SLASH Featured Poet No. 2: Ariel Chu

Welcome to the featured poet series at SLASH! In this series, we interview spoken word artists of any age, any background, from anywhere in the world. We feature established poets alongside students and writers who are just beginning to hone their spoken word skills. Read on to learn about a brilliant writer and member of the HASH staff, Ariel Chu!

photograph by Sam Jeong

Name: Ariel Chu
Age: 18
Location: Eastvale, California


1. How did you first get involved with spoken word?

Though I've loved poetry since elementary school, I didn't get involved in spoken word until  college. A confluence of forces helped me to fall in love with the medium: my involvement in theatre, an impulsive decision to join my school's spoken word club, and the fortune of meeting other writers who had experience in the field. Before then, my only exposure to spoken word was through YouTube videos and the occasional high school poetry slam. It took me a while to realize that I could be an active participant!


2. What themes commonly feature in your poetry? How do you use the medium to express identity?

Poetry is a place of heightened emotion for me, a medium where the feelings I internalize around others finds a sort of cathartic expression. As a result, the subjects I end up writing about are dramatic to the point of being somewhat overwrought. There's the typical young adult angst--love, insecurity, idolizing people who are irresistibly toxic. But spoken word also provides an ideal platform for talking about problematic issues and making them resonate with an audience, and I've recently found that it's a great outlet for talking about my identity. As an Asian-American woman, I've faced no shortage of doubt about my ability to write well, engage in creative work, and succeed in the performing arts. I've grown to use spoken word as a platform not only for sorting through emotions, but also for addressing and dispelling some misconceptions about who I am. As a result, my work has turned a bit more political lately, dealing with the barriers that I've had to overcome as someone who doesn't fit the preconceived notion of who a "writer" should be.


3. How would you describe your style?

Having been involved in both writing and theatre, I love that spoken word is a chance to merge the best of those two mediums. Most of the poetry I write follows a rhyme scheme, and spoken word is an ideal platform for conveying the sense of rhythm, momentum, and musicality I enjoy. I'm also working on bringing elements of theatricality and storytelling to my performance--time will tell how that works out! Overall, I'd like to say that my works have a sense of flow and rhythm to them, a kind of sing-songiness that delivers unexpected, emphatic punches.


4. What sets spoken word apart from other forms of writing and performance?

Writing and most performing arts seem to hold the audience at an arm's length--authors speak to their readers only through words on a page, while actors and dancers have to exist in a world apart from the people watching them. But spoken word doesn't shy away from human interaction so much as it thrives off of the dialogue between the poet and the audience. A poem becomes a conversation, and a performance becomes inclusive. It's a much more personal and vulnerable form of art.


5. What inspires you?

I'm inspired by passionate emotions, thought-provoking conversations, social justice, powerful people, and larger-than-life beauty. I'm particularly enamored by the romance of deep space, the sea, and the desert.


6. Who are your favorite spoken word artists?

I've recently discovered a fondness for Franny Choi--"Floating, Brilliant, Gone" is beautiful both when read and performed. I admit to being new to the larger spoken word scene, though, so I've yet to discover a definite favorite.


7. Anything else you'd like to share about your experience? Any advice?

Don't allow others to stifle your inspiration or discourage you from your ambitions--if you can't believe in your own work, there's no reason to expect that anyone else should. Instead, use the doubt of others as fuel for your dreams. Success is the greatest revenge, and your persistence can inspire an entire slew of young poets who are in a similar place of self-doubt.



AMERICAN INVENTION by Ariel Chu

My name is Ariel.

I'm a tiny, fragile thing. My skin reeks of the color
Of anemic, washed-out sunshine. My roots are LA,
but still they ask me, "You're from China?" So I turn to them and say
That I am, and always will be, an American invention.

I spent most of my childhood adhering to convention.
When they value you for perfect grades and give you vast attention
Just for being nice and quiet and a paragon of silence
Then you learn to shut your mouth and give up all creative license

So they like you.

Yes, my mom said "people like you
Don't get work published in bookstores; no, your last name is abrasive
And the media erases
all the people with our faces
There are never special cases when it comes to people like you."

And I wondered if she's right, too.
Since I've always had to fight to
Justify my need to write to
Almost everyone I meet.

But I'm no precious fortune cookie:
Yellow and brittle, harmless and little
Break open the middle and read what you like
Protract all my sweat while you retract my rights.

And I'm not a dead white man
And I am not your Amy Tan
And I am not the robot chemist mathematician people think I am.

My name is Ariel.

My claim to creativity is no point of contention.
That is, and always will be, an American invention.


[audio coming soon]


Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist
slashcolumn@gmail.com

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SLASH Spoken Word: Updates

I apologize for SLASH's hiatus over the past month - my residency at the campus environmental center unfortunately interfered with this column's upkeep. I hope that all of HASH/SLASH's readers have had an eventful and productive month! Additionally, I wish a productive and literary (!) school year to all students who are preparing to return to the classroom.

