outandabout: Spoken Word

People talk about community a lot at Harvard and, judging by the swarm of social, ethnic and cultural groups that abound on campus, people work pretty hard at it too. It’s hard: 6,000 overworked, underslept and self-opinionated Harvard kids just don’t seem to be very good at hanging out together, at least not without considerable alcoholic lubrication and a name to put over the door and on the invitations.

Which is why the Spoken Word Society’s Talking Roots event on Friday night was such an enormous pleasure. Despite low-key advertising—basically word of mouth and a cool dreadlocked email that went out over a few lists—Kirkland JCR was more or less packed with people just chilling; greeting each other with hugs and jokes; reassuring each other that the long week was over and that the weekend would be good. No alcohol to be seen, just a table of sweet goodies, cookies and cake and such. Some disclosure: I was tabling for the Harvard AIDS Coalition. To a veteran tabler, the response was unheard of: Rather than avoiding us, and needing to be almost physically carried to the table, people would come up, talk about the issue and happily get down to writing their letter. Our table was surrounded by industrious writers at every available opportunity, and in the second half, people were even looking up to applaud as they put the finishing touches on their letters.

The community atmosphere was palpable. Each person who stepped up to the mic was greeted by name before they introduced themselves, was supported throughout their performance, with pin-drop silence when necessary and with noisy sympathy when someone stumbled or felt the need to start over. There were more hugs, from different people, as each performer made their way back into the audience. The theme of the night was hair, as the Association of Black Harvard Women was launching their new photojournal that also focused on the same subject, and Toussaint Losier’s photos decorated the walls.

The poetry itself was great. The first piece, “Straighten It Out” set the scene with a sly, sideways look at hair and asserting one’s identity, and from there it ran the whole gamut from rambling personal stories, an a cappella song, some high-school self-revelation and some quite phenomenally good spoken word style poetry. High-paced, sometimes a little too much, the poetry could make reference to Neo of The Matrix and Jesus in the same breath. One freshman stepped up to the mic and echoed what a lot of people seemed to be feeling, “I just started school, and there’s so much shit going on.” Sharing it all seemed to make everyone’s load a little lighter, and we left to meet our weekends with smiles on our faces.