>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. >> SPEAKER 1: And is everybody ready for the third annual Youth Poetry Slam? [ Cheers ] The inaugural slam in 2014 featured teen performers from around the district. And last year we expanded the event to include teens from across the country. So, this year we are delighted to welcome three national teams to join DC's Youth Slam Team on the stage and, brace yourself; they are from Des Moines, Iowa RunDSM. [ Cheers ] From Indianapolis, Indiana Indy Pulse. [ Cheers ] And from New York City, Urban Word. [ Cheers ] Our host tonight will say more about the format of the poetry slam, but before I invite him up, I want to thank a number of organizations for collaborating with the Library of Congress on this wonderful event. First, the National Endowment for the Arts, our fellow federal arts agency that helps us bring poets and writers to this festival. Three cheers for the National Endowment. [ Cheers ] And, Split This Rock. The literary organization that helps us reach out to our competing slam teams. [ Cheers ] I would especially like to thank NEA Literature Division director, Amy Stolls. And Split This Rock executive director, Sarah Browning for their efforts to bring America's best youth slammers to this book festival. [ Cheers ] So, tonight we have a terrific lineup of judges. Two of them are acclaimed writers who earlier in the day participated in the festival. The first is poet, Joy Harjo. And author Meg Medina. Thank you both for extending your time to be here today. [ Applause ] And now fasten your seatbelt, I'm pleased to announce that our third judge for tonight is the 14th Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden. [ Cheers ] So, thank you judges. So, I'd now like to turn the mic over to tonight's host, Joseph Green, Split This Rock's acting youth program's coordinator. Joseph is also the co-founder and program director of Poetry Now, and after school creative writing program for DC area students. And he has over 10 years' experience as a professional spoken word, artist and writer. So, Joseph it's all yours. Thank you. [ Applause ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Good evening. How are you? Are you ready for a poetry slam [cheers]? All right so, I'm going to give that like a D plus. No I mean like you showed up to class. You didn't know what class you were in and you didn't bring any utensils. All right. No pencil. No paper, nothing. All right so we're going to try it again. But I'm going to give you some things to think about this time. This is a poetry slam. So, when I ask you to applaud, I want you to applaud like the future of our country is going to get on this stage and open themselves up and share with you the keys to how to make this world a better place. All right? [ Cheers ] That was just like one thing. That was just like one thing. But you seem to understand what I mean, right. So, every time a poet comes on stage tonight, that the sort of acclaim they should meet. All right I say it like this to my other audiences. Imagine your first-born child has just won a spelling bee, in a language you did not know they could speak. That is amazing. And that's how we should treat every young person that comes on this stage tonight. So, one more time for our wonderful performers. [ Cheers ] As you heard before, this event is brought to you by the Library of Congress, The National Endowment of the Arts, and Split This Rock. Please put your hands together for those amazing groups. [ Applause ] And we have poets from all over the country. All right, so this time I'm going to say the name of the team and I want you all to applaud like we just learned how we're going to applaud for the rest, all right. From Des Moines RunDSM [cheers]. From Indianapolis, Indy Pulse [cheers]. From New York City, Urban Word [cheers]. And from Washington DC, Split This Rock's DC U Slam Team. [ Cheers ] So, to keep things fair, that will be the last time this evening until after the performance that you will hear the names of the participating groups, because we don't have to have any home team advantage. But please understand that these young people worked hard on these poems. They travelled from all over the country to be here to share these words with you and that is a special thing. Now, show of hands, how many of you have ever been to a poetry slam before? Good. Good, good, good. So, you know everything I'm about to say. This is for everybody else in the room. A poetry slam is a competition that was started in the mid-1980s by a construction worker in Chicago named Mark Smith. >> CROWD: So, what? >> JOSEPH GREEN: Exactly. In this competition people will compete with original pieces of poetry, not going over three minutes. There will be no musical accompaniment, no props, no costumes, anything of that sort. All right. These poems are original constructions of these young people so I just want to really drive that home that these are their thoughts, their words, their ideas about the world and they are welcome, welcoming to you after to come up and talk to them and ask them about these things. We hope that you take these ideas home and you discuss them. If this poetry slam is no more than clapping and scores, then we have failed here today. So please keep that in mind. Other things you need to know about the poetry slam is there will be judges. They will judge from 0 to 10; 10 being the best poem you have ever heard, the roof falls out, everybody ascends to heaven. That's it. It's over. That's a 10. Zero, being the opposite of that, the bottom falls out, everyone goes to hell, it's over, no. But they have been prepped. They know that they are judging on performance and they are judging on content. Now, it's a hard job to judge, okay. So, judges, I'm going to introduce you one more time and you're going to get applause. This might be the last applause you hear tonight. But, you deserve it. You are experts in your craft and that's why we choose you okay? All right. So, again, poet, musician and playwright Joy Harjo. [ Cheers ] The Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden[cheers]. And YA author of "Burn Baby Burn" and Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass," Meg Medina. [ Cheers ] Judges, do not be swayed by the audience. All right. We picked you on purpose. There's a reason why you're here, all right. Audience, sway the judges all right. When they throw a score up and you do not like that score, we don't do booing any more we don't do that, we say, 'listen to the poem.' Everyone say, 'listen to the poem.' >> CROWD: Listen to the poem. >> JOSEPH GREEN: Exactly. And that's how they know how you feel. If they throw up a score that you love, you do what [cheers]? You applaud riotously. All right. And [laugther]. It's a very rough crowd. That's okay we have security for the judges afterwards. No, this is about the poetry. We will clap for the scores. You will scream listen to the score if you don't like the score. But at the end of the day, the poetry is the point. I say again, the poetry is the point. These young people and their words are what matters the most, we just do this competition thing to get people out in the seats because this is America and we love a good competition. All right. But the fact of the matter is we are here to hear some poetry. If you're ready to hear some poetry make some noise. [ Cheers ] You're not ready yet. So, it is a tradition at the poetry slam, that we have a calibrating poet. We call them the sacrificial. They come, they spill their blood on the stage for you. Judges, they will be the litmus for all of your scores for here on out. If you like a poem more, give it a higher score. If you like a poem less give it a lower score. All right. This poet is not in the competition. But, they will be scored as if they are. Please, this is your first test. Coming to the stage, please put your hands together for Ushindi Performance Group member, Yonus O'Ria [assumed spelling]. [ Cheers ] [ Applause ] >> YONUS O'RIA: How you all doing? This is loud. All right, cool. I'm going to do a love poem, because like who