Here’s an opportunity for any talented poets out there to get themselves on HBO’s Def Poetry.
They are accepting two poems performed in front of a live audience on video tapes or DVDs (no audio cassettes accepted.) Poems must be no less than five minutes in length. Group performances are also being looked at with the same
restraints. No bio is necessary, but name and contact information is.
Deadline for submissions is September 21st.
Send DVDs/Video tapes to:
Shihan Van Clief
c/o Def Poetry
5923 Willoughby Ave #1
Los Angeles, CA 90038
While there are some poets who aren’t inclined to submit a tape, please spread the word as there maybe someone good in your neighborhood who could use the exposure.
Check out: http://www.shihanthepoet.com
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Article comments
1 - Gino
I have been working on a poem for about 2 months now and I really feel as if I have something to share...or give. Politics, religion, ethnocentric- conundrums are not my intended target. Rather they are my super-highway, to which all things lead. "Only by letting go of the things we want, do we truly possess that which is real." Lao'tzu 500 B.C. This is not a story. This is not an anthem. This is just a bunch of words, from one who is just a man. Hope to hear from you, Gino.
2 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Will there be a Cowell-esque judge on hand to offer hilarious insults? "Poetry? more like crap. go home."
3 - sungoddess
I can't answer these questions folks... try addressing them to the person with the contact info in the post above. Hey Gino, GO FOR IT!!
4 - Kat
hey my name's kat and i love def poetry. i have been searching all over the internet for about an hour now trying to get some tickets without any luck. if u have any info on how i can get some tickets, please e-mail me at airkat14@hotmail.com. thanks
5 - Monica Ellis (Malika)
I have been interested in performing on Def poets for awhile now but I am just finding information and I seem to have just missed the deadline. Do you know when they will be accepting tapes again?
Thank you,
Malika
6 - Gina
I would very much like to be apart of the def poetry jam. I write poetry,stories, screenplays etc......
please email me. I need to when they are accepting tapes again
Thank you for your time and attention in this matter.
Sincerely Yours
Gina Fosuhene email address is gfosuhene@yahoo.com
7 - cathrin
The woman I am madly in love with who is currently my best friend alone, recently almost died. She underwent brain surgery for a condition called Arnold Chiari I Malformation. In the surgical procedure they removed 2 vertebrae near the base of her skull and removed a portion of her skull over where her occipital protuberance is at the dead center back of her brain. She is 22 years old. She was lucky enough to have this surgery early enough to fix it since it is genetic but not usually caught until your 40's when it is too late to fix and the result is death. They found it in Rose, because of a major car accident she was in 3 years ago in which she suffered massive head trauma and almost died. Since, she has continual short term memory difficulty that is severe. My Rose is a poet. Writing is the only thing she wants to do, even asleep, and you have no idea the pain when she sat down to write after her accident and forgot how. Now My Rose is healing from her surgery and she is Alive and Writing and Whole again, more so than ever. Her dream has always been to at least be part of the live taping of Def Poets (although I think she could be up there performing) and I want to get her tickets. After months of pills and painkillers and puking from the pain killers and finding the courage to come back, again, I want to give these tickets to her.
8 - Tiffany Wilkins
Hey y'all,
thank you so much for creating this wonderful site and this incredible show! Nothing can express how vital and sexy language can be.
I would also like tickets, or the season type?
Let me know?
Sincerely,
Tiffany
9 - BABAFALAYE
what's up people's I am Babafalaye,I am trying to be down with you all. Damn! I have been looking for a place were I can speak my heart,mind,body,and soul and play with them brain waves a little bit. I am from Chicago,but now I say in Stone Mountian GA. So give me a chance you want be sorry. Because I am soft and hard, a wise man once said without balance confusion can take control.
10 - Darwin Smith
I Love def poetry more than anyone else. I have been writing every since kindergarten when i learned how to write. Poetry has become a part of me and my family's tradition. I like to recite poetry on stage in front of hundreds.
11 - Heba Ragheb
Hi,
I have never actually sent a fan letter to anyone in my life. However, as I am sitting here with a fever of -god knows how much, as the coughing has made my face tomatoe red, as my heart rate has sky rocketed, as my esophagus is scraped burning like an internal fire, as I am procrastenating not to write my animal physiology lab report dues in 5 hours, as I am feeling depressed tricked by another "highly respected corporation, apparently educational apparently called uoft apparently not about money making but rather a life alterations, I needed something to lift my spirits a little higher, to make my life palate a little less blue. Usually in these situations, I paint, draw or I write. I write conundrums, to which, even I do not know the full solution. Today as I am sitting down staring at the most complicated window to man kind, instead of writting I wanted to hear another voice. I coincidently came across Suheir Hammad's you tube videos, stunned and shocked intially speechless- in a good way- I listened some more. I heard a voice that sort of represented who I am. I heard her speak, and it was almost as if I heard her speak my writings. In some weird way we have paralell styles, and here I was sitting thinking I was crazy and no one would ever understand the neural chit chat inside my head. Then from there I heard Lamar Manson, and so on. So, this long thing is just saying I a have an aprectiation for your not so def poetry. Thanks for inspiration, thanks for a drop of yellow paint.
