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>> AWARD-WINNING POET GAYLE DANLEY TO LEAD WORKSHOP 'HIP-HOP HYPE' POETRY EVENT CAN'T BE BEAT
Award-winning poet Gayle Danley will have young poets adding emotion and personality to their work at this month's Slam Poetry and Hip-Hop Lyric Workshop
Date published: 2/1/2007
BY COLLETTE CAPRARA FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR Internationally acclaimed poet Gayle Danley will host a workshop for youth this month on the art of slam poetry and writing hip-hop lyrics. "She is very fresh, very open, and she has an honest relationship with people in the audience and everyone responds to that," said Rhonda Belyea, youth services librarian at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library. "She is very accessible, very gifted, and responds to what is happening in the moment." Mutual engagement is the hallmark of this emerging form of poetry, which blurs the boundary between poet-performer and audience, and goes far beyond conventional recitation of poems. "You add emotion and movement--your attitude and personality--to it," said Danley, who will begin her workshop by performing some of her own work. She'll then give participants an opportunity to try writing and sharing their own pieces. Slam poetry serves as an important vehicle for young people to express what they are experiencing and feeling in life, Danley said. "First of all, it's fun, but it also gives them a sense that it is all right to be who you are. It's all OK: the parts of you that you don't like, the parts of you that hurt, and the parts of you that you don't understand. Poetry gives us all a way of soothing and comforting ourselves. And that is especially important at an age when you are on the tip, on the edge, of being able to do anything you want to do and being able to do nothing that you want to do." The winner of the 1994 National Poetry Slam in Asheville, N.C., and the 1996 International Poetry Slam Championship in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1996, Danley has been writing poetry since she was 10 years old. Her workshops focus on conveying emotive content, but they also include discussion of the classic elements of poetry: rhyme, rhythm, metaphor, simile, assonance and alliteration. Danley's investment in young audiences brings personal fulfillment. "It's really easy to feel, in today's world, that pieces of you are being broken off, taken away," she said. "Poetry, especially this type of poetry, makes me feel that I am putting myself back together again. I own myself. I'm in charge of me. It makes me feel powerful. And from what I've heard teenagers that I've worked with all over the country say, it makes them feel that way, too." The creator of works that have been described as impassioned, raw and explosive, Danley knows that her poetry has made a difference. "It feels good to be doing work that is meaningful," she said. "I don't feel that my job is optional. I feel that my job is mandatory--both for the outside world and in my own inner world." Collette Caprara is a free-lance writer who lives with her family in Spotsylvania.
Date published: 2/1/2007
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