doesn't like love poems. You know? Cool. If I was brave enough to be your Romeo would you be my Juliette? Would you find me important enough to be in your poems? Would you bring me up in random conversation with people I've met? Would you believe me when I tell you, you are you own worst critic? See, everything you do is sunsets on countrysides, drops of rain dancing across a baby's forehead for the first time. You are nothing less than a treasure. I know that people have loved you for all the wrong reasons. If I was brave enough to show you the right ones, would you let me? I've been thinking of how to tell you how I feel. Or, if you would even believe me. See, you've met the worst parts of me before the best parts. Got a chance to shine. If I was brave enough to take the time would you let me get to know you? Not just the picture-perfect smile, or face you put on for others, would you let me know the reason you wear the masks? See, this isn't a crush or teenage lust, but I wouldn't feel comfortable calling it love because I don't just want to kiss, and hug you, or know all your secrets. You make me want to be the man I don't ever think I can be. Your words fuel my inspiration. My skin dances to the sound of your voice. When you speak, I don't get butterflies. I get riots of unspoken words demanding refuge, raging pulse of fire in the midnight of my stomach, I wish the flames could dance of my tongue as easily as they do yours. You are the night before my revolution. I ask you. If I was brave enough to be your Romeo, would you be my Juliette? So, could we trash all the metaphors, get rid of the over used clichés and not so well done similes and simply help each other be the best versions of ourselves? [ Cheers ] JOSEPH GREEN: A couple of important things I want to point out there. Some of poetry slam veterans reminded me that I forgot to say something at the beginning. This is not a poetry reading. This is not a golfing event. This is a poetry slam. All right. So, if you hear something you like while it's happening, it is encouraged for you to reciprocate that energy back to the poet, all right. There are several ways you can do that. If you hear a poem, if you hear a line in a poem that you really like you can snap. Let me hear everybody snap. Yes. Sounds like the biggest bowl or Rice Krispies. Second thing you do if you hear something you like you can say, 'word.' Everyone say, 'word.' >> CROWD: Word. >> JOSEPH GREEN: All right now this is my favorite thing in the world invented by Amine Drulaw [assumed spelling], you can take the word she, you can take the word Jesus and you smoosh it together and if you hear something that makes you feel holy on the inside you say, 'shesus.' Everybody on the count of three, let me hear your best shesus. One, two, three. >> CROWD: Shesus. >> JOSEPH GREEN: There it is all right. So, from now on the poets are prepared for this. You're not being rude. All right they know this is coming. The snapping is preferred because they can keep going. But if something really, just give it to them, it's good, it's beautiful all right. So, judges this is the longest amount of time you will ever have to put your scores together all right. So, this is the scoring part. Judges, may I see your scores in 3, 2. You all was supposed to have it written down already, 3, 2, 1 scores up. From Low to high I have a 9.0, a 9.1, and a 9.5 let's hear it for the poet please. [ Applause ] All right and because this is the National Book Fair, there is a twist to this poetry slam. There's a theme. All right so for the first round the poets have to present a poem about books, or reading. All right. That is a very broad theme it can be interpreted in many, many ways. I look forward to seeing how many ways they interpret it. Okay. But that's the first round. The second round will be a poem of their choice. Now do you all want to hear the names of the people who are going to blow this stage up tonight, make some noise [cheers]. All right this is also the order they will be going in in the first round, please save your applause to the end so they can hear this and remember. We have Alyssa Gaines [assumed spelling], Shintelli Medina [assumed spelling], Kaysa [assumed spelling], Kenya [assumed spelling], Julio [assumed spelling], Henry [assumed spelling], Kalyn Basquez [assumed spelling], and Elondra Brassil [assumed spelling]. Put your hand together for the poets. [ Cheering ] Keep that energy going for the first poet, in the first round, Alyssa Gaines. [ Cheering ] [ Applause ] >> Baby do your thing. >> Okay poet now let's get in formation [laughter]. >> ALYSSA GAINES: Where is my chariot? Where I've been waiting. I've been stuck here for so long. Nobody hears my cries. My cage song. He woke up this morning, got out of bed, got ready to chase the big blue and yellow exhaust pumping the city dragon which took him to school. Little did he know he'd be fighting many battles that day. He'd be battling many monsters and even breaking a few rules. Jabril, our hero rode the dragon until it stopped at his stop then he got off and walked to the schoolhouse, 8:30. The was 30 minutes early, never neglecting to say, 'good morning.' But sometimes forgetting to finish the homework of last night. At last the bell rung and he rushed to his place, sat in his seat and prepared for the monster he was about to face. This big, ugly monster wanted to incarcerate him. The monster who never wanted to see him graduate. The monster who tried to hold him down, keep his head to the ground and tell him his fate. Which the monster, statistic, made to seem set in stone. Our hero slayed the beast of the classroom and their preconceived notions. He fought the rude things they said and the negative things they told him. He fought the ideas that the naturally grown hair from his head was nappy and that was bad. He fought for the education he deserved to have. He fought the giant of not having all the tools that he needed. He fought the feign, the fighting to catch the dragon to get home. He fought the students who crossed him not knowing his struggles, and fought punishments more than he deserved. And he fought most of these battles alone. And sometimes it got hard wielding swords of open smarts and that's why he needed the schoolhouse every day. He needed to learn how to craft things other kids got for their birthdays. Laptops, Wi-Fi, a school board mom, and automatic good grades. Nobody saw in him the vision that he saw. Nobody thought that he would ever go far. Nobody thought his dreams would ever come true, but Jabril, I believe in you. You're paving your own yellow brick road, wielding your own weapons with your melanin and afro. Fighting battles to help you succeed and keeping hope when it's hard to believe, or else you wouldn't chase the evermoving dragon every day. Oh, Jabril. He never does his work, he doesn't care of school work at all, is what the monsters all say to try to throw him off. But, hero keep your head up. None of that is true. And if everyone thinks it is, I believe in you. You are worth so much time and so much patience. Jabril, you are worth a decent education. They see the habits you've developed to survive on the streets and try to take them at school. Beasts confiscate them at school as they try to teach you to fit in in a society that doesn't even want you to. But I believe in you. Stay firm in your beliefs, participate, write, and read. And I know you recognize that the teaching tools are twisted, but do what you need to do in this education system. And once you finish school, you can help to fix it. And all the problems of our world. Beautiful black boys and girls, you are all like the hero from our story today. No matter what anyone does, or what anyone says, you hold so much potential and so much value. Black youth, I believe in you. