| January 16, 2012 | ||
| 8:00 pm | to | 11:00 pm |
In 2011, Matt Gano has guest lectured at The Juilliard School in New York City, featured for “Page Meets Stage,” at the Bowery Poetry Club, and led writing workshops at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Matt has traveled internationally teaching creative writing and performance in Seoul, Korea, and in 2009 earned a three-month artist residency at the Lee Shau Kee, School of Creativity in Hong Kong. Matt has worked as a national slam team coach and workshop instructor for Youth Speaks Seattle and is now a senior Artist in Residence with Seattle Arts and Lectures, Writers in the Schools.
A poem:
KINGS
Down the spine of Canarsie Line with big city balancea two-man wrecking crew swings body-control
into top-rock, dancing proper with style.
Our subway car quakes. Ten square-feet,
aisle as the dance floor, they take form
poppin’ between stops, hittin’ the breaks.
L-train lurching on the tracks, the conductor brakes
for Bedford. All passengers with errands to balance
on a Saturday reluctantly aware of the show forming
in front of them. Windmills in a storm control
the attention of even the most jaded. The dancers’ feet
thunder the rubber floor, tiger-style.
My man pulls a series of back-flips like a turnstile,
kicks into his six-step, steady rockin’ break-
beats on the blaster. We all clap in rhythm. Our feet
tucked beneath the benches, harmony balanced
with the pop and lock of the MTA. It is controlled
chaos as the congregation forms
the cypher. A circle is the perfect formula,
a divine code that lassos the body with style.
The freshest kids move with lack of control
only in appearance, footwork unbreakable,
each step planted by a giant, balanced
on the slack-rope rails like a circus-freak.
On a warm New York weekend one hundred feet
below the East River westbound to Manhattan from
Brooklyn we witnessed the art of balancing
raw charisma with bone-dance gymnastics, style
like the Dynamic Rockers, early icons, real breakers
take it to the streets, but only kings control
the subway. Holding court without control
of the crowd is no task for mere foot
soldiers. It takes high command to break
out-the-box and ruin someone’s comfort zone. For
what seemed like decades, time rewound wild-style
back when doing it underground was crucial to keep balance.
As the steel horse of control is unbridled by the ghost and the stile
in our gait admits the potential of our feet, impulse forms
the sacred when silence breaks. The dancers hang in balance.
We’ll see you Monday!
Poetrynight gathers every Monday night in The Amadeus Project, the non-profit school of composition located at 1209 Cornwall in downtown Bellingham. Sign-up is at 8:00, the show begins at 8:30. Won’t you have words with us?
