BENGALURU: Bangalore Literature Fest, on its sixth edition, witnessed spoken word poetry as a literary performance for the first time. Jessy James LaFleur from Berlin performed her slam poetry and music.
On the first day of the Fest, on Saturday, she jammed with four freelance musicians whom she had met on Thursday. With only three hours of practice, the band gave a stellar performance to the crowd, who immediately burst into loud applause when the artistes took a bow.
Words come from the heart, not mind
Dressed in gold and pink churidar-kameez, LaFleur rapped, sang and performed her poems. ‘You, the rain’ was penned by her in Coimbatore: “I moved as close to the slippery edge as possible, looking at my feet pointing six storeys down, one more tiny step, one more tiny gust of wind and I would freely fall together with the rain. I would freely fall with you. I would freely fall for you. You, the rain.”
“I wrote the poem when I was struggling and contemplating suicide,” she tell City Express. “Of course, nothing bad happened, I am still here,” she laughs. The poem ends with a positive note on how she climbed down the fence, went back to her room and “found sleep”.LaFleur has a collection of over fifty intensely personal poems and knows about ten by heart. Out of the four poems she enacted on stage, one was written the night before the performance. The poem titled “Revolution will not be televised,” written exclusively for the occasion and audience. In the poem she mentioned Donald Trump’s infamous lock-room quote “grab them by the pussy” and even called out Dhinchak Pooja much to the amusement of the audience.
“What works best for me is that I have never been to school. So all my work comes from my heart not my mind,” she says, placing her index on her chest and head. She admits it was not an easy thing to use Trump’s words on stage in India but she believes spoken word is about creating a revolution.
City catching up on spoke word poetry
In Berlin there are a minimum of 100 slam poetry events a day, says LaFleur. In India, the trend is catching on but LaFleur believes that the quality of slam poetry here leaves much to be desired. “Being true to yourself and writing the poem for yourself is key to reach out to a larger audience,” she says.
Word poets in the city are delighted that the fest hosted LaFleur’s performance. Pranav K, a word poet, says, “I think it would be a great to have a word poetry festival in itself,” he suggests.