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Best part of being a host is walking up during someone else's applaud and pretending like it's for you. As a host, I am not allowed to talk about the poems as they go through so you all have to make sure that when a poem comes up here that really moves you, you let that poet know. Judges you have 3, 2, 1. Scores up from low to high I have a 9.2, a 9.5, and a 9.5. Let's hear it for the poet. [ Cheers ] Coming up next. Please put your hands together for Shintelli Medina. [ Applause ] All the way to the stage folks, all the way to the stage. Don't give up. Don't give up. [ Applause ] >> SHINTELLI MEDINA: They say, if you want to hide something from my people, put it in the book. The best way they have hidden everything from us was by burning the ones we wrote. How dare you rewrite me into history as if I be fiction. Hand me a book that sanctions my slavery. Command of me to praise to a man that mirrors my conqueror. I cannot fall bended knee to a father after mine was stripped from me like the dignity of my people. Do you know how it feels to take up 10 pages of an American history textbook that make up more than 1/3 of the population and feel like misrepresentation. And feel like misogyny. And feel like misery. And feel like I am pretend fighting for a right to be real in a world that want to see me erased. I can't. They won't erase me. Do you know what it feels like to have to go and pray to a God that doesn't look like you? Do you know what it feels like to not be able to rewind and track a tribe that belongs to you? Think back to a time where you felt incomplete, inadequate. Think back to a time where you felt like you were only half of something you thought you were holistically. Imagine being Hispanic, stuck in between black void and white privilege. Stuck in between two blood lines. One that calls island home, and that yeans to rape island of all that it is. Hoping that you knew your skin. That you could pick a kin. Thank you. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges, because we have to, in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high I have an 8.9, a 9.0 and a 9.0. Can we hear one more time for the poet please. [ Applause ] It's not easy. Coming up here, opening yourself up. Laying yourself down like that. I have been in this work for about a decade and the courage of the young people that I see on a day-to-day basis having the nerve to do this inspire me endlessly. So, for all the young people that have picked up a pen, that have stepped on this stage, or will step on this stage, I need a lot more applaud than that. [ Cheering ] Coming up next. Please keep that going for Kaysa. [ Cheering ] >> KAYSA: It is twilight. Onto day break long after the moon has been tucked away and the stars have left the sky. It is here in this eerie place Edward Cullen finds himself enthralled in the very thoughts of his love, Bella. He is compelled and moved by her. It is she that protects his hallowed soul with the shield of ignorance. And ignorant are the boards of Indiana, the state that just won't say yes. The state who continues to press the LGBT community. I remember the feeling of being utterly dumbfounded by a fair maiden's appearance. Yes, I was physically attracted to her, but it was the blood coursing through her body and heat that radiated from her chest that I knew there was something deeper. And so deep into the night I thought about her. I also found myself dreaming in the day as thoughts of her lean metallic like features danced across my brain. My brain, having been stepped on by my governor. His proud hooves engraving state laws of restoration in my mind. Telling me to think straight and I knew it could never happen. And it can never be possible like Edward who's 107, and Bella 17, and myself a junior and she a freshman. It was wrong. But it didn't change the fact that I wanted it to happen. But maybe I am more like Jacob. Hot-headed, ill-tempered, and a bit jealous in my love, the new moon. Unsure personality sexuality, a quarter of a moon shore, half of a moon shore, waxing full, waning gone. It is new moon when Jacob goes to the faces. From the slightest thing could turn him. Action, reaction. From a wholesome human being in two feet, to a ferocious beast on the prowl. Fire in his eyes. Rage in his growl. And I'm no beast, but my eyes begin to glisten in nervous laughter. I keep highs in my vocal cords when I see her. The slightest thing could turn me. The gleam in her smile, the dolls on her eyes that could the stars or the sweet aroma of her presence that gets carried away with the wind. My love knows there's an opposing force out there. A force that is not for all rights. A force that will pray, hunt and kill. Anyone not in alliance with the church and state. The world of twilight causes a new born army. My world causes homophobic politics and corrupted saints. Both are newly changed, untrained vampires, blood thirsty, power hungry, and will do anything for a coat of normality. What is normal? What is freedom? What is love? It keeps hurting me, a wooden dagger through my chest which is refract. My Christianity cannot be healed by this wound. Where's my freedom to love, to pray, to get down on my knees and confess to another woman that I am dangerously in love with her. I am breaking so many rules here. She is the moon. I am the sun. And for a moment in time we are perfectly aligned. The gravitational pull of human emotion between us. And as we separate, our eclipse fades, and day begins to break. Breaking news, Indiana has just passed the religious freedom restoration act, pressing same sex and gender laws like tending to our corn fields. And this is what we're known for. Like men who shave sheep into wools, and then stalking the sweet aroma of their next victim. But it's not always that easy. We don't always get to choose what it's like to love someone. The Bible and the Constitution rejects. A sinner and a criminal. Like the moment a wolf imprints on another human being. Fate has decided the love of your life. And fate is what brings worlds together. Colliding them in space in time, drawing parallels between fantasy and reality. And this is reality. Are you the protagonist, or the antagonist? Choose wisely, the future of our saga depends on it. The future of my sage depends on it. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high, I have an 8.9. >> CROWD: Listen to the poem. >> JOSEPH GREEN: A 9.1, and a 9.2. Clap for the poet please. [ Applause ] So, another important announcement that I neglected to make at the beginning. Hey everybody, turn your cellphones off. Turn them to sting, stun anything that does not make noise. We do not want to hear your Lil Wayne ringtone in the middle of one of these poems. You know who I'm talking about Sarah Browning. No, but seriously, turn them off, but use them with this hash tag. National Book Fest. Yes, let people know that this room right now on a Saturday night is full of young people who like words [applause]. Who love words. Who are passionate about books, and reading, and can articulate that passion. All right. they don't know we're out here, we need to tell them. Use that hash tag National Book Fest. All right now, clear the room it's time for our next poet. Please put your hands together, start clapping right now for Kenya [applause]. It's time to go all the way to the stage please. There it is. [ Applause ] >> KENYA: It was on a Wednesday, during my 11 a class. Oh, sorry. It was on a Wednesday, during my 11 a.m. chemistry class when a butterfly placed itself up on a student's desk. And I've never seen something so graceful, full of freedom. All nature and God wrapped into a seamless body. In chemistry, we are taught that the world is made of matter. Full of lively atoms that shoot their ray across dimensions, break barriers. Like the butterfly. But today, he was not celebrated as such there. There'd be no projects made in his honor, never rejoice in his colors, execute him to black and white. My professor called it the circle of life. Necessary for science. Like splitting mocking birds open and claiming their voice boxes as rewards. But that was to kill, perch. Any unwarranted reason to remove a soul, they claim it to be swift, easy. Who cares it's just one less of them premeditated. One to see it in full flight. To know of open hand and small man will become covalent bonds. Never seem to think twice. Just react. Like atoms. Like justice system. Like every black man slammed into the court bench. Like every family with lost father, like Tom Robinson, like Atticus. They are not the body at the gun range. Just a noise cancellations. Our lives just be open statement using casual conversation. Something to sign about, then back to lecture. They will never know how it feels to be a mocking bird, or a butterfly. Or every Tom convicted of a crime they never even thought to commit, pushed in to the rifles, then they play Russian roulette with intent to kill. Murder. Displace this life whatever, whether it be by bullet, or jail cell, 1933 or 2016 we are always remembered by how easily black can turn to crimson. It was on a Wednesday during my 11 a.m. chemistry class, when a butterfly placed itself upon a student's desk and for a moment, I knew that it came as a warning. Thank you. