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Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. (poetry reviews).


Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Def Poetry, also known as Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry or Def Poetry Jam, is an HBO television series produced by hip-hop music entrepreneur Russell Simmons.  Jam edited by Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera Three Rivers Three Rivers, Que., Canada: see Trois Rivières.  Press, October 2001, $12.95 ISBN ISBN
abbr.
International Standard Book Number


ISBN International Standard Book Number

ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 
 0-609-80840-0

Tony Medina and Louis Reyes Rivera have brought to this anthology the line where poetry is both audible and visual. In his introduction to the book, Medina states, "This book exists in a paradox. While it will be closely related to what some are calling the spoken word--that which lives in performance-the poetry gathered here, for the most part, maintains the integrity of the page, of the written word." Bum Rush the Page stands, spins and balances itself on this paradox, crafted out of forces both audible and visual, both political and personal. Kalamu Ya Salaam Kalamu ya Salaam, born 24 March 1947, is a poet, author, and teacher from the 9th Ward of New Orleans. A well known activist and social critic, Salaam has spoken out on a number of racial and human rights issues. For years he did radio shows on WWOZ.  in "Flying Home" shapes the paradox into words with a hammer, "If this truly is one nation under god/then surely their god must be a devil."

While reading this book, one gets the feeling of attending a marathon reading Marathon Reading is a yearly program put on by the UCLA department of English, where a group of students, faculty, community members, alumni, and often even celebrities read a novel (or two) out loud non-stop for a 24-hour period.  by as many poets as you could possibly fit in a room. The journey begins with the ancestral voices of Gwendolyn Brooks Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an African American poet. Biography
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas to Keziah Wims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks.
, Margaret Walker, Dudley Randall, Safiya Henderson-Holmes, Raymond Patterson and Zizwe Ngagua and stretches onto the contemporary scene through a who's who of black poetic voices.

A simple but beautiful construction of Bum Rush the Page is to state the poet's name, at the end of the poem. Like many of the readings on the spoken word scene packed full of people there is "only one piece per person." If one reads poem after poem, without the authors' name it is possible to take the voices as the stitched-together sound of one large voice--the voice of the time that it is right now, the voice of the anthology. You are sure to recognize the "sound" of more than a few of the more than two hundred poets found in this anthology.

The editors do not claim to be definitive or all-inclusive, they simply document a voice that often goes undocumented with poems on Amadou Diallo, or the "Crater Face" of Denise Duhame, riding on the back of the bus with Brian Gilmore, or dealing with the "hardest part bout love" by Imani Tolliver. These poems get into the zone where poetry and speech meet, where people of color Noun 1. people of color - a race with skin pigmentation different from the white race (especially Blacks)
people of colour, colour, color

race - people who are believed to belong to the same genetic stock; "some biologists doubt that there are important
 sit in our own space and offer simple antithesis to the news, confusion and destruction that is always spinning around us. The strands of this great web of poetry often don't show up in leading poetry journals.

So here, when we bum rush the page, even the weaker poems have the code for their inclusion. They, too are a part of this collective voice and register the rebuttal rebuttal n. evidence introduced to counter, disprove or contradict the opposition's evidence or a presumption, or responsive legal argument. , "the shout out" that we live every day. It is the poetry you hear escape from the mouths of mamas, grandmamas, daddies, granddaddies, brothers, sisters, cousins, or the people you walk by on the street that can be found here. The poetry you may have never heard out loud but recognize its voice and sound rising from your own head when you get a chance to contemplate things. The collective voice, the one voice constructed out of many, is a good reason for bum rushing the page.

Bro. Yao ( Hoke S. Glover III) is a graduate of the University of Maryland University of Maryland can refer to:
  • University of Maryland, College Park, a research-extensive and flagship university; when the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to this school
 M.F.A program and a published poet.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Cox, Matthews & Associates
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2001, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:Review
Author:Glover, Hoke S., III
Publication:Black Issues Book Review
Article Type:Book Review
Date:Nov 1, 2001
Words:557
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