Devra: I’m not certain when I met El’Ja, but it couldn’t have been that long after I moved to Fayetteville in 2019. He is so plugged into the arts scene in general there and is one of the most generous individuals when it comes to his time and talents. He was a believer in my blog and magazine Color of Fayetteville and I was thrilled to feature him and his work in both. In addition to his teaching, books, and spoken word work across the state (and country), he serves on the board of the NC Writers’ Network, advancing the work of poets there, too. I was glad to catch up with him via Zoom to discuss the Jaki Shelton Green Performance Poetry contest. [As is usual for our published transcripts of NCLR interviews, this has been minimally edited for clarity but otherwise is left as spoken.]
Devra Thomas: Since you are judging the Jaki Shelton Green Performance Poetry contest for us this year, I wanted just to talk a little bit about performance poetry, about your experience with it, and kind of the overlay of the world of performance poetry. I wanted to start with the scene in Fayetteville: you know, when I moved to Fayetteville in 2019 and found what was going on, I was just blown away, as someone who was coming from like a straight theater background to see what you guys were doing–you folks cause it’s not all guys–it would just blow my mind. So can you talk a little bit about the scene in Fayetteville to get us started.
Devra and El’Ja at the 2023 Griot and Grey Owl Black Southern Writers Conference in Durham, NC
El’Ja Bowens: Yeah. So before I even came to the scene, the scene started, Oh, roughly about, I want to say, almost 24-25 years ago. So it was started by a couple of writers in Fayetteville at a long brown table that’s at the Coffee Scene, and one of those prolific writers was Steve Rylander, who started up what was known as Java Expressions. Now, when he did the first, I want to say it was maybe 6 or 7 years of it, (and this is going off the history that I know), His health started declining a little bit like he couldn’t walk upstairs as much as he could before, so he had to find a new host.
And that’s when you enter the godfather of poetry, Neil Ray, who literally took the scene and magnified it by like tons, and literally a lot of us from that point started looking up the Coffee Scene, along with other venues like Big Shots, I believe, at the time, and we started seeing poetry for what it was in a sense of poetry readings, and from there I believe there’s a group of poets that came. They not only were familiar with that, but they also were familiar with what’s known as slam.
So a poetry slam is literally doing poetry with performance art, and it’s done in a competition aspect, where you have five random judges judge the slam, and it’s kind of like synchronized swimming, you take the lowest score and highest score, you drop them, and then you just total up the middle three. But it definitely gave a dope aspect to what poetry could be in a performance art standpoint, because I think a lot of people don’t understand that when it comes to spoken word it’s not like a category of poetry. It’s really not. I think everybody just says spoken word is a category of poetry. It’s not. It’s literally just poetry and performance art. It’s just that, that’s all it is. It’s not a specific category. In my opinion, you’re just combining two elements and just giving the poetry that you’re reciting more. I mean, spoken word has literally been like, how you do monologues and things like that.
Devra: Right.
El’Ja: It’s just basically Poetry and performance art, so combination.
Devra: And then from there, from Java Expressions, It just really kind of took over the city. You can speak more to the timing of that.
El’Ja: Yeah, definitely. So for Java Expressions, you had some poets that started up poetry events like I mentioned earlier. There’s a spot at Big Shots–I can’t remember what it was called at the time–and then you had a group that started an event called Mojo’s, which is at a coffee spot called Mojo’s back in the time that was here. And from there everybody kind of got the bug on wanting to like put their stamp on the poetry scene. So you had a lot of people start up events, some longstanding, some not as much. But that happens in every poetry scene, because you don’t know how long a poetry event will last, based on the parameters and the logistics of everything.
But the scene has always been a thriving one, and the scene has always been a transitional one, because the fact that we live in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is home to college students and the military. You have a lot of people that come, and a lot of people that go. It’s only like very few people that’s been here throughout a good portion of the time here, myself included. I joined the scene in 2007, and I’ve just been lucky enough to still be here to see the ebbs and flows of everything, the ups, the downs, back when there was, like, only a few events going on a month as to when it was a bit going on every week. As to now, you have a lot of events from some of the old heads here, and some of the new blood that’s coming in the area. And the scene has been very, very vibrant. And that’s a good thing, because it gives people now more outlets of poetry to look for and look towards.
So the scene has definitely grown over the years I’ve been here, because no one could expect a scene to start. You always know about one open mic, and that might be fine, but when you have a city like Fayetteville that starts numerous ones, and some are long standing, it makes a difference. Like one of our events I host, in November, will be on its 11th year of being here in the city. So, it’s just all based on the consistency and the camaraderie and the community that supports it.
Devra: Yeah? now, what event is that?
El’Ja: That will be Art Meets Life. Art Meets Life in November, will celebrate its 11th year.
Devra: Can you talk a little bit about the way the slam competitions work, there’s local, there’s regional, there’s national. Can you talk a little bit about that?