Here's what you can expect from SLASH as the column resumes its weekly schedule:

• Next week, look for an interview with another member of HASH staff who experiments with the spoken word!
• The following week, SLASH will present a piece about spoken word and activism. Stay tuned!
• SLASH has established a tumblr presence to reach out to spoken word artists throughout the web. Check us out and follow us here!

And as always, please email me with questions/feature suggestions/etc. SLASH is a work in progress and I'd love to hear from you.

Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist

slashcolumn@gmail.com

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Spoken Word Prompt: "Moments" (SLASH)

Hello, spoken word poets! Here’s SLASH’s very first spoken word prompt. In the coming weeks, you’ll see more in-depth features about identity, activism, and spoken word. For now, I’d like to offer a quick prompt to make you think about how you can use the medium. SLASH is an educational column and it should be a conversation among readers and performers, so I want to see what you can do.

Spoken word’s immediacy and vitality allow spoken word artists to make very personal performances. It’s essentially storytelling and storytelling can be a very effective form of activism. It might not initiate widespread policy changes, but it affects individuals. To change one person’s mind feels very concrete and genuine. You can do that by telling your story. That story doesn’t have to be the sum of your entire life, though. Moments are just as important.

When you tell your story, you can draw the reader in with intense concrete imagery. For example, sentiments like “love conquers all” or “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” may be shared among many people, but we’ve all heard it before! Those lines are dry with overuse. When you use specific examples to make a universal emotion feel nitty gritty and personal, you remind your reader that the idea is still real. It isn’t lofty or romanticized - it belongs to a real person! Your story has unique details. It may involve emotions that many people feel, but it’s something they’ve never quite heard before.

So! Here’s the challenge:

1. Pick a moment from your life that you associate with a specific emotion.

2. Make a list of concrete images to describe that moment. What did you smell? Taste? Feel? Hear? I want salt, strangely tinged skies, strawberry juice, dirt, the sound of firecrackers, or sun shining on glass. 

3. Write a poem of images that make up that very specific moment. Convey emotion without ever using “feeling” words (no “happy,” “sad,” “angry,” etc).


4. Read it aloud. How does it feel? Which words stand out? Which words do you stumble over? Practice emphasizing different lines. 

5. If you’d like, make a recording of your moment poem. Send it to SLASH to be featured in the coming weeks!

Here’s my example:

1. Moment: the Fourth of July parade in my hometown after a storm. Emotion: nostalgia/sadness.

2. Images: children playing in mud puddles, chilly, muddy gravel, cars going the wrong way, a six-legged dragon, overcast sky, hot sugar, gray boards, white T-shirts, children singing, my uncle clapping, dirty flipflops, horns blaring...

3. Write:

children splash in mud puddles in the road,

throw rocks at the holes in the cement.

cars turn around and drive where they shouldn’t go.

today the dragon is coming, the dragon is coming

down from the cloudy sky.

the horns are out of tune.

children sing. my uncle jumps up and down.

yesterday, the hurricane ripped through again

and knocked the trees on rooftops,

flooded the lakes out into town,

piled the power lines like spaghetti.

the dragon is coming from the sky

into the gray morning.

he chases the rain down the road,

brings back the heat.


4. Record (sound or video!):

As always, please email me with questions/feature suggestions/etc. SLASH is a work in progress and I’d love to hear from you.

Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist

slashcolumn@gmail.com

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SLASH Featured Poet No. 1: Zoë Riell

Welcome to the featured poet series at the SLASH spoken word column! In this series, we will interview spoken word artists of any age, any background, from anywhere in the world. We feature established performers alongside students and writers who are just beginning to hone their spoken word skills. Read on to learn about our first featured poet, Zoë Riell!

Name: Zoë Riell
Age: 17
Location: Poultney, VT, USA

1. How did you first get involved with spoken word?

I was introduced to spoken word poetry in the first Creative Writing class I participated in - before that, I had dabbled with it briefly, but it wasn't until I was given an assignment to write something for the specific purpose of being read aloud that I really started to delve into it with any kind of seriousness.


2. What themes commonly feature in your poetry? How do you use the medium to express identity?

Lately I've noticed that many of my recent poems have featured the longing for fantasy - the desire for the un-ordinary and un-real in everyday life, and how that affects how someone sees the world. More often than not, I'll have a 'protagonist,' if you will, within my poems who, somehow or other, begins a metaphorical journey to go beyond the three dimensions and see what else is out there. In that respect, I guess you could say that my poems are deeply rooted in curiosity. The one thing about spoken word that I can appreciate for personal purposes is how open it is to emotion - the line break, the carefully-placed punctuation, the specific inflection of just one word when read aloud - each of those factors is paramount to being able to express what I want to say in the method I want to convey it.


3. How would you describe your style?

I would describe my style as surrealist - I enjoy taking my readers and listeners to places where they may not feel comfortable or at home, while still maintaining that human element as a lifeline that keeps them invested in the piece.