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Audience, you're doing a good job. Judges, you're doing a great job; 3, 2, 1. Scores up from low to high I have, a 9.3, a 9.5, and a 9.8. That's for the poet [cheers]. Keep that energy going for your next poet in the first round, Julio. [ Cheers ] >> JULIO: In 2016, 12 teachers were murdered for fighting for educational reform in Wahaka, Mexico. I've never been to Wahaka. But I'll hold the soil with two palms like a newborn child. My mother was born there. Heard the sun was as warm to melt your heart into a ribcage. Heard the soil carries the sound of three million souls walking to school. Education isn't close to home here. The difference between a book and a child is that sometimes they're seven miles apart from each other and most commonly, the teachers know the students better than the parents do. And maybe sometimes the teachers will substitute for the students when the parents are sick, when the parents are on opposite sides of the wall, when their parents are breathing less. Or when they're breathless. Wahaka teachers crease open the floors with seeds, sprout every child they can from seeking. So why do they only get acknowledgement when 12 of them wind up dead on the news still arrested with the their eyes still open. They never get a chance to blink, or saw the world spin off its axes. This is what happens when you speak on a countries problems, how crazy it can be for the Mexican government to bite off their own fruit. Why doesn't anybody ever talk about how good the students are. What are the students doing? What are the students doing? What's proficient nowadays? Ask how many miles they walk to school and calculate that with the amount of times they came hungry. Ask how things are going at home. But don't be surprised when they ask you what that last word means, ask, ask them who their favorite hero is. And they're reply dead. Twelve of them to be exact. Twelve teachers that advocated. All 12 made national TV. You can still read the names on the screen when the TV turned off. Still hear the screams of 12 generations fighting, but you probably couldn't. Sound is always hard to hear behind a wall. Always misinterpreted, always looked over. How do you kill 12 teachers and not learn from it? This will be the first time a teacher's absent in a classroom. The first time the students are actually listening. The first time 12 teachers raised their hand at the exact same time and all got the same answer. Aren't you tired of watching, or did you even bother to watch at all? [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges scores in 3, 2, 1. Scores up from low to high I have a 9.5, a 9.8, and the first 10 of the evening. [ Cheers ] We've got 1, 2, 3 poets left in the first round. Please keep that energy up. Start clapping right now for your next poet, Henry. All the way to the stage. [ Applause ] >> HENRY: My parents don't know about storytelling. Another word for it is gossip in their minds. To spill the secrets out of our household for everyone to know. They forget about the tales they've been told about witches, and the thieves in the city. Their tongues are now stale. They do not speak a native language. It's never been this cordial. It is all something they've memorized. A knowledge, a script. My parents know argument. They know bland dialect that will split them a half that won't be quiet. A half that won't forgive. Then their conversations become worrisome. Their eerie. Sometimes my father talks about his dad. How he saw his own friend drown, how he then walked home to get sleep for work the next morning. My parents had to cross rivers in order to get to school. They take their clothes off. They hold them up high. There's nothing celestial about that. At school, they are only given disciplinary bruises. You can't blame the teachers. Beatings are all my parents afford. Nearest library is two hours away. They're not great at reading. They know numbers, they know how to part their lips. My parents don't know many ways to say, thank you. They'll nod their head, yes. They'll send money back to El Salvador. Sometimes they'll just look at you and stay silent. I told my parents I wanted to be a writer. My parents do not know that they are stubborn. My parents do not know that they do not like what has risk. What isn't stable. What is out of the norm. they remind me that we were never people who did things out of willingness. That we only know demand and conformity. They remind me that we have only opened newspapers to look for coupons. That no one reads anymore. And no one cares anymore. My parents do not know rebirth through writing [cheer]. Death is given logic when it is written. My parents came to this country rather young. They do not know travelling. They know migration, they know starving. They have suffered because they have come to meet them in the face. But they have never spoken about it. They live hurt. Yet, they have never read something of healing. And this is the way I carry when I write. And this is what I will continue to carry until everything is said. Until my parents understand. Fortunately, my parents know something about listening. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges scores in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high I have a 9.4, a 9.5, and a 9.8. Let's hear it for the poet [applause]. Keep that applause going for you second to last poet, in the first round, Kalyn Basquez. [ Applause ] >> KALYN BASQUEZ: After "Fortress of Solitude" by Jonathan Lethem. Dear Gentrifier, when you and the rest of the hipsters want to crowd the M train and act like you all know Williamsburg Brooklyn. The older Latino people in the subway car look at me like I'm one of you, because tattoos and piercings are white. Been appropriated so long ago, we almost forgot it was never your culture to begin with. I get off the train with a bunch of you too who check the newly placed public maps to find a restaurant, a bar, whatever else you colonized here. Galivant through like you all even know how to get to the street, this place was named after, you can't can you? Can't tell me which small business shut down to make room for the Duane Reed the Whole Foods. Tell me you love Spanish food, bodega coffee. He lump the [inaudible] truck every night to educate your taste buds. Forget your presence, price is out the ones cooking for you. Tell me you respect culture and that's why you go to Afro Punk every year. Tell me you're for equality and pay $4 for a cup of yogurt willingly like my sister's food stamps ain't got limits. Like it care about my nephew stomach. Tell me when you make a new geo photo on Snapchat. Just like you out there for Washington Heights. Oops, Wa He. Because you're all for renaming New York. Been a while since the Dutch did it. So I guess it's time for something new. Tell me you're against a new neighborhood and pay $2 million for an apartment on the water. Name the landmarks you were too drunk to notice. Tell me about the Domino Sugar factory, before it was condos. Like black history wasn't always just a speed bump for developers. Like it ain't American history, unless it's yours tell me you can build an entire home out of suffering and