this is the lowertown reading jam so it's sponsored by the st paul mn ak some of you i've been out here before the lowertown readings been out here before the lowertown reading this my first time and i'm enjoying being able to be here tonight so this is put on by the st paul mn act and it is sponsored by the st paul foundation with support from the st paul neighborhood network we have tonight some live art this going to be going on they'll be some phenomenal visual artists so yeah if you are have not seen i had a chance to see his work i think his work is placed up here and he'll have something to show you all later tonight  far as who is curating the event tonight it is say the following say and she is an avid artist activist from minneapolis she uses heart to educate and inspire others to advocate in create change in their communities she's been featured in a variety of publications radio talk shows and television stations such as the asian american press twin cities daily planet in p r k f a i am nine fifty and good morning minnesota as well as s p n in just hey you guys thank you so much for coming we have an awesome show for you and i guess you guys are the only brave ones because i think the weather scared everybody they said there was like a windstorm or something kamen but we have an amazing lineup and i'm excited the first performer that i'm going to have the honor of bring it up is kevin yang kevin dang is among american poet from minnesota here and he's a member of speaker of the sun and he said as well as he's present it represent minnesota at brave new voices spoken word festival in two thousand and eleven as well as how my university published poetry slam college union in two thousand and twelve and will be representing again in two thousand and fourteen i personally know kevin through the orange screen retreat this past summer and this guy is amazing kind of a hit in the good in minnesota but you guys are going to see his amazing talent today so let's give kevin a big round of appl performing i see it as a conversation between me and the audience it's like i go home and it's also you have a lot of friends now you know the so yeah but one of the biggest things that i love slam is because when i'm out there the audience is snapping they are very much talking to me but i can't talk to you if i don't know who you are so i've lived i love doing this thing more on account of the raid i want all of you all to shout your names really loud because you know who i am but i want to know who you are too all right so are three to one life cool so this next film is very much about being an introvert and at the same time you know the theme you know is using our hands very much i use my hands when i'm appear to communicate and i'm not very good communicator with my mouth sometimes i use my body to do that so this poem is called how to love your insured how to love your and shivered one we introverts are not always the best that speaking what's on our minds so we often have to resort to tactics that may seem obscure to your average extrovert this may include subtle clearings of the throat gentle hand gesturing in numbers place carefully into a routine conversations where they normally do not belong to  you may be asking yourself how can i be sure that speaking to an actual introvert and not someone simply masquerading as one or worry no more here are a few telltale signs if the person wraps their arms around your shoulders while they are introducing themselves minnesota probably not an inch of or three to set the record straight i do not hate people but i do get pretty tired of them sometimes let's pretend for a second that my desire to socialize can be equated to my desire to exercise this means that catching a cup of coffee the friend would be a lot like a quick jog around the block bar hopping with bodies would be like finishing a six minute mile in my senior prom was a little bit like running the iron man in the middle of august you see i don't hate talking to people any more than they hate a little bit of exercise which you wouldn't challenge you same boat to a race after winning five gold medals understand that i want to say canning outs night i just came back from a poetry jam maybe it's not because i hate you maybe it's because i'm tired for there will be times when you will be uncomfortable in my silence unsure of how i am feeling just because i did not wear my heart on my sleeve is not mean that it be had huge things to say just because i find peace within myself does not mean i can't feel lonely does not mean the hour i have or want to shout when i'm in the middle of a crowd does not mean that i could ever stop wanting to love song because by palm just to say six i love you i love you more than quiet trips to the library i love you more than cancelling friday and i plans baby i love you more than but sometimes i just take the words right out of my mouth are right thank you very much that's the struggle especially i go to like a lot of shows and some people are just super like mingling beforehand and i'm just in my corner like i don't want to talk to anybody when i leave or afterwards like the conflict of being  love being on stage too so this next palm is something that is very dear to me i like to try my own progress like whenever we learn about palms whenever we learn about poetry one of the very first things we learn how to do is to use a metaphor in a simile it's almost like the basics of poetry and i like to think a lot about what goes into a metaphor what goes into a simile right you take this one thing that you can you know what it is right you know you kind of don't you take this other thing that