Staceyann Chin is a full-time artist. Writing from her experiences as a Jamaican national and a New York City resident, Staceyann has been an “out poet and political activist� since 1998. She's performed on the stages of the Nuyorican Poets' Cafe, Off-Broadway and Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam on Broadway. In 1999, Staceyann took the American Amazon Slam title in Aarhus, Denmark.
Her acclaimed individual performances have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and "60 Minutes." Her poems and writings can be found in Stories Surrounding My Coming, and numerous anthologies, including Skyscrapers, Taxis and Tampons; Poetry Slam; Role Call and Cultural Studies: Critical Methodologies.
In 2000, Staceyann's first one-woman show, "Hands Afire" ran for ten weeks at the Bleecker Theater. Off-Broadway Theater welcomed her second show, "UNSPEAKABLE THINGS" in the summer of 2001 before she took it to Copenhagen for a week-long run. London, Helsinki, Sweden and Norway are in line for showings. These are just some of her accomplishments.
She is currently a host on Logo's After Ellen internet show "She Said What?" and a co-host of BETJ's "My Two Cents." She's still creating and sharing. Here's Staceyann...
Who was the first slam poet you ever saw perform? Do you remember what you liked about this performance and what you disliked?
I'm not sure I can recall which "slam poet" I first saw in performance. I do remember which poet I first saw do a theater show. It was Sarah Jones. I saw her perform her one-person show, "Surface Transit" at the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe. I liked that she could make so many characters come so alive in her realistic portrayal of them. I also registered the limitations of such realism on stage. When poetry is used as the basis of the text, one can move in and out of reality--creating room for experimentation and fantasy.
How has your slam poetry changed since you first started? What first made you slam and what makes you slam now?
I came on the scene in 1998. The scene was fairly small and underground then. There were far less expectations with regard to performance poetry as a career. Those of us who did it, did it primarily because we loved words and how they moved people in a room. Then the slam grew and was eventually mainstreamed in the media. The influence of the slam has made it so good poetry is now what the crowd likes. So today performance poetry has become a career option--complete with agents and portfolios and headshots. Poets are stopped in the street and asked to sign autographs. The traditional institutions that have governed the previously elite world of poetry has lost some control over which poets become famous or which poets can make a living from poetry. Subsequently, there are fewer standards for the judging of poetry. So now anybody with a rhyme and a story can be interviewed by the press and called upon to do a verse or two.
I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your grandmother. Your elegy to her posted on your Myspace page read like an elegy I wish I could have read at my Abuelita's [great-grandmother's] funeral. But I cherished the opportunity to share and openly reflect what she meant to me. How do you think your grandmother influenced the person you are today?
She gave me anchor when both my parents absconded. She stemmed the tide of my abandonment issues. She was home. She could not read herself, but she gave me a love of words. From as far back as I could remember, I had to read bible verses to her. Out loud. That gave me a love for the spoken word. I like to think my grandmother was my first audience and that the poetry found only in the bible were my first scripts.
How would you describe yourself as an activist? Recently you posted on your Myspace page about speaking out against Carifest at Randall's Island. How did the protest go?
It went well. We had as much press there as we could have hoped for. Also, the conversation about homophobia in reggae music has shifted a bit. The greater dialogue is now about hate speech found in music. I am happy for this because if we do not make this already racially charged conversation inclusive of ALL artists who create hate music then it looks like racism, or that we are picking on one cultural phenomenon (i.e. black artists who make Jamaican music).
What upcoming projects should we make sure to look out for?
I have a memoir to be published by Scribner of Simon & Schuster in the very near future. It really is the coming of age of a young staceyann chin.
Any words of wisdom and advice for aspiring slam poets?
Read. Read. Read. Everything and everyone. Read the so-called greats. Read the relevant contemporary. If you wish to write about a thing, research it. You need more than your feelings to make a good poem. You need facts, and context and skill in the craft of writing. And if you are trying to be famous--make sure that you see that as a very separate goal from writing good poems. Remember that being well known is on the one hand, capricious--in that you could just be at the right place at the right time, and on the other hand, contingent on what is desirable or valuable in media--in that being white, or thin, or blond, or "exotic" or controversial, or culturally relevant--with those being only a few of the criteria for MAYBE getting on TV or in a magazine or in the newspapers, or on a well-known blog. For every Saul William, there are a hundred thousand poets who worked as hard and are as relevant and are not on TV.
Is there anything you would like to add?
Our world is in trouble. With reference to sexuality, and social freedoms that do not infringe on the freedoms of others, and women's rights, and poverty, and global racism (the citizens of the continent of Africa), and economic warfare against every already oppressed group, and the rise of Global Oligarchy--we are in trouble. We are due a massive turnaround--a revolution if you like. But we have got to change direction. For my children's sake, for your children's sake. For your own sakes. For the lives you will or will not be able to lead as you age and retire and look to your own children's future. It's time to act. To protest. To put your body where your poems are. To live what you write.
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I can't wait for the memoir to come out. She's a favorite of mine, and has been since I picked up the Def Poetry book. I've reread it about a hundred times. :)
I love Staceyann on She Said What? but I didn't really know much else about her, she sounds just as cool as I thought she would be :)