The Red PenIs Your Friend

In high school I was introduced to slam poetry, and was honored to meet Taylor Mali.

This man is truly a genius and an inspiration. I strongly erge you to look up his performances. It is so entertaining, yet smart. He always makes a very strong message in each of his works. In "What Teachers Make" he slams those who put down others for choosing to be teachers. In "Like Lilly like Wilson" he talks about a student changing their mind after researching about homosexuals adopting children. And in "Totally Like Whatever" he makes points to the terrible speech patterns we are falling into. Here is the first stanza:

"In case you hadn't noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you're talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you're saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)'s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren't, like, questions? You know?"

I was able to perform in a Slam Poetry Night my senior year. It was a one of a kind experience. And Taylor put me in touch with the poet I performed, who then sent me a disc of all his work.

I try to write a bit myself. There is not anything yet I'd particularly like to share. Always works in progress. But I continually promote Taylor Mali to my friends to stimulate interest into something so intelligent, smart and still entertaining.