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Asian American E-Zine |
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08 Nov 02 Poets Jam at Stony Brook
On Friday, November 8th, at 9PM, 3 poets performed at the SAC auditorium @ Stony Brook University. However, these poets were not just any performers, they were part of the HBO DEF Poetry Jam college tour. The tour featured 3 distinguished poets, all from very diverse and esteemed backgrounds. The poets consisted of Roger Bonair-Agard, a native of Trindad now residing in Harlem, Taylor Mali, a white male who was a teacher for 10 years before devoting his time to poetry, and Ishle Park, a Korean American woman originally from Queens, New York.
Park is the first Korean American woman to participate in the National Poetry
Slam competition and has also appeared on HBO’s DEF Poetry Jam. She has
performed in the United States, Cuba, and Japan and currently teaches poetry
to youth in Oakland, CA. Park’s performance at Stony Brook University was
both intriguing and commanding. As an Asian American woman, to see her
explode on the stage and captivate the audience with her emotionally charged
poetry was quite a site. Ishle performed poems which reflected on her Korean
roots in a poem titled “Cheju do Dreams” and even centered her sexuality,
which she seemed fully in charge of,
in a poem simply titled “Pussy”.
To learn more about Ishle Park and read some of her works, visit www.ishle.com . The following is a short
interview with Ishle Park: AA E-Zine: How did you
first become interested in poetry and spoken word art? Ishle: I first became
interested in poetry in high school – I had a great teacher, who looked like
a green-eyed elf, and she really inspired me. I started getting into spoken
word in college, attending readings. But back then I was too shy to read.
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