[Text by Nick Carr] Renowned slam poet, actor and musician Saul Williams regaled an over-capacity Park Auditorium at Ithaca College last Tuesday, Feb. 24. His unique presentation mixed poetry, personal history and audience participation. Growing up in nearby Newburgh, NY, then attaining a Masters’ Degree in acting from New York University, Williams is not unfamiliar with the area. But after spending the last several years in southern California, he said, “it’s weird to be back. I’ve been here.” While most audience members were curious about his past, most questions asked of Williams focused on how that past has influenced his work.
Slam poetry enjoyed enormous popularity in the late ’90s, and has since then entrenched itself into the canon of contemporary poetry. Slam poetry, however, seems uniquely susceptible to the insidious sting of mediocrity. As a socially conscious reaction of the rise of hip-hop culture, slam poetry characteristically deals with poverty, racial inequality and imperialism. As such, slam poetry and its obsession with authenticity has been co-opted and exploited since its genesis. In a scene of imitators and mediocrity, it takes uncommon talent to be regarded as a master of the craft.
Luckily for the audience, Williams falls firmly in the pantheon of slam poetry greats. The host of Ithaca College organizations co-sponsoring the event managed to turn the unlikely backdrop of Park Auditorium into an intimate space. A combination of deft lighting with an audience packed into the aisles — filling every empty space, including the stage — muted the sterile academic setting.
Two Ithaca College students opened the evening with impassioned, if slightly forced, selections railing against American foreign policy, imperialism and sexual stereotypes. While giving performances of capably composed poetry, they left the audience distinctly aware that they were witnessing a clearly delineated performance.
Williams then took the stage and crafted a performance that made no distinction between clearly defined pieces of poetry, personal narrative and audience interaction. His poetry sparkled with a technical prowess that other poets sometimes sacrifice in the name of content. Williams fused refreshing metaphorical images, intimately relatable content and compelling composition with an enthralling performance style to captivating effect.
The easy familiarity with which Williams treats his material and his identification with it is what blurred the line between poetry and narrative. Indeed, when probed by the audience about the unique format of the evening and his impromptu soliloquies, Williams said, “these are my new poems.” This sentiment was clearly embodied by the comfortable eloquence and insight with which Williams treated such varied modes of discourse. Williams related an anecdote, reflecting his synthesis of arts: “You know, I used to live in Brazil and one of the things I liked about that culture was Carnival. What I loved about Carnival was every group of Brazilian culture celebrated Carnival as this beautiful thing. And they acknowledged everything like, ‘Yes. The drumming comes from Africa. The costumes come from Native Americans. The flags come from Portugal.’ They could point to every different role that was played — some forgivable and some unforgivable — and still celebrate it together as a whole.”
As an actor, musician and poet, Williams displayed a compelling synthesis of these arts. As a musician, Williams has worked closely with Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor. This unconventionality reared its head during his Ithaca performance as he performed several of these songs as poems, along with reading from his own book, Said the Shotgun to the Head, provided by members of the audience. Responding to shouted requests, Williams wondered, “where am I, and who are you people? You know my poems and want to hear them. Nobody wants to hear poetry anymore. This is weird.” Sometimes irreverent, sometimes somber, but always entertaining, Williams engaged the audience personally while maintaining a universal message.
When confronted with his involvement with such disparate artistic forms and his relationship with them, Williams says, “It’s not that I balance those arts out — all the different arts balance me out. So, there is a certain type of emotion that is more easily accessible through music than poetry — Some things are meant to be written, some are meant to be sung, some things are meant to be hummed, some things are made to be yelled, and so that’s just how life works.” All we can hope is that Saul Williams continues to write, sing, hum and yell.
For further exploration of Williams’ career, the 1998 feature-film Slam, his collections of written poetry including Said the Shotgun to the Head, and his recent album The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust! each reflect well upon Saul Williams‘ eclectic body of work.