Local spoken word group to open for famous poet
The art of spoken word is growing in Dallas. A new group,Trinidad, is stepping out onto the scene. Trinidad consists ofNatasha Carrizosa, Joaquìn Zihuatanejo and Will Richey.
They will be opening up for Maya Angelou on Tuesday night at theUniversity of North Texas in front of about 3,000 people.
Trinidad’s first performance as a group was in Septemberat the Fuego y Alma, the 2003 Latino Music & Arts Festival inDenton. They also performed in January at the Hablamos Juntos, aNational Healthcare Convention held at the UNT Health and ScienceCenter in Fort Worth.
Trinidad has started to bring more Latino representation intothe spoken word scene. “Hopefully by us putting this grouptogether, it would encourage more Latinos and Latinas to come outand share their lives and cultures with the rest of theworld,” Carrizosa said.
“All three of us found each other through our cultures. Weare all bi-racial, from different backgrounds, and the Latino tiesis what brought us together,” said Carrizosa, whose duelheritage consists of African and Mexican American.Zihuatanejo’s heritage is white and Chicano. Richey’sheritage is white and Puerto Rican.
The art of spoken word is performed in events ranging from openmics to slam competitions.
Each member brings his own style to the group.
Carrizosa is the most poetic of the three. Richey said,”It’s really interesting how she’s able to justsoothe the audience with her words.”
On the other hand, Richey is a performance poet, a spoken wordartist. “When I write, I write to be heard,” hesaid.
Zihuatanejo is the middle ground between the two. He does pureand performance poetry. “We bring Joaquin in as a very uniquepiece of our puzzle,” Richey said.
“A difference between poetry and spoken word is thatpoetry is written to be read and deciphered and studied and justbroken down, whereas spoken word is written to be heard,”Richey said.
Slam is another style of poetry. In 1986, Chicago poet MarcSmith started Slam Poetry. Richey said, “Slam Poetry was kindof brought about as a lyrical boxing match.”
In a Poetry Slam, poets compete against each other. They havethree minutes to perform their original piece of poetry withoutprops. Five judges are chosen randomly from the audience who give ascore from one to ten. The highest and lowest scores are thrown outand the remaining three are added together. The poet with thehighest score at the end of the rounds wins.
Richey said, “The thing about slam is that it forces youto become a diverse writer because you can’t just write toone demographic because the judges are always chosen randomly.Therefore, you have to be able to appeal to all different kinds ofjudges.”
Slam poetry is represented in the HBO series RussellSimmon’s Def Poetry Jam. “It’s a really coolthing. It gives a lot of poets opportunity,” Richey said.
The Dallas Slam organization was started in 1996 by CleboRainey. Dallas has been represented in the annual National PoetrySlam every year since. The Dallas Slam Team has been asemi-finalist six out of the last seven years. In 1998, they werethe runner up to the National Champions, and in 2001, they claimedfirst place.
The Art Bar inside Club Clearview is where slams are held Fridaynights at 8 p.m.
Another popular event with poets is the open mic.
Zihuatanejo said, “I like to do open mics because I get achance to be able to read some of my conventional poetry at placeswhere I don’t necessarily have to bring it to life with myvoice and my body language, and just let it come from the page andbe what it is. And it’s not that those readings are anybetter than slams or spoken word performances, they’re justdifferent, and sometimes different is nice.”
Richey said, “Open mics is a place where we can go andhave the opportunity, not only to hear other people’s words,but we can read ours, especially our new stuff. Every time youwrite a new good poem you want to share it with people. Open micsgive everyone an opportunity to go out there. Open mics are morepersonal. You can give an intro to your piece to say how you werefeeling when you were writing it, and some people like it better,it’s less pressure.”
The individual artists themselves are not newcomers to thescene.
Carrizosa is a poet and writer from Fort Worth that has been onthe scene for several years now. Her writings have been featured inRhapsody and Our Texas magazines. She is the author ofMejiafricana, a spoken word CD, and Nude, a collection oflove poems.
Richey, also known as the “Lyrical Evangelist,” isfrom Irving and has been performing in the spoken word scene forabout two years now. He is the Co-Champion of the 2002 Dallas SlamPoetry Finals, has been featured on a national cable commercial forSylvania Lights, has performed on the “Jenny JonesShow,” and is also an event host. He has released his firstself-published work, Complex Evolution, a compilation of originalpoetry, written and on CD.
“I do this, No. 1, because it’s different, No. 2,because I can express myself, and number three, because I know Ihave a gift for people, and I know I have a gift for writing andexpressing my thoughts, and I’m not scared to do that,”said Richey.
Zihuatanejo, who is from Denton, has been on the scene for abouta year and is known as 2003-2004’s Hottest Newcomer on theDallas spoken word scene. He is an award-winning English teacher atDenton High School and was the first poet chosen to qualify tocompete for a spot on the 2004 Dallas Slam Poetry team. He will bea featured poet at the Austin International Poetry Festival inApril, and his work will be published in the di-verse-city2004 poetry anthology. He has two self-published collectionsof poetry, Barrio Songs and I of the Storm.
Many different topics are covered in poetry.
Richey’s topics range from enlightening and inspiring tohip-hop and, most recently, Latino topics.
Carrizosa’s topics range from love to a celebration of herdual heritage that blends cultures, languages and impressions.
Zihuatanejo has been told that he is a heritage poet.”Most of my pieces tend to come from where I comefrom,” he said. He comes from a predominantlyMexican-American neighborhood in East Dallas with lowsocio-economic status and high crime and gang activity.
“It really is all about the art, it’s not about theartist. We want our opportunity for our voice to be heard, for theart to be experienced,” Richey said.