you can't even don't know what is even more and then you like thrown together sometime you throw in like or as an all something you get less for this image this beautiful image and everything makes sense and i think that's a very powerful testament what i try to do with art stuber in people who don't always belong together people don't always know the other person and you're left with this beautiful experience and friendships and great things like that so it's palm it's poem is called like me mrs judy my fourth grade english teacher once told me that a simile is a comparison between two different things using like or as with even you can create poetry sensing the computer help me gently by the wrist and told me that i was a simile so that my hand looked like a turkey thumb stretched out like a neck four fingers fanned gracefully like feathers and i believed her for a second so i pressed my knuckles up against the plate likes this was thanksgiving dinner lady mother had on top like  thanks like i was saying before once and crossed my fingers into my fists look like biscuits for the words the gravy nothing here looks like gravy this can't be thanksgiving dinner with gravy so this hand is just like any other hand is dinner is just like any other dinner in your poultry doesn't make much sense mystery she snatched the cupcake off my desk and told me to give it back to me after i gave her is simply this is judy i want you to know that i've learned a lot about poetry in the twelve years french kissed me right there in front of a construction workers to my hand does look a lot like a turkey but i took a bite out of it and it tasted a lot more like chicken three that all year olds are like the best poets like the whole entire world because like every other sentence like the most beautiful thing i'd like ever heard like my old tire life like totally right for you see i don't always like myself but that's what the comparison i'll say that a looked like my father always so common or pressure a lot like me but he's still kind of short saw say that i looked like my brother the range is taller for a lot more confidence but still yells too loudly saws say that i speak like my mother's soft in languages  slowly forgetting love so much love to you all of you will say that i sound a lot like my poetry but here's the thing poetry is like nothing i've ever done before so excuse me if i continue making a pair of sins that i don't quite understand like some still beautiful even we were next to words and people that we don't always belong with because miss judy you i we all are a lot like simil now give me my cupcake this last one we use our hands to love and love is a beautiful thing and it's still february this is was found about it's called she makes love with the same hand that she paints with the nails that stencil sunsets of the same tips that make her knees weak you see she doesn't tell me any of this but the way her fingers cracked around paint brushes it ain't hard to tell you see she knows that beauty comes in more than seven colors that it can always be squeezed out of tubes that sometimes it takes a little bit of touch now i've never held hands with her but i've seen her paintings they aren't pretty they aren't sexy they're beautiful once cut off his ear and presented it to his lover maybe i should do the same because all i want to do is to hold her palms as she slips deep into the night and to watch her eyes glow big when she wakes up in the morning i don't need a pair of ears to do either so one night i'm walking in to finish a project that's been due for weeks and of course she's in her corner doesn't leave the studio very often and i'm trying my best to pretend that i've done this before right but somewhere between mixing magenta  splatters a rainbow i splatter a rainbow over my sweater she walks over not saying one single word rips a page from my notebook use it to mop the paint off my chest not knowing had this was my favorite book of poems she looks at my fingers tells me that i have the digits of a writer doll but callused and all the right places and she holds on to my pinky and looks me directly in the eyes now i do not believe in love at first sight but see we are not lovers we are not a far stronger man takes we are not poems written about our sadness we are not rain jobs trying to remember how soft the concrete can feel ginsters soul of our feet am not ryan gosling we are artists expressing ourselves in the only way we know possible my arms wrapped around her waist trying to hold her steady she is kissing me in ways that only the french know best so i look down and laugh a little bit because my project has been crushed underneath the weight of our sweat and she says don't worry just start over she walks over to the tables turns the lights so i take the pen pretend that it is a paintbrush and begin my poem in the way the cannot have been any more honest that it cannot have been any more beautiful with the realization she doesn't make love with the same hand that  you very much for having me co and the army i met as well as the orange crane retreat she's like when i met her i was like that's my sister from another mother and it's like we're totally connected right away she's more tied disciplinary artists she mainly she acts but she writes as well as it is awesome fly a poet she was recently at sundance for a film dear white people and she doesn't number of amazing things and she can listen as she writes for a huffington pos t so her credentials run on and on and i could go on on night but i just want to give her the time so let's give her a warm round of applause naomi they say the pen is mightier than the sword