raw fish, sword dances and slam poets

I dropped in to that university down the way for an Asian culture festival: good to get out of your element sometimes, plus Filipino slam poet Reggie Cabico was there. The festival was almost all country-themed traditional dancing, and in between Cabico came out in a brown suit and numbered t-shirt.

For the first few minutes I thought I was listening to a comedian. He told anecdotes about his life for laughs, but then without transition he launched into a poem about the infamous “what race are you?” check-box question. It made me think: if so many types of Asians are lumped into one box, people of all different races (including those that fall under the “white” category) who may have different backgrounds and beliefs are all lumped into one box too. The last line of the poem was “I’ll check other,” making me think we should all check other until we don’t have boxes at all. That’s almost too political for my mind to handle, but I don’t think Cabico was throwing out those lines just so we wouldn’t think about them.

The auditorium was so dark that I couldn’t write down any specific other lines I liked, but his writing was forceful and straightforward in the slam style: it felt like he was delivering a speech, just one with alliteration and imagery. There’s that whole debate about whether slam poetry is actual poetry, but I don’t care about it too much since slam poetry follows the whole words + poetic conventions = poetry! equation. You can argue with me if you want, I guess.

Cabico came back in the second half after more crazy dancing and performed three poems, with less talk: the first a tirade against those who would stereotype and mix-up the varied Asian cultures – hey, even I saw they were varied from the dances – and the third an open letter to a Filipino actorasking him to stop making bad poetry. The second, most emotional poem was a reflection on his father’s behavior. It wasn’t surprising that he had been an aspiring actor, since at one point he was on his knees with a near-cracked voice, putting more emphasis on the words directed toward an absent father.

Sometimes the political aim of the content did threaten to overwhelm Cabico’s poems. The letter to the Filipino celebrity particularly struck me as a little over-the-top, with more emphasis on the author’s annoyance than poetic devices, but the imagery in the other poems kept me interested. I’m a sucker for imagery. I admit it. I’m a sucker for good performer-writers, too.