Brian Slattery Photos
Ngoma.
Poet, organizer, and master of ceremonies Ngoma was once again in front of the microphone on the third floor of the Peabody Museum on Whitney Avenue on Monday, overseeing the annual Zannette Lewis Environmental and Social Justice Community Open Mic and Professional Poetry Slam.
The professional part of the slam tended to draw poets from around the country to compete. But the community open mic was already getting heavy.
The open mic and poetry slam were part of the Peabody’s 23rd annual celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., which featured dance, spoken word, drumming, and music performances through Sunday and Monday, as well as booths set up by environmental organizations from around the region for those interested in getting involved
Admission to all of it was free, and the Peabody’s halls thronged with visitors, many of whom took a seat on the third floor to hear what the speakers there had to say.
“Show some love,” Ngoma said, for poet and playwright Baub Bidon, who also hosts the long-running Free 2 Spit spoken word open mic held at the New Haven People’s Center on Howe Street the first Friday of every month.
Bidon began calm and collected.
“I am a cipher,” he said, but soon was taking a deep, breathtaking dive through African-American history.
“I’m a ship made of struggle,” he proclaimed, drawing a woo from somewhere in the room. Halfway through he showed he didn’t need the microphone, setting it aside to prowl across the room. He gathered up the members of the audience one by one, then returned to the stage. For a brief moment he paused, as if just to catch his breath, and a murmur from the crowd buoyed him. His narrative raced back toward the present, and he finally intoned, “the cipher has left the building,” drawing a hearty round of cheers.
Bidon was not alone in digging deep. Seventeen-year-old Zahana got in an excoriating argument with herself as she detailed the ways she hates herself — for looking as she did, for disliking the way she looked; for the way people took advantage of her, for the way she let them. It was a heart-wrenching glimpse into her struggles. A young man named Taj blew the top off the racism he saw all around him that too many people in his life did not acknowledge.
And Yex penned a letter to her daughter that began with the line, “I should have named you Amber just in case.”
The people in the audience were hooked as she took them through her fears for her daughter, for the dangers she faces, for the prejudices she has to overcome
“I should have named you Amber,” she said again, at the end, “but you are much more precious than a stone.”
As the community open mic broke up to get ready for the professional poetry slam, New Haven’s own Paul Bryant Hudson assembled his band in the dinosaur hall downstairs for a set of soul music that mixed some of Hudson’s originals with gems from Donny Hathaway, Bob Marley, and Marvin Gaye.
Like Bidon’s spoken-word piece, Hudson’s set reached back into the past and rushed forward into the present. It was a reminder of what had changed since King’s time and what remains the same; what progress has been made and what work still remains to be done.
And like the passion in Bidon’s voice speaking in the middle of the room, the energy in Hudson’s music made its own kind of argument, for speaking up instead of staying quiet, for getting up and moving instead of standing still.