broken spines like slavery was never abolished after all. Tell me about Puerto Rico, that island you noticed when you were sailing over here. Tell me how easy it is to find a cheap plot of land there. How the sun on your skin makes you feel like you belong, because my home ain't safe. Ain't sacred no matter when it is and tell me you know all of this and if you can I still know it is only because you are used to taking things. [ Cheering ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Poems. So many poems. And so many scores. Judges 3, 2, 1. Get em up. From low to high I have a 9.0, a 9.3, and a 9.4. Let's hear it for the poet [applause]. And coming up last in our first round please put your hands together, start clapping right now, for Elondra Brassil. All the way top the stage. [ Applause ] >> ELONDRA BRASSIL: One, two, three. No, no, no, no. Two, four, six. One, two, three, four. You want me to read it? the second paragraph? All of it? No, no, no, no. It's fine. It's fine. I have a pretty. I mean, I mean problem with reading. Growing up with dyslexia, you spend more time trying to read your name than write it. Trying to find the rhythm in words over alphabets how he's turned into hes, or just not understanding the difference. I love going to birthday parties. You find out quickly how your misunderstanding of words can turn a room silent. Can turn a reading class, instructions into the teaching lesson over the difference between a's and i's, one sentence was like a death sentence. Reading out loud is like a death sentence. I can feel my cheeks turn red. Arms go cold. Hands tremble. I've spent 30 seconds telling you how I feel, but if I wrote it down I would stumble first grade. I can read. I mean I can read. I swear I can. Words just run from me. Second, third. Third is when I became a mathematician, counting the number of people that read before me did it for like a math problem, but more like a destination, fourth, fifth. Mr. and Mrs. Brassil Elondra struggles more than most kids. Sixth, we can help by putting her into some classes. Seventh, eighth. Hi. I'll be your literacy teacher today. Does she know that words run from me? Does she know that I run from words? In ninth I learned that boys don't leave me tongue tied, words do. I do, I do. I know the word. It's on the tip of my tongue. You notice you can only use this phrase so many times before they stop believing you. Do you even believe in me anymore? I mean me. I mean you. I mean you know what I mean. I mean you know what I meant. Forgetting placements in books, run-on sentences. A's turning to i's it's not normal behavior. It's a silent hand raised. It's a kid choosing to act out because you refuse to read to them. How do you help someone with dyslexia? You let them tell you their story instead of you forcing them to; one, two, three [cheers]. Read one. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges what do you think? 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high I have a 9.7, a 9.8, and a 9.8. Clap up for the poet. [ Applause ] So, that's the end of the first round. You all did it real good. I'm very proud of you. Only heard like one random cellphone tone go off. Don't do that again. But real quick before we jump into this last round. We're going to take all the poets, we're going to turn it back around again. We're going to go right back down the list. We're going to take the two scores, we're going to add them together and that's how we're going find out who's going to win our poetry slam. But real quick everyone just look around the room. Just take a look around the room. I said this earlier. But it's practically standing room only on a Saturday night for a poetry slam. That's a beautiful thing. Now keep clapping while we take a picture of this. [ Applause ] I can do this. Everybody, say National Book Festival. [ Cheers ] Oh do it for the gram. Hi y'all. All right here we go in this order. Elondra, Kalyn, Henry, Julio, Kenya, Kaysa, Shintelli, and Alyssa. Those are your poets in the second round. Make some noise for them all right now. Coming right back to the stage, please put your hands together for Elondra Brassil. [ Cheering ] [ Applause ] >> ELONDRA BRASSIL: I just want to be pretty. Not mama secondhand compliments type pretty. But drop dead gorgeous. Not have to look at my reflection and regret it. Have a list of ten things in my head that I should have fixed, but ignored them because only pretty people stare in the mirror for longer than 10 seconds. My breasts are getting heavier. I tried to experiment with different bras, but they always seem to want to be the center of attention. My stomach hangs as low as my faith. My weight is why my faith in God is questionable. I wonder why they call them love handles if they're unlovable. It seems like my hips aren't getting the hints that my stretchmarks are trying to give them. They just keep on expanding. I eat like I'm going to find my [inaudible] apology letter at the bottom of the bag, just to find my guilt staring back at me. I can't stare in the mirror for too long, I begin to remember why I never do. That's why I get dressed with the lights off. My stretch marks remind me of why I started cutting in the first place. I mean, I mean why I wanted to die in the first place. Maybe that's why they call them marks. Because being overweight always leaves a scar. I wonder when my sister told me I was gaining a few pounds, did she know I was gaining insecurities too? I've been tucking in my insecurities since I was 12. Just to picture me in a crop top makes me all want to crop myself out. I avoid doctor appointments because I know they'll weigh me. My gym teachers don't know that I'm dishonest about my weight on tests. That the only time I run is past scales. I wonder when God sees me does he throw up in his mouth? Or do I make him regret creating mirrors in the first place. I've never felt so exposed in my life. I'm standing in front of glass and I'm the one about to break. With a bare body and raw emotions. I let you validate me. You keep my secrets hidden in your cracks. Have no shame and putting gaps in my confidence. You and I can't agree on what I should look like. You let me pour out my flaws, just to show them off. Make my own reflection turn on me. Turn my body into a homicide. Make me lose my mind first instead of pounds. You make my neck, back, breast, chin, ass, arms, hands, legs, stomach into a suicide letter. And 5 a.m. cries for help. I can't hide anymore. I can't hide my weight number long sleeves and cardigans, let God shine on all of my flaws [cheering] expose my wounds and worship in them. Would it be cliché if I told you I'm taking all of me back. Maybe you'll never see beauty in me. That my body is what you're framing, but I don't need you anymore, because I'm drop dead beautiful. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges scores in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high I have a 9.8, a 9.9, and a 10. [ Cheers ] Keep that same energy going for the next poet. Please put your hands together for Kalyn Basquez. [ Applause ] >> KALYN BASQUEZ: Mama taught me three things. It is the man's job to build a woman into the spine of a bridge. It is the woman's job not to bleed through the cement in the process. God, is always watching as this unfolds. When my boyfriend says I'm stupid, grows furious with me because I do not want to have sex with him. Makes me feel insignificant and shames me for it. I feel him melt me down and spread me over the steel overlays. Smooth me into a roadway, accordion, how sweet the sobbing sounds, when harmonizing of his blaring engine. I rate in hot like the sting of the first time he snapped at me, God enters. As how I just stand there and let him drive me down to a skid mark, stops. Says I must get it from my mother. The way we turn fists into palms full of love notes. How we be the food he devours on the table. And the table he screws on afterwards. Absorb a man's darkness and still lead him to a flame he can choose to blow out at whim. He kisses my back with his feet. Stomps across each vertebra as if I could connect all