"Homegrown" event on Friday will showcase brilliant local young writers
(Parents, there are a lot of options for your kids to get involved, whether they're five years old or twenty. Next week I'll post a rundown, with links for more information.)
One of the best demonstrations of local youth literary talent is happening this Friday evening. At 7 p.m., the poets of Ann Arbor Wordworks host their annual showcase event, "Homegrown," at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater. I am giddy. You would be giddy too if you knew how good a show these poets put on, year after year. One poem stuns a roomful of people into silence, the next has us all nearly choking with laughter. Even if you don't think you like poetry, you will like this. You will be moved, entertained, altered. Call a babysitter. Change your dinner reservations. Do what you have to do, but come to this show. You won't regret it.
This morning, through the magic of Gmail chat, I interviewed poet Fiona Chamness from Ann Arbor Wordworks about this year's show.
Me: So, Miss Chamness, what makes this year's Homegrown show special?
FC: Well, a couple things. First is the fact that we have a coherent theme this year - without really any advance planning, a huge portion of the poems people were writing for the show ended up being about issues of family, so we have that as a guiding theme throughout the show, so audiences can expect a more cohesive show than in previous years.
Second is the fact that we have a bunch of new members this year. Maggie Hanks, Mike Kulick, Chris Moriarty, Brittany Floyd, AJ McLittle and Aimee Le will all be performing at Homegrown for the first time. [Editor's note: This line-up alone is sick. These poets are stunning. And these are just the Wordworks newbies.]
And we have a DJ! A cool DJ! DJ Graffiti is his name.
Me: What is Wordworks all about?
FC: Wordworks started out as a way for people who'd been through the VOLUME youth poetry program to continue writing and performing during their college years. It's grown, obviously, and now it's a collective of college-aged and young adult poets from the Ann Arbor area and beyond who come together to write, critique and perform. It's unique in the performance poetry world because there's no competition involved - Wordworks doesn't put on or enter any slams as a group, so its focus is entirely directed towards writing and performing, which I love. Wordworks members also teach VOLUME and workshops at area schools, so we're also giving back to the communities most of us grew out of.
Me: Why do you bother with all this nonsense?
FC: I've loved writing my whole life, and have been studying it pretty seriously since middle school. Doing VOLUME in high school got me interested in slam, and in-school classes kept me interested in page poetry. I've noticed, though, that there's often a sad split between lovers of both, which leads (as far as I'm concerned) to limitations in writing and expression, whichever one you focus on. Wordworks to me is a perfect example of a group that bridges that gap. By treating performance as important, Wordworks members force themselves to create pieces that have a certain kind of vitality. But by taking out the competitive aspect and by spending long hours writing and critiquing together, they create poems that hold up on the page too, and end up with really interesting hybrids that hold the interest of people across a broad spectrum of poetry "tastes."
Me: What's your poem for tonight called?
FC: The poem I'm doing is called "Pascasio," and it's about one of the kids at the orphanage I worked at last winter in Oaxaca, Mexico. It's kind of dark.
[At this point the interview veered into random conversation regarding babysitting, Disney films on VHS, and suspicious robots.]
Me: Back to the interview... can you give us a sense of the range of work we'll hear? What are some of the other poems about?
FC: Well, like I said, we've kind of coalesced around a theme of family, and a lot of the poems deal with various aspects of that, but it's still pretty broad. There are extended-family, parents, siblings, angry poems, poems of reckoning, love poems, among other things. Then there are some wild cards - we have political pieces, some hilarity (in a couple indies and a group piece), and then there's Tony Zick. (He's doing, I think, both his Steve Breaston poem and "The Ibex.")
Me: Thank you, Miss Chamness. I think I'm just going to quote this chat in its entirety.*
FC: Alright, I license you. Good thing I didn't kill any polar bears this time.
Me: Tape's still rolling.
FC: Damn!
*In fact, I did not. The interview has been slightly edited and abridged.
So there you have it. Poems of hilarity, poems about punt returns and ibexes and an orphanage in Oaxaca, and a fascinating range of poems about issues of family. I don't want to talk it up too much, but if you miss the show, your life will be impoverished.
Homegrown takes place at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater in the Michigan League this Friday, January 29th, at 7pm. The show will run approximately two hours. The Mendelssohn is at 911 N. University Ave., in downtown Ann Arbor. Tickets will be $5 for students in advance, or $7 at the door. $10 and $12 for members of the general public. To reserve tickets at the advanced price or for more information, email Jeff Kass at eyelev21@aol.com.
Besides being a poet, Fiona Chamness is a singer/songwriter, a star (with several Wordworks peers) on HBO's Russell Simmons Presents Brave New Voices, a first-year student at Oberlin College, and one of my daughters' favorite babysitters.
Besides being a stay-at-home dad, Scott Beal has been working with local youth writers in various capacities since 2002.