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By Jessica Schantz
Deuteronomy 8:3 Café, Books and Music,
located on East 105th just north of Rockefeller Park in Cleveland's
historic Glenville neighborhood, recently hosted the second
round of the Youth Poetry Slam sponsored by Catalyst
Cleveland. Catalyst Cleveland is a grass-roots publication
devoted to creating a forum for discussing the state of the
Cleveland Public Schools.
Slam participants were encouraged to share poems
that expressed their frustration towards the current Cleveland
School’s administration's fiscal treatment of their
schools, and the subsequent decline of the quality of their
education.
Despite a near-blizzard and polar temperatures outside, about
forty people crowded into Deuteronomy's small seating area,
including WCPN radio personality Dee Perry, who attended to
see a young poet she interviewed last April on her program,
Around Noon. Daniel Gray-Kontar, a former National Poetry
Slam winner, and Charlise L. Lyles—both from Catalyst
Cleveland—kicked off the event by welcoming the students
and sharing their own feelings about the relevance of the
written word in initiating social change.
Michael Salinger, current head of the Cleveland Classic Poetry
Slam and a fixture in the local and national performance
poetry scene, served as MC. Salinger kicked off the event
by performing his poem Neon, which begins:
With high-voltage enthusiasm, Salinger gesticulated wildly,
belting out his tribute to poetry, and rallying a momentum
amongst the crowd. The small room buzzed as seven high school
students from the greater Cleveland area waited for their
chance to take the stage. Four judges were selected at random
to assign scores on a ten-point scale, and as the night progressed
the list of seven narrowed to three finalists.
The last finalist was by far the most well-versed and seasoned
poet. Gary, who goes by Akhenaton when he writes and recites
poetry, is a senior at JFK High School. Akhenaton showed incredible
sophistication in his diction, understanding of figurative
language, choice of subject matter, and use of allusion. His
moniker is itself a reference to Egyptian history. (Akhenaton
was pharaoh in the 12th century BC. Married to Nefertiti,
he is accredited with inspiring a golden age of artistic freedom,
and for defrocking the priestly order of the age.)
Akhenaton will graduate this June and plans to begin college
at Tri-C, then transfer to Wilberforce University to study
business management and music theory. Akhenaton wants to attend
Tri-C first because he feels that his high school education
has not adequately prepared him for the academic rigor of
college, a disappointment he addresses in his poem "What
They Taught Me," which is featured in this edition of
Hotel Bruce.
Though he admits he experiences anxiety when performing, Akhenaton
has no reason to fear the stage. If the reception he received
at Deuteronomy 8:3 is any indication, there is a place for
him in Cleveland's flourishing performance poetry scene
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