News from InsideOut Literary Arts #michlit

click thru for details InsideOut Literary Arts Project  July 28, 2011 "Never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world". ~ Dr. Margaret Wheatley Slam Team with coach Aricka Foreman (center) on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) going to BNV writing workshops. Photo credit Isaac Miller.     SUCCESS IN SAN FRANCISCO! Six of Detroit's most fearless young poets did the D proud at this year's Brave New Voices (BNV) Poetry Festival in San Francisco. For the first time ever, a Detroit team qualified for the semifinals. But this team's talent stretched even further. The 2011 Detroit team (Justin Rogers, Devin Magee, Joseph Verge, Ariana Washington, Breeana Blackmon and Andrew Barnhill -- l to r in photo) won a prized spot on the final stage, alongside three perennial slam finalists, seasoned teams from New York, Philadelphia and Denver. In the end, Team Detroit placed fourth, a victory made more memorable by the hard effort the team put into journeying to San Francisco. "This was truly a momentous accomplishment,'' said Isaac Miller, who coached the Slam Team, along with Aricka Foreman. "Detroit needs to know the extraordinary things that its young people are doing.''   COMMUNITY SUPPORT The team took its dream of competing to the people of Detroit, issuing a successful on-line plea for $3,000 through a Kickstarter appeal and raising over $5000 more in churches, coffee houses and community settings where audiences responded to the youths' promise to represent a side of Motown often overshadowed by dismal headline after dismal headline. "This is not just a slam. These are words for a better tomorrow," slam team member Justin Rogers proclaimed. Rogers' words and the generosity of over 120 poetry-loving Detroiters gave the team wings in more ways than one.   GLOBAL AND LIFE-CHANGING On Saturday, July 23, before an audience of 3,000 at the San Francisco Opera House, Detroit's six poets persevered, surviving amid a field that started with 750 youth from across the United States and beyond, including Leeds, UK, and Guam. "BNV was a wildly life changing experience,'' said Justin Rogers. "Our poets put everything on stage. It was incredible being surrounded by people with some of the same life goals and weird interests. Our team was able to push through difficulties every single day, and we always came out on the other side a little bit closer than before. I left emotionally drained but I so badly wish I could go again next year." InsideOut and Detroit are hopeful right along with you, Justin.    Joseph, Devin & Justin performing group piece "Tears" at BNV. Photo credit Isaac Miller. Here are a few YouTube links to BNV Detroit Slam team performances:   Joseph, Devin & Justin, Breeana   Members of the Youth Slam Team will be performing Thurs. Aug. 4th, 6:30pm at the Southfield Library (23600 Evergreen Rd) as part of the Poetry, Pages and Scribes series. That evening, they will be honoring the life and work of one of Detroit's poetic heroes, David Blair.  For more information contact Ber-henda Williams. Community Memorial Service for D. Blair  Blair's friends are organizing a celebration of his life this Sunday, July 31.    "We are going to send him off with a 2nd Line Jazz funeral and we invite you to come mourn and celebrate. 1pm - Gather at corner of Cass & MLK/Mack. We will march down Cass to Unitarian Universalist Church (UU) at 4605 Cass on the corner of Forest. Percussion instruments are welcome to join in this march. 2pm - Life Celebration at the UU church. 3pm - We will 2nd Line March back out into the street and let Detroit hear us celebrate. 3:30pm - Community Potluck at the UU. Please bring a dish to share." For more details and/or to donate to memorial fund, click here.   On and On (for Blair) By Peter Putnam   Tonight I want you safe on some front porch whispering poems to the moon Or better still back in our living room surrounded by friends and singing songs that go on and on and on...   But you're bigger than that I can't hold you down (I can't hold you now!) The streets are your home too and the parks and the hookers and the factory workers the ballers and the b-boys the pheasants and the peacocks You've taken it all in the Detroit River and the '67 fires the addictions and the light the soiled and the born again-- and made friends on every filthy beautiful island in this broken buoyant town from Belle to Eight Mile   That's why it breaks my heart when you wonder, "Do you even know I've gone?"   Please listen, most humble of stars, to our answer: You were our one-man gospel choir, our Motown, our Michael, our Muse You took hate & hope pain & possibility (yours, ours) and made love, made peace, made poetry. Our heart beats like tool and die for you.   So ok, ok, tonight you're gone across a million oceans playing some new gig God only knows where. Still, this is how much we miss you:   Detroit will say your name, Blair, we will claim you as friend as brother as lover we will shout your poems to the moon and we will sing your songs to each other on and on and on...   until this city heals and we heal and your sweet sweet soul  comes home.   Peter Putnam is a professor of writing at Henry Ford Community College and the author of "The Song of Father-Son: Men in Search of the Blessing."