screw the pen i am done with these pens i want to see someone use a sword because i am sick of these people cowering under the pen writing messages on the internet what a fatty normal of her lover all gays should die and you should to leave dad eat dogs i am done with the pen i want to see another person challenge with a sword i want to see this person face to face when they are so eager to slay me i want them to look me in the as a draw their sort out of their sheath fervent for my pain go ahead stab me with your sword stab me over and over again look me in the eyes as i bleed from your hand get on their accounts i see the hearts of aspiring artists ripped our their chests on you tube i see what hands do in the privacy of one's home although no hand has wielded a sword blood now drips onto the keyboard and drips down to the floor i am done with this pen i am over this and i don't want to see any more pens slay me with a sword watch me be any less violent than a sword when a child commits suicide from the skating words that she has read over and over again and again how has that not drawn blood how was that pen not taken life give me your sword i'm done with these i'm a little taller than i think i  am going to really pick up the pen that i really want to you know what i'm going to just pick up the pen that track so i actually i'm not really a poet so this is kind of a new thing for me as so this is kind of exciting so bear with me as i am embark in this new discipline but right here we go i took an oath to never write a poem about love this is a poem about love i blame the internet for this poem the internet has forced me to write a love  whatever cliche it all why did these bloody physicists need to share data for knowledge for understanding for the betterment of our society i blame you physicists for creating the stupid internet internet is trying to help me find love internet i don't want love i just want to date log on pick your best pictures if you are attached to someone swipe right if not swipe left and others will do the same to you if there are gods in heaven and earth both will swipe right and won't love happens now i don't want to be  someones and next finger i want to be rude i don't want to chubby fingers struggling to message me on to buy five piece of glass and metal and rubbers rubbers someone paint me a picture sculpt me a figurine read  poem for pete's sake if you even have shout but soft what light through yonder window breaks you got me i'm yours internet have i not been a faithful servant have i not spend hours and hours browsing through your wonders have i not sacrificed enough for you have i not slept by your side woken up to you in the morning feeding your very existence you don't want love you  sex you want drama you want pretty blonde girls and handsome men you want that's clichs last minute sprints miss civitas dogs your token not romantically girlfriend of color well followers turn into a clumsy heroines turn into quirky princesses misrepresented identities kisses in the rain reformed bad boys new york writers with designer clothes coffee spilled when colliding into the handsome man in the suit that's a cool no big deal i can work with that can i just get a day if i cannot have shakespeare keats austin read to me then please someone swipe right swipe right but you don't want to hear that you don't want to hear the asian girl complain about love you want to hear the part where she gets saved by a white man swooping in to catch the small butterfly in his arms fine think catch me in your arms i'm falling wait why didn't you catch me i'm not trying to be difficult i'm just trying to be real here it is i'm baring it all here's my love palm swipe right having difficulty as with the stand and microphone i apologize are right my hands are these are the all glee s hands in the world my palm a small my fingers short covered in wrinkles with the most  skin is rough at the tips from where my thumbs pinch when i'm anxious the french shutter and matter of how good teske my hands are my middle finger on my right hand has a bum from all the writing  my hands are really ugly i would like to blame my mother for my ugly hands the my mother has ugly hands to their course they're wrinkly the nail on her right middle finger is falling off but my mother's face that's not ugly just her hands my mother's hands are ugly from years of labor from helping her parents around the house taking care of her younger siblings her hands come from hard work her hands are ugly from working a factory job it at night to take care of her two small daughters her hands are ugly from raising me from wiping the food off my cheeks the drool that drips down my chin patching the scrapes on my knee the extra hours she worked to send me to college and to send back home to her mother in korea out of love my mother's hands became ugly my hands were always ugly from the start there was no work and sort of cooking meals and watching for younger siblings i played cream for days upon days in the pool feeling the cool water with me and till the water permanently churned my fingers into raisins my hands are ugly from the blisters i got from hating from the monkey bars at the parking cuts i got from rollerblading my hands never grew because they never needed to they had never had to lift they never had to provide my hands remain small but with each year i distance myself from my mother with each fight with each scaf with each roll of my eyes my hands became uglier every time i turn from a hug flinch at my mother's touch more wrinkles formed punish me me for my mistreatment punishing me for my selfishness though these hands her so ugly they