Here's a couple of my journal enteries that I got published, incase you were interested:
Dug the floor from right under me:
My week keeps challenging me. Just as I thought that I could only go higher from rock bottom, I bumped into the undertaker. I could no longer make peace with him. Quite beyond the scope of my reality, I found myself trapped in a four-sided, 12 feet tall trench. I screamed for help, I could hear my echo travel in the distance. I could not see anything from my two meters wide hole, but a blue sky, too out of reach. I yelled again, but those who choose to be deaf, usually choose to be dumb and blind. I could sense their presence nevertheless, and I could sense it as they walked away with my name. They needed a body and a new name, and I made it too easy for them. For, in my having faith in almost everyone, I let them have a chance, and that was all they needed. I began to dig holes in the wall with my pencil- now my only possession, one hole on top of the other. It took days, and some cold scary nights, and if it were not for the rain, I probably would have died a thirsty Egyptian. If it were not for god, I would have gone mad. I had made my own ladder and climbed out. I had liberated myself. As I walked in to the forest, I could not help smiling at one bright yellow rose, and a friendly daisy. But as I saw a green tulip, part of me wanted to creep back to the 12 feet tall trench.
Dec. 4. 2007
Pinstriped purple placenta â€" Blue pill vs. Red pill
Bring out the best in me, make me laugh truly from my heart. No more of this pretending to be; I won’t paint the laugh lines on anymore. Maybe I’ll wear mismatching socks, just so am not barefoot in the cold. The saddest stories are still left untold. Yet, the words echo in my head immortally, and the pictures are still painted beneath my eyelids. Some people hear their own lies, and to their ears, it sounds truer than the truth ever did. Only if denial could fight the moon’s gravitational forces, maybe then, the tide would be fixed. The jelly fish would still die, for venturing too far away. Dried up on the shore, breathless, it realizes it never knew where home truly is. More lies, longer lines, we take away the souvenirs to prove fantasies do exist. We fancy they tangle with reality just a bit. We like to think we are part of the picture, a spring in the mechanics of utopian myths. But the world now is digital, signaled with electronics, perhaps really a Matrix. The wired cords are now too thick to be cut, everyone empowered â€" taser shocked numbless, gets a turn and trips. More disconnected than ever, we suffocate in each others’ closeness. We like to think we are in the game playing the tricks, as we are true democratics, as we freely speak about spears and hits. Brainwashed by the media that is fueled by the government, distracted by the bombarding corporations, dumbed by our attorneys, Blinded by the city lights, we are kept away from the revolutionary threats, because diet coke never tasted sweeter. Choice and control that we barely have we toss away and break into bits. I would choose to know more knowing it would be depressing. I would choose to step outside my ignorance and naivety and see the world for what it really is. I could almost never choose the blue pill because I see a silver rabbit in the moon. In the heat of the moment, truth has melted and it will take the shape of the container you choose for it.
Jan, 11th, 2008
Beneath the blindfolds:
A chocolate brown zipper, a beautiful transaction, yellow and white candy canes, and simple sampling:
Wisdom is the best trick. The more you seek it, the larger it gets in your periphery, the further it becomes; just a simple illuminant mirage. The more you think you know exactly where you are in this beautiful infinite grainy yellowness, the more dehydrated you will get. The radiation will humble you down, and bring you to your two feet. All you could hope and strive for is stay floating as a spec driven by the humongous ocean waves. The more you substantiate your ignorance, the closer to wisdom you will be. Yet, wisdom, like light is unattainable. You can see light, but you cannot smell, breathe, taste or hold light. Wisdom is unattainable in similar ways to perfection, yet the two cannot coexist except in God. The more you look down on the more ignorant, the more the less ignorant will look down on you. The more you look through the ignorant’s perspective up, the much higher you realize you will have to climb. I am not talking pyramids or Everest high, these are other specs in the ocean. To climb: is to grow slowly and gradually intellectually and spiritually; to think deeply about the physiology of philosophy and understand with an open mind, as objectively as possible. The more blindfolds you remove, the closer to the truth you will get, but the further from reality you will be. Because reality is not parallel to truth, it moves in wavy lines, twists like a snake until it goes though defensive lines, to score the goal. If no one knows the whole truth, does is it continue to exist? We never think of the ants hearing the tree fall, because our perspective is self-centered. The deniable truth is we are all blind, always have been, and will always partly remain blind. You better start looking into LAZEC and EYE TRANSPLANTS, to hope for a glimpse of the fuzziest picture before perspective shapes truth with a zigzag blade into reality.
Sam3ni sotak, el bab mardood.
Jan, 30th, 2008
take care
Heba Ragheb
12 - Jared Dawson
I love def jam! I've fallen in love with it about a year ago and I really want to be on it. Here's a sample so tell me what you think
"As a people we often have prophetic dreams because forseen are the hopes for our progressing regime but instead all we have is this prosthetic thing deattached from the promising beings led by problematic kings who are only after the prospering bling"
-Jared Dawson
13 - blue ballloon
i dont have a camera... i dont have a car to go to local poetry slams... Some say i dont have a chace without these... all i have is these words in my head and this feeling in my heart... please help... all i want is a chance. Thank you for listening. [Personal contact info deleted]
14 - bigmack
BOTTOM$'UP I Poerty i Do Poerty & i Will BE
$ending my Video BaBe WAKE UP PEACE~N~HOOD