his broken. And I saw it coming. And the way he's scoff at my magic as if he were Houdini and I were a backyard act. The way he'd make requests into law. Decree. A rewriting of the Bible that I knew would only end in apocalypse. Fooled myself into a fairytale that played out in the wrong order. And now here I am. A nymph for a storyteller that won't remember by name by the end of it, but will remember my breasts. The fertile mound of my stomach, how women bleed sustenance. Don't you know our blood is the binding agent in cement mix? God clears her throat. As how I plan to save myself now that my limbs are encased in rocks says do you remember when you were wild? And I don't. This hug of concrete done declawed me. Done polish me down to token I stand the worst fashion. Unmoving. Bones degrading like my name and his mouth. God asks remember that time you loved yourself? And I claw a crack through the asphalt hoping my voice can escape. But by the time the words interrupt the metal beams there's no one there to receive them. God is gone now. And I do not know if he was there the whole time to begin with, or if it was only yearning to see myself near divinity. But I know she's always watching. For the day I snap the suspender cables. Split my deck and let the steel concave itself into a skull fracturing casket. Let him cascade down. Still screaming for the womb of my love. God and I will laugh. It will be the last time I let a man make a highway of me. And that part. I taught my own damn self. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges scores in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to, why you? From low to high I have a 9.5. a 9.6 and a 9.7. Let's hear it for the poet [cheers]. Keep that same energy going. Coming back to the stage, Henry. [ Applause ] >> HENRY: I come from a family of repent. My mother fell in love. My father was a cigarette addict I was wrapped in that same evangelical blanket. I grew up learning how to get comfortable to sleep on pews. I grew up learning how to close my eyes and have conversation. I grew up learning how to not get stomped on by those who danced in time of praise. No church boy, they're asked to think of God unworthy. I was probably one of the only little boys that paid attention. I had this trust and fear in God it was this being that could turn our church, a school cafeteria into a sanctuary. We borrowed music stands from classrooms, used them as pulpits. When I was eight, I finally stood behind one. I preached in front of other 8-year-olds and the pastor's youngest son. I delve into the stout book of "Revelation." I spoke about the rapture, horns blowing, a blood moon. I became a holy infant at church. I learned to walk, I became a priest. My father had me memorize this verse. I don't remember it completely now. It was about a believer who rebelled. About a dog that returns to its own vomit. Shortly after the understanding of God comes the absorption of what baptism is. I began to take baptism classes. Most of the people there are in their forties. We had read the same book. We know that baptism is not a toy. It is a seal embossed onto your spiritual and physical being. And it is not a toy. It is not guaranteed for it to be a good thing to be baptized at an early age. Jesus was baptized when he was 30. I was baptized a couple weeks before I turned 12. Our congregation was going to be uniting at another church. We did not own our own baptismal pools. I remember getting my white robe. The man who tied it had very unstable hands, they tremble mirrored the great crumble of Sodom and Gomorrah. That evening I bathed in God's waters. They were welcoming, but lukewarm. I had this conversation the day before with my mother. It still lingers with me. She mentioned how young I was and the greater repercussions of sin that came with it. I was just an eager boy. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges let me see those scores in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high I have a. We have a 9.1, a 9.2 and a 9.3. Let's hear it for the poet [applause]. If you're having a good time say yeah. If you're having a real good time say oh yeah. Coming up next to the stage, please keep that energy going for Julio. [ Cheers ] [ Applause ] >> JULIO: A letter to Mi abuela. I love you. Even if you hate that I say it in English sometimes it still carries the rich rivers of [foreign word] mango juice. Your favorite. I know you grandma. I know English is foreign on your tongue the same way it is to your ears. But I promise it will find its way to your heart through the creases of your smile. Let it soak in. Your teeth shine like you ate diamonds breakfast. Your cheeks are the color of caramel syrup on pancakes. Carousels cover the color of your eyes and I could surf on the cursive of your hair. You are the surface of the sun. So, beautiful and so bright. The world needs to notice you more. Nobody every appreciates how gorgeous the sun is until it's gone. I acknowledge your struggle grandma. I know raising six kids in a room wasn't your fault. Single mothers go through thorns and flames. But you made it out just fine. I know your palms still ache from holding the ceiling in place for my mother, my aunts, my uncles. You are the strongest woman I know. You cradled all six of your children on your smile. Even if you knew there'd be no food that night. Love becomes a five-course meal, you need to stay alive. And I feel your pain, grandma. I know having people taking advantage of you because of what you can't comprehend is cruel. It's ignorance. They only love Spanish culture when it's not affecting them. This is not a poem about me though, but when my grandma tells me what is the point of learning English if I'll be gone before I can say I love you back. It feels like I failed her. Like I disappoint her. It hurts to see my grandma struggle with words like language is another barrier she has to sneak past. Her mouth has been boarded up like empty homes. My grandma is an empty home, lonely. But she stands bold with no support. I feel your hardships, grandma. The ocean tried to swallow you. You had some hardships grandma. Your name will never sink in these waters. I tied a rope to every syllable of your name just in case it falls under pressure. And I am still above water. Every vein in your body connects to your heart, like all bridges lead to kingdoms. I love seeing my mother happy because I can see my grandmother smile as well, like a two for one deal. I'm all about finding the value in love because my grandmother knew struggle, way before she knew joy. She knew rape before sex. Almost like she knew scars before scabs. She broke the ocean in half to get here. She is the strongest woman I know. Dear grandma, truth is I wrote this poem for you years ago, and every family dinners, every barbecues, every Sunday mornings, I'm learning to appreciate doing all those things with you. Because you help be grow. Once more, gracias abuela. