30, 2009. The two day event, which started on Friday, Feb. 26, 2010 at 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Sat., Feb. 27 at 8 p.m., brought 1,100 people overall. The second night drew a crowd that closed doors with a sign outside reading, “The Wade-Lewis Poetry Slam is at full capacity. Sorry for the inconvenience” therefore only leaving guests could made room for those who wanted to see the performance. There was also a creative writing
PHOTO by Jenn Von Willer
New Paltz Slam Poet Keri Shaffer performs in front of a packed
PHOTO BY NEWPALTZ.EDU
an anthology of poetry called Static: and Other Proposition 8 shook the crowd, along with Best Lungless Things and from that stemmed a group Male Poet, SUNY Oneonta’s Zach Hilton. of friends who love each other. Best artists, poets, The slam was the brainchild of many awardwriters and musicians hands down.” winning poets, including SUNY New Paltz alumni and co-founders, Lee Riley, 26, and Brian “Omni” The SUNY New Paltz Slam Team has been perDillon, 28, who coaches and teaches spoken word forming together since 2002, but was officially and performance poetry at NYU’s Gallatin School. founded in 2004. Co-founder and SUNY New Paltz Co-coach and recent graduate, Tracy Soren, 22, alum, Lee Riley was originally named in honor of plus SUNY New Paltz seniors, Megan Falley and the event. Kerri Shaffer advertised with dorm storms. “She taught me a lot of things that became my “We’re all one poetry. She challenged the “She taught me a lot of things that be- way I viewed the world and big family,” said Tracy Soren. came my poetry. She challenged the way was a maternal figure on “The Intangible campus,” said Lee Riley. I viewed the world and was a maternal Collective conAccording to coach, sists of 29 artists figure on campus,” Brian “Omni” Dillon, the throughout the SUNY New Paltz Slam – Lee Riley country, but was Team has ranked top ten originally based in the nation over the past in NYC for colseven years. With 12 members, the slam team is legiate teams to keep going back to the scene. a unique force driven by ambition and creativity. The group is heavily based off SUNY New Paltz In 2008, they lost the state title when they lost at graduates and SUNY slam teams like Oneonta and the nationals in Texas.The New Paltz Slam Team is Binghamton, but there’s also alum from UPenn, always looking for some fresh minds to join them. University of California at Santa Cruz and Minnesota. They’re all an amazing group of people. We “Perform a lot,” advised Dillon. “Go to poetry shows. got a book deal with Penmanship Books, created The fastest way is to learn by osmosis. It took me a long, long time to be in what I’m in.”
Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis July 18, 1945 - December 30, 2009
Nickname: “Mama Wade” or “Mama Lewis” Hometown: Haskell, Okla. Occupation: Former Associate professor in Linguistics and Chairperson of Black Studies at SUNY New Paltz. Courses: Rap & Spoken Word, Black Literature & The Black Woman. Education: B.A. in English - Summa Cum Laude from Langston University (Langston, Okla.) M.A. in English from Oklahoma State University. Fun Fact: First woman to receive a Ph.D in Linguistics from NYU in 1988. Ambition: Co-founded the Scholars Mentorship Program at SUNY New Paltz in 1988 and established the MRP Scholarship Endowment to pay for tuition to lowincome SUNY New Paltz students. Awards: Won the 2008 College Language Association Book Award for her biography about Lorenzo Dow Turner, who is known as “The Father of Gullah Studies.”
Perseverance came a long way when the team went from ranking 20th to nation, to currently ninth in the nation after winning the Dr. Margaret Wade-Lewis Poetry Slam Invitational with 114.1 points. The final round was SUNY Oneonta in second place; Yale in third and Storm Team in fourth. The New Paltz Slam Team is now ranked the number one collegiate slam team in New York. For more information about the Rap Music and Poetry club and SUNY New Paltz slam team, please contact Megan Falley at kneepits@gmail.com. PHOTO by Jenn Von Willer
HBO Def Jam poet Anis Mojgani about to perform inside the MPR during the second night of the poetry slam.
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All collegiate teams including SUNY New Paltz, UMass, Yale, SUNY Oneonta and many others come together to thank the audience on the last night.