El’Ja: Yeah, definitely. So, like, when you’re doing your local slams, I mean, it could be mostly for bragging rights, depending on what you’re trying to do with your local scene as far as like the local slam. So you could do like your slam format that we talked about and you’re just doing the slam to get a winner for that particular slam for that month.
You have what’s known as team qualifiers where some cities they’ll do like what’s known as a slam season, where you’re going month to month trying to find winners, and you and winners and people to calculate points in order to get their top eight or twelve in order to have what’s known as a grand slam, to pick the team that’s going to be representing on a regional or national level.
And then, like myself, I do what’s known as a “one and done,” so basically we do this slam where we put it out there that we’re doing the slam to pick the team. Whatever poets show up, show up, and whatever five make the team, they make the team. That’s it. We have months to work everything out, fundraise, get all the poems that we need to get together, and then get ready for either a regional or a national.
Now, the one regional that is now the biggest team competition in the nation is known as Southern Fried and Southern Fried used to be like a regional thing back when we had something called nationals, and they used to have a lot of regionals back when Southern Fried started. But some regional slams within the country ceased to exist, and Southern Fried kind of became that hub for poets to come compete. So that’s like the biggest national team slam.
But regional slams have also started back up as well. So you have one that’s known as the Bigfoot Poetry Festival, which I believe is in Oregon. And then you also have one that started up two years ago, called Chicharra Poetry Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And I’ve had the privilege of helping out with that. And it’s been good. They have people come in from across the country as well, but they’re based as a regional slam, but they do open it up to out of region teams and individual poets.
So it is different, because competing locally is one thing. But when you compete on the national level against poets you don’t know, or some of your favorite poets that you’ve seen on Youtube or TV, it builds that much more excitement to wanting to compete. And it is a competition. I mean, we love poems. But at the end of the day you’re trying, you’re literally paying a certain amount of money to get to a certain area in order to win a prize. So, it’s definitely–you also get a lot of inspiration from it. Because a lot of these things also have workshops on performance, workshops on how to market yourself as an artist, if you’re trying to get bookings, it deals with a lot. And they’ve all been fun, based on their structure.
Devra: Now, you are also a teaching artist.
El’Ja: Yes.
Devra: So, I’m curious, from my perspective, there were all age ranges that were participating. I know that the schools, particularly in Fayetteville, again, from what I can see up here, of course, Dasan is making much headway in the schools in the Triangle uplifting performance poetry. Do you see that, kind of across the board as well, is that it’s an all-ages thing? We’ve got people who are young, we’ve got people who are old participating?
El’Ja: I believe so. It just depends on the approach. How soon do you want to start. So like me being a teaching artist, I think for me it’s easier to start them in between the 6th and 8th grade. I mean 9th and 12th, like high school is perfectly fine when you’re trying to do like a youth slam team. But I think getting them more involved, maybe 6th grade years, because you normally have kids when they’re going into middle school. That’s when the most creative process starts to come. And they’re starting, like, to design what they kind of want to do. And then you have a lot of kids that are very creative. But I don’t think that sometimes we have the resources that help them with that creativity. So, I’m glad that, like, some counties actually do artists in school directories where they could try to get certain artists in there at a certain point to help out.
Like with me, I got privileged enough to this year be an artist in residence to Cary Academy and working with them on a project that started four years ago from another artist, unfortunately who passed away. So that’s how they reached out to me, in order to take over the position. But working with those kids, seeing their creativity from something that was already, like, the groundwork being laid. It’s beautiful because that age group always have a lot to say. But you know, us being adults, we act like, you know, we haven’t been at that age, but when you’re giving them the outlet to actually express themselves, the possibilities are endless, and I think it is across the board.
We did have a youth slam team, but the people that ran that, they actually either relocated to another area, or they just switched schools where they couldn’t effectively do it anymore. But hopefully, someone will start that back up because they do have youth competitions internationally known, youth slams that actually go on just like adult slams across the country. So hopefully, we can start that back up and get the team to represent Fayetteville at some point.
Devra: Yeah, that’d be awesome. And when you say youth slam, is that typically up through high school? Or does that also include the collegiate level.
El’Ja: I wanna, say, from my understanding, I want to say it’s 13 through 19. Now, collegiate level, they do have something, I want to say, they still do it. It’s called CUPSI, and CUPSI was literally the slam poetry scene for colleges. So, like, you’ll have people from UNC going to get people from Duke and all the other colleges that do it. I want to say they still do it, I’m not sure, but CUPSI was something that was very prevalent for the college students. [Editor’s note: CUPSI appears to not have made it through the pandemic, unfortunately.] So it’s like, you have a youth slam, you have college, and then you have the adult.
Devra: I mean, that’s amazing. That’s the way that you want to be able to do it, right, that you can find something for every stage that you’re at.
El’Ja: Yeah, I try not to say pipeline, because it sounds like, but it’s like that nature.