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high I have a 9.8, a 9.8, and a 10 [applause]. Keep that energy going. Coming up next, put your hands, or keep your hands going for Kenya. All the way to the stage. All the way to the stage. [ Applause ] >> KENYA: I binge watch Netflix like a child looking for candy in church, religiously. And my favorite show has always been "Orange is the New Black." Tells jail from the feminine side. So, it's all for the little woman who doesn't think she deserves to be incarcerated. Has a life too good for the system. I think I fell in love with the fairytale aspect, like all jail were formatories. Where lifelong friends are made and the food isn't the best. Call it summer camp for criminals. But, the sun always sets on someone else's horizon. Serving some crime fiction, to reality. More like a spec of our reality. Shows police brutality as a papercut. Just another one of our issues, to profit off, this is the trend. Suddenly for the audience until their ready to vow another meal to our stories to write before their tongue spit us out and it burns. Let's see your own crucified, pinned down, left breathless, then have the nerve to say that you can't breathe. Even weakened black skin has turned into bragging rights. You need to think of a new plot for your next season of the way, to increase your fan base of the black body swiped under the flag. Be careful, you might reveal the millions of message your people have made, why? Does no one want to own up to, I mean clean up the messes they've made. I know I've heard the story before. Too many times I've been [inaudible] reliving these moments but we always for get to read the preface of the novel. No one wants to know the beginning of the horror film, this storyline has become too relatable, just ask the victims of any city education, or down south voter booths. This country has classified too many of us as villains, writing [inaudible] "Suicide Squad" proclaim to protect these streets here. They delete the forward. Just skip to the appendix. You become as transparent at the Constitution's copyright whether in Ferguson or Lynch Field. We are always the cliff hanger. We are never the last one standing, but the first ones on our feet. Too many of our spines have sacrificed just to keep this story together, just to bind severed mouths to our wrists. We always end up cleaning the blood stains anyway. Never knew this is white carpet. Seems to make sense now. How we always knew what occurred and wearing at the generation of scrubbing motives, the only things that never come out. But you call us the animal. Place us in cages and tell us to be civilized, forces to choke on your keys, while you proceed to close the gates. Release the menace and smile into the camera. Life, at our gasp for life or freedom. As the scene fads into your bodies with fear set upon our face, spoiler alert. We're prosecuted for claiming this last breath to ever be ours. Why is it that we're never able to attend our own curtain calls? [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges scores in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to high. You all are making such a mess. We have a 9.5, a 9.5, and a 9.6. Let's hear it for the poet. [ Cheers ] As you may imagine. It is not an easy thing putting on an event of this size. And I don't mean just this slam. I mean like this entire book fair. And it could not have been done without the help of a bunch of volunteers. So, I want you all to look around the room and you see the people in these blue shirts back there? I want you all to give them a really loud round of applause. [ Applause ] And then, for making this place as accessible as possible our interpreters here, I would like to give them a round of applause also. [ Applause ] Coming up next to the stage, please put your hands together for Kaysa [applause]. I'm right am I accurate, is it happening? Oh, there she is. [ Applause ] >> KAYSA: I was born in Anderson, Indiana. My mother a native to the town. Engine failed to ignite. My galaxy was closing in on me. A town where there's either a church, cornfield or liquor store on every corner. Houston, we have a problem. My future seems distance, I'm tailored to my ship but everything seems so far out of reach. My mother knows everybody who's anybody, because of her body she's hard to miss. Loud mouth caramel skin and thick flesh adorn her bones. Access denied. Something's missing. Where's my copilot, who should have been my father was merely a faded shadow in my faded memory. A far-out satellite circling my world. Abort mission. My memory can't retain. ADHD gets in my way an asteroid in close range, which switch do I use. The first time I heard the words behavioral disorder, I was in the second grade. And I wish it would only be the second time I felt like an outsider. Outside of this orbit. Outside of the classroom I sat into. I couldn't find my act. I stayed hidden, out of sight, out of mind. I stayed hidden away from the gleam they call the bright future. My family always taught me education was key. Go to school. Get your degree. My grandfather would say to me, my poppy. Average build, mentally sound, grey hair lining his mahogany skin. He's the strongest man I know and black don't crack, but I've seen his brain matter explode like black matter by the fact that he lacks an education prior to the 21st century. By the sixth grade I was a 21st century scholar, which meant I could attend any college in the State of Indiana and it would be paid for. This was the first time my mother found faith in the system. Her heart thundered and her eyes pixeled when she realized I could wear a white collar as a black woman in corporate America. System override. This isn't supposed to happen. They're paying my dues because my mother has everything to lose. She falls below the poverty line. So, she sends me on this mission on alone. So, I tried to defy gravity, as often did my teachers. It lost star out of its orbit like a rocket repelling into the earth's atmosphere of education. I need to know how far I've come. Show me a demonstration of the progress I'm making. I was always told to reach for the stars. And I never gave up, yet I was always let down. Check levels. My capsule's going off course. I've been directed to a new galaxy. The galaxy of Rhonda. My aunt's big-busted personality as wide as the giant system of the earth. A laugh that rings through outer space, bringing people in. She is my new galaxy. I can stop reaching for the stars, because she has put them among me. Her only request is that I choose one that shines as bright as I do, so I don't become a falling ball of dust that once embellished the sky. I've chosen the sun. The creations of this world. The particle of our galaxy. All made up as we know it but this isn't the big bang theory. This the phenomena of my life. Engine rebooted. I am burning through the solar system of education. My brain like jet fuel, my thoughts the presence of planets, rare and majestic. Everything I am is made up of tiny stars and ideas as grand as this universe. I, me and my star have become one. My bones and flesh are wrapped in string that tie me to the planet to let me gaze among the stars. This theory has been proven. Mission complete. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Strong young people. Judges scores please in 3, 2, 1. Scores up. From low to, I have a 9.5. a 9.7 and a 9.7. Let's hear it for the poet please [cheers]. Two more competitors left in this amazing slam, if you're having a good time make some noise [cheers]. Oh, it feels good. Coming up next please put your hands together for Shintelli Medina [applause]. All the way to the stage, folks. All the way to the stage. [ Applause ] >> SHINTELLI MEDINA: Today I wear a blue dress two sizes too large. I don't want to force anyone to froth at the mouth of rampage uncontrollably. My blue dress tames my curves, so I walk unabashed. Yet, man is taught it speak things into existence. You're sexy. My tempo is brought forth, readies itself for demolition. Man gawks at me, uses his eyes to enter the body I've tried my best to hide. Man calls me ma. And now I am his mother. Forced to feel like I should discipline him, demand some respect. Man yells, baby. And now I'm an infant. Gut tells me I should yell, scream, cry make it clear that what he's calling me isn't my name. Apparently I don't live here. This ain't my private property. I'm free to the public for viewing. Man says sheesh, girl, smile. He wants me to take his oppression for appreciation. Man has the nerve to stare at me. Up and down. Hard and steadfast waiting for some kind of gratitude. To be thanked for trespassing, waits for a smile. Some indication that this is what we both want. I am barely restraining the bullet burning to be roared out of me. My eyes are unrelenting black pebbles. I can't swallow this man's audacity. His patience silences questions if it's really rejection, or just the front before the yes. Pauses to see if I really don't want to share myself with him. Man smooches as if to call a lost pet. But I will no longer allow his words to domesticate me. The morphing stops now. I speak myself into existence. I am only what I say I am when I walk down the street. I am not your mother, your baby, your