bear the marks of my vicious words they bear the marks of an ungrateful daughter i symbolize they can be of things are built you can use your hands to build things to grow things to brace things but at the same time hands can be used to destroy things are bring things down as well so we're giving you a whole bunch of different perspective ok our next performer is dante collins and actually dante and i have not ever met in person we've only been friends via facebook but it's legit because everything is legit on facebook even relationships right  anyways but dante i've seen his work and it's amazing and i'm like i need to get this guy on the stage and so i'm super excited to introduce tonty and let me read you a little bit about his background so dante is a chicago born say slam poor performance poet and author known for his spoken word poetry collins is a minnesota spoken word finalists and the co founder and co director of no projection a group of four brothers aiming to use spoken word as an inspirational tool he began performing poetry at his elementary school st peter clever at the age of thirteen winning the school's first talent show in two thousand and nine he became a junior coach and judge for the future events moving on to  high school collins continued performing and prosper in word poetry with him he then helped his older brother with the help of his older brother lamar also member of no projection when you first place in the say work competition in two thousand and twelve in the mix of competing done she performs all of the over the twin cities at a variety of university theatres the walk including the walker art center orchestra hall pillsbury house theater penumbra theater and university of minnesota as well as oxford st paul college collins has recently compete in the international spoken word festival brave new voices voices and is now concentrating i was writing his first chapbook mice in the basement of heaven thank you i'm like mesmerized by the sign language that's happening in the back and i think it's beautiful yes yes i just  mother mona she is thinking now clipped draped from the tip of god's graceful hands hanging loudly on that silent night she is cookie cutter mother she never was time for the first week smells did not street like her smiles didn't steal her heart that floor better be shining god's name before you she is a christmas of calls and carry gifts under twelve inch trees and trust that we don't peek or police from more she is more  that leaks from buffers bending backs to polish floors her mother raised her own she raised us on raises us on the love she has left she is cut from her family portrait painted into our stories long before me she was girl before mother she was girl before divorced she was girl dressed in dreams dressed in the night that seemed so close to her she was me raised with nine brothers and sisters and i was too small to smile and i home too big to try to keep silence and with a mother trying her best to love on nine at once she was a girl dress and dreams as innocent as the communion that melted on her tongue she was raised with pots and pans hairpins combs and garden hands as black as the skin of her bible her mother her bible her brothers now rivals her sisters now silence she sits in the home of burke's and battered love ready to explode as light she is building after burned she is a winter the road children yet has no stretch marks to claim our name she is our name snatched from our not fit to speak its grace its glory gave us the glory she grave to have she is my mother she is a metal kitchen tables missing lights from ceiling fans slow cook the greens give those bricks their smell on sunday jones they sleep from wounds they bleed from she is her mother's cane her mother kissed god on the cheek before entering his gates i know how i know the way my mother's lips formed a kiss to forgive her pain the night she grew her wings found her halo tangled in hairs of gray and gave her love to my mother to pour on so she is she is trying i know by the way she mobster floors locks the doors and keeps her kisses for special occasions like christmas that baked a generation of homemade hugs i can teach your heart to fall in love she is love i think words like i could life like iridescent like s next piece isn't memorized but i have been working on it for some time now and it's after karen finney and she has this piece called the newer colossus and she kind of personifies the statue of liberty and kind of speaks on the political commentary that's happening at the time that she wrote it and i wrote a piece after that car the newest colossus the statue of liberty i have been standing toes now i'm in nipped by the given take of salt needs buckled and bruised to a wall street gray right hand heavy held hostage blood drained and dry holding a dying light lips locked with a french kiss for you america the view is great i see your sins ripple after horizon like a peach sunset rotting from the outside and i can smell the sweat from other women xscape off your borrowed breath every time you buy one get one free i and the newest colossus i have aged here you have turned my crisp copper into a sea sick green i have seen the greed creep up like a river we eat off your shallow sharpened shores tattooed into my ransom face reads give me your poor we are hiring your tired we will strip them from their tongues and leave their language to be slaughtered teach them what it means to be free but but i have seen them glistening like a new money shivering like a broken glass against the water some come by boat others by back eyes dilated with hope and to me and their beacon burning and