4. What sets spoken word apart from other forms of writing and performance?

Because it is so vast a medium! With spoken word poetry there is no right or wrong way to go about it - you might write it with blunt vocabulary, leaving nothing to the imagination, or you could shroud your piece in mystery and leave the readers and listeners guessing. The spoken part lends a lot of aid to both sides - there is nothing like hearing something read aloud by the author - it's a glimpse into how they see it, what they were thinking when they wrote it, what the poem means to them. That's why I will always return to spoken word again and again and again.


5. What inspires you?

Reading, without a doubt. I tend to gravitate towards surreal, metaphorically dense & poetically written fiction, and generally speaking if I find one I enjoy very much, at least four or five poems will come of the experience I had while reading them. Also, too, various media forms have all inspired me at one point or another - I've had poems I'm proud of stem from TV shows, from movies, from video games, from a verse in a song. I'm very open to inspiration coming from all sorts of sources.


6. Who are your favorite poets or spoken word artists?

I've have to say Donald Hall - I was given a chapbook by him by my Creative Writing teacher because she thought I might find a connection within his work, and I'm very grateful she did. He has a specific style in which to the casual eye he is merely narrating the everyday, but underneath he manages to capture intense, complex emotions and experiences. It's a feat I've always envied, and I've devoured his work in the hopes of figuring out just what makes him tick.


7. Anything else you'd like to share about your experience? Any advice?

Just write! I'm a notorious perfectionist, and so I find myself making excuses not to sit down and write everyday because I don't have proper inspiration, because it'll be shit, because it'll only be a line and it'll waste paper, etc etc. But what I'm trying to beat into my brain right now is that even if the first draft of something scribbled on the fly is something that should never see the light of day, it will still sit in the back of your brain the next time you sit down - maybe that line break that was decent, those two words you liked, the title you thought was clever, will inspire you to write something glorious the next time!

No Glass by Zoë Riell 

There’s no room for glass in here –

only the labeled shears to shorten

the ribs, the bellows

for the cavernous lungs, and the towering

dumbbells larger than I that I

attempt

to lift sometimes.

No room, not ever,

lest the blood be drawn

out from the woodwork.

I have welded the hinges to the muscle

of the mind—

no doors to my home, no welcome

mats spread for you.

I live with mementos,

memories, meticulous

mindsets,

but no glass.

No glass in here.

Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist

slashcolumn@gmail.com

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Intro to SLASH!

Welcome to SLASH, a dynamic new feature at HASH magazine. SLASH is a weekly column that will bring spoken word poetry to HASH’s readers.

What is spoken word?

If poetry is alive, spoken word poetry inhabits a third, vivid, and especially personal dimension. It incorporates dynamics, chord changes, staccatos, throat-clearing, gestures, movement, and breathing. Spoken word is where poetry meets theater, but it’s theater that you write for yourself. Spoken word poets are not actors or intermediaries; they both write and tell stories themselves. They present their work with all of the emotions, complexities, and immediacy that the genre allows.

You might hear “spoken word” poetry called “slam poetry” or “performance poetry.” These are all terms for essentially the same artform. A “poetry slam” typically refers to a competition among poets. I first experienced spoken word poetry at a slam. I sat at the back of a packed auditorium and boo’ed when judges didn’t give performers sufficient scores. We gave standing ovations and laughed and screamed when performers exceeded the time limit. Non-competitive performances have the same energy. Audience members snap their fingers to express agreement or encourage the poet.

You might think that spoken word poetry should be loud, energetic, rhythmic, rhyming, controversial, personal, or political. It can be, of course, but that’s only one style. Poets should experiment with diverse techniques and themes. Write about activism, family, frustration, love, your favorite science fiction show, or the deplorable oatmeal in your school’s cafeteria. Spoken word poetry can be loud or soft, fast or slow. Poets can create powerful performances by raising or lowering their voices, rhyming, or stopping. Restrictions don’t apply.

What is SLASH?

SLASH will be a weekly feature on the HASH website. It will feature work from its readers and the HASH staff. It will also present interviews, articles, and posts about effective strategies for creating and performing spoken word. Readers: we will accept video (to be featured on HASH’s YouTube page) or sound recordings of spoken word poetry. Please see the “spoken word” category on HASH’s submission page for details.

“SLASH” is mashup of “slam” and “HASH,” but the word “slash” also indicates two separate ideas, which suggests the union of writing and performance. SLASH has a simple goal: to bring spoken word poetry to new audiences across the world. I grew up in a small town and didn’t learn about spoken word until I was a teenager. Many people lack opportunities to experience live performances. I want to bring spoken word to HASH’s readers and encourage writers to explore this form. I want to challenge you to experiment, invent, and share your spoken word performances with the world.

Abigail Rampone, SLASH Columnist

slashcolumn@gmail.com

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