Art World: Is 'Def Jam' poetry's future?

NEW YORK, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- The hit Broadway show "Def Poetry Jam" may not be every poetry-lover's cup of pekoe but it is very much a part of the American poetry scene as it is developing in the 21st century.

Poetry can still make headlines, as it did last November when it was announced that Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals heiress Ruth Lilly is giving Poetry magazine, a pioneering Chicago publication, more than $100 million, turning the long-struggling journal into one of the world's richest magazines.

Many Americans still care about poetry. But the kind published in Poetry magazine isn't exactly the sort that is being presented by hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons in his show at the Longacre Theater where it is selling out performance after performance to audiences made up of people who rarely frequent Broadway. They want to hear poetry for the stage, not the page. Poetry from the street, not the elite.

Forget Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg, Amy Lowell, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and John Ashbery, all of who were introduced or nurtured by Poetry magazine in its 90-year history. They are, as the saying goes, history -- dead white poets who will always be read as long as books of poetry of the past are printed.

Simmons' versifiers are here and now performance artists, some of them working for Def Jam Records, which Simmons co-founded. They have appeared before college audiences all over the country, competed in numerous slam team competitions, performed on radio and the "Def Comedy Jam" series on HBO television, in films, and in clubs from Nuyorican Poets Café in New York to Da' Poetry Lounge in Los Angeles.

The nine poets selected by Simmons to recite their poetry on the minimally decorated Longacre stage are not household names, at least in most American households, but all are prominent members of the poetry slam community. Here they are:

Beau Sia. Black Ice. Staceyann Chin. Steve Colman. Mayda Del Valle. Georgia Me. Suheir Hammad. Lemon. Poetri. Acting as disk jockey for the show is Tendaji.

They are varied in racial and ethnic background, ranging from white to black, Hispanic to Asian, and include at least one hyphenate, Palestinian-American. Whoever they are, they are all terrific young performers who are able to grab and audience and hold its rapt attention with rapid-fire rhymes recited to hip-hop beats that reinforce the human pulse. There is enough arrogance and attitude to go around, but on the whole they are a likable lot with something to say that should be heard.

Poets such as these have held the urban stage for about 20 years and have been models for young poets everywhere.

Their concerns are much the same as poets throughout the ages -- love, longing, frustration, death. But as Simmons points out, they come from another point of view and sometimes they deal with questions that rarely are the subject of public polls and do so aggressively in spoken language and body language.

"Hip-hop is about giving a voice to the people, starting with the people in the projects, but now including all Americans who are locked out," Simmons said in an interview with Playbill. "They come on in jeans and hockey jerseys, and give voice to real, mainstream ideas that a lot of people never hear about. In our culture today, the voices that are the angriest, that have the least hope, are the ones that get the most attention."

Shows such as "Def Poetry Jam," deftly directed by Stan Lathan, catapult hip-hop to new heights of power and relevance, and cannot be ignored. Whether or not Poetry magazine will pick up on this new aspect of poesy in its expanded role recently outlined by its editor, Joseph Parisi, remains to be seen. Parisi said he plans programs to draw more people to poetry and to train schoolteachers how to introduce their students to contemporary poetry.

"This is something that will ultimately be nationwide, and I hope it will grow like Topsy," Parisi said. "Our overall mission will remain the same, which is to encourage poets every which way we can to increase the audience for poetry."

It looks like Poetry magazine and Russell Simmons should get together. Simmons and his brothers, Danny and Joseph, already have their own foundation, Rush Philanthropic Arts, dedicated to providing disadvantaged youth with exposure and access to the arts. To date it has awarded $500,000 in grants to organizations, mostly urban, to carry out their mission.