Freewrite revolutionary: New Haven Poet Laureate Sharmont "Influence" Little at WNHH FM.
New Year’s/Inauguration Day
Twenty Twenty-Four
Boring speeches
Left us snoring
Like captives wilting
In the auditorium
For an hour. Plus an hour
Then Influence stepped up
And spit truth to power
Turned an inauguration
From deathly stagnation
To a celebration
Of verbal conflagration
He came out that day
To the general public
As New Haven’s new
Official
Beneficial
Initial
Multiverser-in-charge:
Sharmont “Influence” Little,
“Poet Laureate” at Large
He offered an ode
To “Democracy”
Or more like a cry
That it truly be
What it claims
To be:
“They say slavery is abolished except for the convicted felon.
Most of us have never seen a gavel swing.
We are not dummies.
Our bodies should never be used as crash-test bullets in the name of justice, Democracy! …”
Three weeks later …
I asked the poet laureate
To tell us how his fuse got lit
He took the mic without hesitation
At the Independent’s FM station
(WNHH — New Haven’s home
For community radio)
He offered an explanation
From Franklin Street
To secret beats
To KFC
& street activity
To a nursing degree.
He found time to rhyme
On picket lines
Are my lines poetry?
I’d call them noetry
(As in “not poetry”)
But who’s to say
Who may spit,
And if it’s legit?
Well — somebody might.
Or else nothing fits
So I asked the laureate
To examine it
And he did
“Freewrite” he said
Is revolution
His “spoken word” contribution
His rhyme-locution
Is the real solution
To the question
Of how-to-know-it-ry
Hear/see Sharmont “Influence” Little’s
Passion & love
Poetry
Uncensored
Uncondescendsored
On WNHH’s
“Dateline New Haven”
In the video above
Click here
To find out more
About his rhymes
His clothing line
His sideline jams
And planned poetry slams
Not to mention
Instagrams