the black i didn't know i would be a patriotic kite for a country who doesn't have all of its laws written quite right i was young then naive standing proudly at your gate like a prison guard barely woman watching the waves march  named me liberty lady of the free land given me a light to lure in your prey placed open cuffs at the cusp of my feet but i feel like your slave america your prop and your propaganda i heard of those men who died trying to survive in your factories passing themselves as mobs for your strip malls rags for your car wash wearing star spangled bandanas and humming your theme song heard that boy died black and young and you you named bullets biting their demands and to my plaster and then they can smell my hypocrisy from the harbor america when did your tongue become calloused when did you grow tombstones for hands thank  you i am writing a collection of essays about my mother and the title project an entire project is called talks with my mother and this what i'm going to share is part t when the foam in the basement ceiling began falling my mother went to get the now gone in the wood glue then asked me to help her hold the funny feeling cotton sheets into place this is your house too she says with an incendiary tone don't you want it always looking nice i and nine and not knowing the difference between a pot in a pan and standing on a circus fire stepstool nearly drowning in a jew stained a muscle shirt my noodle arm strained and stretched overhead attempt to hold hundred eighty five selby avenue creaking home she orders me to control my jelly like limbs as her accordion hand reaches to push in the first staple pop my hands flinch back from the crime scene she my mother looks hard into my dizzy eyes says you ain't got nothing to be afraid of boy without moving her mouth i quickly resume the position life is going to make you flinch a lot if you don't match up zone learn your life from your right and to tie your own shoes i want to re comments say i tied my shoes yesterday and that i write with my left hand but don't instead i press my tenuous tongue against the roof of my mouth and continue to hold up the ceiling pop i snap shut but my hands stay glued to the panel she doesn't notice i want her eyes to congratulate my stillness want her to communicate something warm she doesn't i don't demand i am calm i can feel the blood leave my arms i can feel my kneecaps melt and you're going to be the man of your own house one day she says with a bent nail dangling from a crumpled lips i grin but do not reply and some days are going to be harder than others some times your foundation will begin  my arms now numb are frozen into place pop and sometimes your children will have too many bruises and you not have enough bandages for yourself the blood and my toes become quicksand and fall asleep yeah yeah and they might say you owe more  mortgage than the house is worth but before you give and she says before you sell your light to the dark or your house to some neon bank go on and check your kitchen drawer you might find some faith and extra now done in some construction tape up thank you  i feel so short well you guys are well how what do you think so far you guys enjoying yourself now we are quite proud today do we need to stand up and do some jumping jacks get energy because if you've ever been to a poetry slam people are a lot and i want you guys loud can give it to you because i just have to kind of love i publish this as part of the legacy fellowship in two thousand and twelve and it's really embraces issues of class gender and race and personal experience of my life  that i'm going to perform for you is from my experience growing up in the refugee camp after guys hear this you might think differently of me but i hope we can still be friends it's a low nasty but i hope you guys enjoy it it's called professional floors empty rice bowls stomachs filled with air we stood for hours outside of a makeshift theater people were laughing inside eating food feeling full i wonder what that feels materials those were my favorite it didn't matter that the maggots got to them first hunger hurts too much to care we became professional divers at a young age we got better each time we had it all planned out that was how we were going to survive then one larry it's i thought i heard someone crying so your ears sort of play tricks on you when you never get enough to eat just when we were about to dive in something caught hold of my shirt i turned around and it was my mother for woman who could never hurt a hair on my head her hand sure came down pretty hard on my back i tried to make out the words between he crying appealing it sounded something like i'm so sorry see i forgave her that night but she never forgave herself something ties inside of a woman which she has no way to feed her  i remember a conversation with her she has so much was she shares with me and i dedicate this piece it's called what is fair it gave me a inside when i went through a hard time in my life i remember grandmother tell me once most things in life are competitive but you cannot raise destiny some people are just born luckier than others tracing the palm of my hand trying to find a line of fortune my efforts go in vain from the day i was born my life has been a hard ship sailing on the rocky waters of fate's every grain of rice is falling to my stomach his crew from the sweat of my brow and the  my hands out of breath trying to catch a break i cast my net upon a sea of stars and still come up empty has heaven forgotten me was i over looked when will it be my turn if justice is blind mercy must be tender then tell me what is fair thank you