This is kinda controversial. Not to anyone else – just to me. It’s hard to pick my favorite spoken word pieces of the last decade because the thing that makes me love them is so personal. It might be the presentation, the wordplay, the structuring – or it could be a lot harder to pin down, like the mood I was in when I first heard it, the way it seemed to complete an incomplete thought I was having, or maybe it became more powerful the more I thought back to it.

Of course, this is true for any work of creative expression. That’s almost the very definition of “art” – it is not fact and it is not fiction, and it doesn’t dwell between those two polarities. Art is a separate category altogether. You can – but you don’t have to – understand it logically. Sometimes the greatest power of art is that it simply confirms we are alive and present in this world. It’s a crazy thing, this art business.

So the criteria is that I must have heard it performed live after the new millennium began and before I ever heard it on CD or read it in a book or on the Internet (thus no “First Writing Sense”) – but even if I heard it for the first time in the 00s, if it was very obviously written before that, then it is disqualified (thus no “Unemployed Mami”). Also, no poet can appear more than once.

This list is heavily biased, you know, toward pieces I’ve actually seen performed – and also, I admit it’s pretty East Coastish. Whatever yo, it’s my list!

Also, I know I did twelve and not the customary ten, but there’s no way I can possibly take any of these off. It was hard enough narrowing it down this far. I’ve included the approximate year I first heard the poem and my favorite line from each piece, but these are coming straight from memory – so don’t quote me on them.

12. “Listen Asshole” – Yellow Rage (2000)
It feels like a lifetime ago. When I first moved to DC right after college, I knew close to nobody – and I had no aspirations to take on spoken word as anything more than just something I did at bars every now and then, since I lived right off Black Broadway and there was no shortage of open mics a couple blocks from my apartment. But pretty soon I found myself part of a duo called re: verse, and we were one of three main API spoken word groups out that way. The other two were Feedback (who I’ll talk about later) from New York and Yellow Rage from Philly.

I don’t really know how we all connected, but folks from all three cities met up in 215 to do a little East Coast retreat and this was the first time I hear them do this ridiculous piece. It was like, yo, who’s gonna stop us now?

Favorite Line: I’m gonna fight with alla my might against motherfuckers who think I’m a white…girl. Watch my finger unfurrrrl…”

11. “Remembrance” – Taiyo Na (2000)
On to the aforementioned Feedback Poets. Taiyo was the baby of the bunch – so I was shocked when I saw this like 17 year old kid spit this amazing piece at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop open mic called (re)collection. It was the most succinct and touching rendition of a Japanese American history and future through its literature and music, done in a way that I guess I haven’t seen anyone else even attempt. Mas Yamagata backed him up on the bass.

Favorite Line: This ain’t just some Biz Mark shit; these lips are rocking a lost taiko

10. “The Last Words of a Roach, Underfoot” – El Guante (2009)
Dark Horse entry here. Everyone else on this list is someone I probably first met like – well – a long time ago. But I didn’t have the pleasure of sharing a stage with El Guante until this past year, and I have to say man I was astounded. This piece from the point of view of a cockroach made me feel like I should be writing a lot more.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this concept could have been corny. But he went in on it; honestly, it’s transcendent.

Favorite Line: You say…that life can be something greater than survival, but what could be greater than survival?

9. “Naming & Other Christian Things” – Roger Bonair-Agard (2003)
Roger probably does not know this, but he was the first established poet to actually pay money for my CD. I gladly accepted because ten dollars is ten dollars yo. But I didn’t know that a few years later when he’d be closing out the annual “Voice for the Voiceless” concert, he would unleash this monster of a poem that is about everything more than it is about anything. It was a relentless plea for self that resounded with everyone.

Favorite Line: I cannot summon the sympathy for Mary Magdalene, cannot help her weep tears of distress. Only wish I could retro activate a name change for her.

8. “Sometimes Silence is the Loudest Kind of Noise” – Bassey Ikpi (2000)
The first night I met Bassey in New York, it was a night to remember for many reasons. But the thing about B was that we both wrote from the same place; to me, it didn’t matter her subject matter because every poem she wrote felt like it came from inside of me. She wasn’t just sharing pieces of her soul, but she was identifying pieces of mine.

This piece was around the time when I was clumsily trying to disengage with rhyme schemes in a way that felt natural, and was only marginally successful. Bassey had this piece that all that in a way that was emotional but not burdensome, pleasant but not trite, familiar but not cliche. ANd she lands the piece perfectly in my soft spot.