Devra: You can plug in wherever, yeah. So, you are also a published written poet. Talk about performing your own words, and then we can go into the written versus performance. Wait, those are two separate questions. Sorry.
El’Ja: Okay, not a problem. So as far as my own words, performing them. I think it’s bringing life to something that you’re very passionate to talk about, and that can also go up to when you’re doing written words in a book. But I think when you get a chance to perform, It is because you already have in your mind, Have a certain way you want to perform something, and you already know when it comes to like, tone inflections, certain parts you want to slow down on so people understand. some things you want to be very punctual about, because that’s like the main things they need to hear. I think that’s what makes it a beautiful thing when you have to perform your own work and express your own emotions on certain things.
I think that’s what makes it a beautiful thing when you have to perform your own work and express your own emotions on certain things.
~El’Ja Bowens
And by all means, that doesn’t negate what an actor does on stage, because they’re doing literally the same thing. I think it’s just more passionate when it’s the work that you created, and you’re able to express that on stage or in public or in a conversation. It’s no different than what we, being storytellers in general outside of poetry, because we’re telling stories, we always have different tone inflections. We always talk on our hands, and it’s just always that’s literally what makes doing spoken word fun just because you have all those emotions, what you do on an everyday basis, and just doing your own work.
Devra: Talk a little bit about the about writing, putting poems on paper versus–
El’Ja: Writing. That’s easy, I can tell you right now, in my opinion, when I put poems on paper, it gives me the chance to actually dwell more into like the other poetry styles. I love writing, because normally, when you’re doing spoken words, you’re literally only really doing what’s known as free verse kind, in a sense, unless you’re into a lot of pentameter, but for the most part a lot of spoken word you hear is free verse, as when you’re writing a book, you can actually do more than just a free verse poem. You could do a villanelle, a sonnet, a tanka, senryu, diamante, and acrostic, all those things, so you could like really do more styles of poetry and a book, and it lets you know how well versed the person is.
Because there are some people that think that when–and I’ve heard this argument before–that publishers think that spoken word artists don’t know how to properly write poetry books. When that is never the case, it is literally, like, look, I know what I’m doing when I’m doing spoken word, but I also know how to write a book. I also write poems. That’s how I started doing this thing, and some people think that you got, If you see a spoken word artist, and they say they want to do a book, then the first sign of some publishers–not all publishers think that–all right, we know all their poems are going to be spoken word efforts, and that’s not the case. They are already coming in there with the misconception, thinking that spoken word is only going to do spoken word poems in their books like, there’s tons of books I’ve read from some of the dopest spoken word artists that literally have different styles of writing in their poetry, and it’s no different than anybody else that does it. I think that a lot of people just got to stop doing that when it comes to poetry. Spoken word is one thing, but when you’re writing a book, it is literally a book of poems, that’s all It is. So, I think that that just needs to stop. Because that’s why we always say I like the page for it versus the spoken word artist, and it shouldn’t be that way cause at the end of the day, we’re all poets.
Devra: Right! Yes, absolutely! so kind of in that line, I’m gonna wrap up because we’re almost at time. When we started this contest, Jaki, very graciously, was like, but I’m not a performance poet, and we’re like, How can you not be? Yes, you write and publish, but we also know you as this beautiful, effervescent, amazing performer. And I know that you’re close with Jaki. So I’m curious if you have, do you have general encouragement for anyone who may consider themselves a writer, who may consider themselves a poet, but hasn’t yet really embraced the performance side. Do you have any words of encouragement for someone who may actually want to speak their words?
El’Ja: Yeah, definitely. First thing would be, of course, research people that you look up to, as far as poets that do spoken word. That’s one thing. You can go on YouTube: you got Button poetry, you got Write About Now Poetry, Slam Fine, All Deaf Poetry, and look up just how poets are presenting themselves on stage. That’s not saying to like mimic what they’re doing. But just take inspiration from how confident in their poise is on stage.
Two: find your local open mic, and sitting there listening to the open mics, listening to the open mic artists who sign up, and talk to the host, If you get a chance, or some of the poets performing, and ask them like, What’s some tricks of the trade from there and then, when your body and your mind tells you that you’re ready, Just share one of your pieces. It doesn’t have to be very dramatic. Just get the words out and just go from there and then the more you continuously keep doing that, the easier it’ll get. It’s one of those things… where it’s funny, it’s funny because the person that won this last year, I believe, was Ed Mabry. And one thing I remember him saying to somebody was, If you’re nervous about your work, it’s because you care, and that’s perfectly fine. So, once you get those first few words out from your nervousness, everything else will roll downhill, it’ll be easy.
Devra: Yeah, yeah, I love that. That’s great. Yeah, I’m a little bummed that he’s not been able to join us in person for some of the things that we’ve done since he’s not living in North Carolina right now. This was great. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time this morning.
