 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
FIRST THERE WAS THE WORD, THEN THERE WAS THE FIST: Yearning/Learning to Speak at the 3rd National APIA Spoken Word and Poetry Summit
by Todd Lee
8/22/05
On August 18 through 21 in Boston, over 160 spoken word artists came together to “ build community, reconnect and expand the summit family, share our art, love and laughter, and strengthen a movement.” Poets came to Boston from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Texas, Utah, Chicago, Minneapolis , New York , Philadelphia and even Seoul, Korea. The summit was locally sponsored by Boston Progress Arts Collective, the Coalition for Asian/Pacific American Youth (CAPAY) and the Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW). The summit featured a youth day where artists worked with APIA youth and writing activities; a community day featuring field trips to Boston Asian communities, a community dinner and showcase; and a family day where summit participants attended workshops with artists such as Regie Cabico, Dennis Kim, DJ D Double, Janet Kim, Leah Lakshmi Piepznap-Samarasinha, and “unofficial Asian American photographer laureate” Corky Lee.
The Azine had the pleasure and privilege of being one of the community organizations that participated in the community dinner and showcase. Both events were a great opportunity for artists to learn about the community organizations and for community members to meet, interact with and learn from the artists.
At the showcase, artists spoke to the significance of the summit and their aspirations for their art. As co-host Leah Lakshimi Piepzna-Samarasinha said in kicking off the night, “This is us being the majority people of color we are here”, referring to Boston newly becoming a majority people of color city, “this is about us making history”.