Favorite Line: Like if you get lost, just stand there until someone finds you, and someone will always look for you, and someone will always miss you.

7. “Chasing Bruce Lee” – Beau Sia (2001)
Someone told me before I saw him do this: “Beau has a new piece about Bruce Lee” and so, I guess I expected some biographical poem with a complete filmography or something, I dunno. So, when he did it, I was so touched – the feeling so familiar. You know, Bruce Lee is the idealized Asian (American) male by many of us, so by definition there was plenty of admiration to go around.

But Beau cut through that to carve a new definition of himself in that frame. Bruce Lee was all that he was and more, but also less. Those of us who are lucky to stick around will have many more chances than he did to redefine ourselves in concert or in opposition to what the world sees us as. That’s life he’s talking about here.

Favorite Line: I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stamp ‘SELF’ on everything in my world.

6. “Acid Trip Tango” – Malaya Arevalo (2000)
There’s no heartbreak poem that breaks a heart as much as this does. Mad hard to find words for this one.

Favorite Line: So close to New Jersey skyscrapers that if I don’t watch my aim, I might just break a window. So close to you that if I don’t watch my hands, I might just break my heart.

5. “Real Karaoke People” – Ed Bok Lee (2002)
Bao had told me about this poem before I saw it, but didn’t tell me the concept or the form. Just that it was one of the five best spoken word pieces he had ever seen in his life. So when Ed showed up once for the open mic before I featured in New York, I was kinda ready for it.

But then I found out I was not at all ready for it. Just talking about karaoke can almsot be a punchline to mainstream America – so why are our families so into it? Ed explores teh delicate beauty of an immigrant singing a song written and originally sung by other people, for other people, ina a place not their home or birthplace, in a language that is their second or third, at a time of night the would normally be sleeping – or working. Is there meaning in that?

How could there not be?

Favorite Line: Real karaoke people know past 4AM, English can be only half a home.

4. “By-Standing: The Beginning of an American Lifetime” – Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai (2009)
I think Kelly had this out on the Youtubes for a while now. But I’ll admit upfront I don’t watch the Youtubes for poetry; I might seek out sports highlights or clips of pandas doing panda things and occasionally a tutorial of how to fix a leaky toilet and such. But I’m not really a Youtubes guy.

So I didn’t actually see this piece until 2009 ECAASU at Rutgers in New Jersey. And even then, it was her produced video version of it that was screening, and not Kelly performing it live – but I still got to give it run on this list for two reasons: 1. This piece was part of Kelly’s performance even if it was pre-recorded; and 2. It’s fukcing amazing. Told in vignettes, the poem laces itself through every fold in your mind until the end, where she lands the piece by pulling it closed. Even thinking back to it as I type, I can feel it’s getting hard to breathe.

Favorite Line: No war.

3. “In Front of the Class” – Bonafide Rojas (2003)
I admit I was a little drunk when I first saw Bonafide do this, but that wasn’t the reason it brought tears to my eyes. many spoken word poets teach, right, you all have seen it. Not everybody is great at it, not everybody likes it, but still most of us do it.

I honestly have never seen Bone teach, so I don’t know how he does, but I have known dude for a decade and I can attest to the fact that there’s nobody I’ve ever met who needs to write poetry as much as he does. And in this piece he lays it all out there. Just phenomenal.

Favorite Line: I want to live. I want to love.

2. “Signs of God” – Ishle Yi Park (2004)
I very distinctly remember the first time I saw Ishle do this piece: it was at Vassar College, and me and Ed Bok Lee and her were doing a little show for like students who were there for a summer session or something. Whatever the reason, Ed, Ishle, and myself were in Poughkeepsie doing a show in the summer. And when Ishle read this piece, I was taken away, I felt like I couldn’t love a poem as much as I loved this one. I think I told her that too.

Then after she released her CD that year or maybe the following, this peice was on it. But this time it had this beautiful Spanish guitar underneath that accentuated the beauty in the accidental, the order of chaos, the idea that there are always more reasons for hope than there are reasons against. Damn.

Favorite Line: I want a chorus of loved ones; I want someone to hold my hand.

1. “Quincy Nguyen” – Bao Phi (2007)
It’s weird that I could work Prince into a list about spoken word isn’t it? But this piece from the homey Bao is just perfect to me. His character uses the music of Prince to convince himself he’s beautiful despite all the evidence to the contrary. And I guess when it comes down to it, it just reminds me of me.

Favorite Line: Prince gave him the power: secret of survival for small boys odd when young yet destined for futuresexy.

Tags: community, dope isht

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