Poets who organized and will perform at the Yellow Springs Community Poetry Jam are, from left, Robert Paschell, Jenny Johnson, Abby Lybrook and Jack Whitacre (Photo by Megan Bachman)
Street poets put on Poetry Jam
- Published: November 21, 2013
A group of local street poets are moving their acts inside for a “free-flowing evening” of poetry, music, improvisation and more.
The Yellow Springs Community Poetry Jam is from 7 to 10 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, at the Yellow Springs Arts Council, 111 Corry St.
Expect everything from spoken word to song, free-verse to rhymes and the scripted to the spontaneous from veteran and emerging poets, or, the participating poets say, “old school and new school.” Audience participation is encouraged.
“It’s a jam because we’re all bringing our different ‘instruments,’ and inviting people to get down,” said Jack Whitacre, one of the poets. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
There will be performances by Whitacre, a 23-year-old research assistant whose hip-hop influenced rhymes are a blend Rumi and Jay-Z; Robert Paschell, the 65-year-old master of wordplay who can recite almost 100 of his original poems from memory; Jenny Johnson, a 25-year-old aspiring nutritional healer whose poems explore self-growth, healing and social change, and Abby Lybrook, a 19-year old Antioch College student who writes free verse about the people around her, with titles like “Instructions for Forgetting this Moment” and “On Being Solid.”
Read the full story in the Nov. 21 issue of the News.
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