girl. My ultimate form is dragon. Every time you belittle me with your words, your eyes, my jaw widens, teeth sharpen. I thirst for blood. This is a warning to all the men who take my blue dress as an invitation to my body. Who don't let me pass them without yelling sexy, Ms. Beautiful, Ms. Guts with a fat ass, ma, baby girl, I am a woman. And the beast. Still want to see me smile? Still want what's under my dress? [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges may I please hear your scores in 3, 2, 1. low to high I have a 9.9, and two 10s. [ Cheers ] All right. All right. All right. Calm down. But not really because we have one more poet left. All right. Keep that energy going, start clapping right now for your last poet, Alyssa Gaines. [ Applause ] >> ALYSSA GAINES: I went to my friend named September's 13th birthday party, in rural Indiana, where I had to convince her to take the Confederate flag down so that I could come. I still went to the party but the damage was done. The reason I was so hurt was because still in our county, innocent blacks are being slain by police. And people have the nerve to display a flag of prejudice racial history. She wondered why I was so upset. July 13, 2013 George Zimmerman found not guilty. Where was she when the verdict was in when six non-black women said, Zimmerman was innocent. I was in Florida when they picked the jurors. My Mam ma's house when they gave the verdict. I remember in my journal I wrote how they just gave him his gun like we're sorry, sir, you're free to go. And it hurts that my mother must tell my 8-year-old brother the way to behave if he ever gets pulled over. It's like what you don't hear in the police shooting recordings. The one thing they're missing, the warning. Be compliant. Keep your hands in the sky and explain the situation. Drop your weapon. But the weapon I can't drop is the reason I'm a target. It's because I'm black, woke and politically conscious [cheering]. No justice, no peace. No racist police. No killing innocent blacks and leaving their bodies in the streets. Hashtag black lives matter because police are not treating us like all lives do. When I say black lives matter, how could that offend blue. How, after everything we've been through it's rude. How is it socially unacceptable to fear for my little brother's life. How if I dread the day he learns how to drive and voice that it's impolite, because black people are being persecuted by police who receive paid leave. And if you really believe that all lives mattered why don't you stand with black ones in our time of need [cheers]. When people talk about breast cancer, would you say all cancers matter, so why are people mad, is the operative word black? And oh, the irony. It's funny almost people say blue lives matter, when all jobs do and their defense is they never said that all jobs don't. See we say things like black lives matter every day and nobody combats it because black isn't what we say. And legality is only a technicality when it comes to police brutality. What if, September, your dad, or your little brother or your uncle was at risk. Would you stay peaceful? Would you stay quiet? Would you enjoy being told how to handle it? No, I'm upset because I'm tired of hearing the officers have not been charged. Or they were acquitted and there was so much evidence they could have admitted. And the one shooting that made me particularly mad was Charles Kinsey he was laying hands up on his back. It showed no matter how much my mother teaches my brother, MJ, even if he does what the officers say. Even if all the talking he does is to explain. Even if he's protecting a man with autism. All lives can't matter until black lives do and I won't quit until every September realizes that it's for these innocent people whose killer's not punished. Whose body's scattered, that I'm here with my fists high proclaiming black lives matter. [ Cheers ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Judges let me hear those scores in 3, 2, 1. From low to, I have three 10s. [ Cheering ] So, I've done my part. I've kept my mouth shut. I've said nothing in between these poems. The entire night. The hardest job in the room is to keep silent when all of this truth is being spilled out into this space. If you were moved tonight. If you heard something that inspired you tonight, please make some noise for these eight poets that came on this stage. [ Cheers ] You shouldn't be sitting. You shouldn't be sitting. [ Cheers ] That's for y'all good job. Doesn't seem to be enough. All right. We still have to do some math. We want to award. We have some books and some gift certificates and things we want to give to the people. So, we're doing some math real quick. While that math is happening, this event was brought to you by The Library of Congress, the National Endowment of the Arts, and by Split This Rock and right now, I would like to bring to the stage the executive director of Split This Rock to tell you about all the amazing work we have going on there right now. Please put your hands together for Sarah Browning [applause]. I'll take a hug. I'll take a hug. >> SARAH BROWNING: Joseph Green everyone [applause]. My incredible colleague. Split This Rock is a national organization based here in DC. We cultivate, teach and celebrate poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes change. I think you've heard some of that tonight. [ Applause ] Our youth programs are throughout the Washington DC area. The young people you've heard from DC, from Indianapolis, from Des Moines, from New York City. They are the future of poetry. They are the future of literature. They are the future of our country. Is your hope restored? Is your hope restored in the future of our country? These are our leaders. These are our leaders to come. Who all is here from the DC area [cheers]. All right we got DC in the house. We got Virginia in the house we got Maryland in the house, make some noise [applause]. And Joseph is ready. Dun, da Dun. >> JOSEPH GREEN: May I have all the poets access the stage. >> SARAH BROWNING: All the poets. All these brilliant young people. [ Applause ] >> JOSEPH GREEN: Come join me. Come join me. So, Sarah will you let them know what the prizes are real quick? All right. >> SARAH BROWNING: I sure will. So, we have the most beautiful, most recent book by one of our finest poets, and the judge tonight Joy Harjo, "Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings" for the top three winners. Yes, and Joy will sign them to you personally. And then the number one poet, the one who got those numbers, yeah the highest scores will also get a $50 gift certificate to Politics and Pros Independent Bookstore here in Washington, DC, but you can order online from the bookstore. You can order online. All right. >> JOSEPH GREEN: All right. In third place with a 58.2 please put your hands together for Alyssa Gaines. [ Applause ] From Indianapolis, Indy Pulse. In second place, Julio from RunDSM, Des Moines. [ Applause ] How you doing? You feeling good? I got some good news for you. I really like your poems. And you did a really good job tonight. I liked everybody's poems you all did like a really good job tonight. I was super impressed. Super impressed. However, because we have to add together the numbers, in first place, from Des Moines, please put your hands together for Elondra Brassil. [ Applause ] I'm going to get that right. I'm going to get that right. Can everyone be quiet real quick. Everyone calm down. I did so good all night. I did so good all night I had the names spelled out phonetically on my paper. I was feeling so good. I want the winner to have their name said correctly. Can you please tell the people how to say your name? ELONDRA BRASSIL: Elondra Brassil. >> JOSEPH GREEN: Please clap for her. [ Applause ] On behalf of the Library of Congress, on Behalf of the National Endowment of the Arts, on behalf of Split This Rock, my name is Joseph Green. It's been my pleasure. Thank you so very much for coming. Please support the arts. Have a wonderful night. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.