| October 2007 |
All work
copyright the
owner. No
reproduction
without
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copyright the
owner. No
reproduction
without
consent.
FOURSKIN
The 2007 Calgary Slam Team
chapbook. Featuring poems by Shone
Abet, Moe Clark, Kirk Ramdath, and
Sabo.
Chapbook designed by Moe Clark.
Photos by Sarah Piantadosi.
The 2007 Calgary Slam Team
chapbook. Featuring poems by Shone
Abet, Moe Clark, Kirk Ramdath, and
Sabo.
Chapbook designed by Moe Clark.
Photos by Sarah Piantadosi.
Eleventh Transmission is proud to give you a special look inside the new chapbook from the 2007 Calgary Slam
Team. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see information on how to obtain a copy of the chapbook for yourself. Sixty
pages of poetry from four of Calgary's rising stars of spoken word poetry. Here are a few poems from the book. Enjoy!
riot girls
by Shone Abet
we’re RIOT GIRLS
and we’re here to make noise
forget about poise
we’re here to wake shit up
we’re here to break shit up
we’re here to make change
and rearrange priorities
set by authorities
created by money
and not by democracy
yeah we’re here to make noise
break poise
wake the big boys
tell them their decoys
have been detected
and we’re defecting
from their ploys for our money
see we grew up in nations
shaped by corporations
have eaten mouthfuls of lipstick
and now we’re spitting it up
ripping it up
shaking it up
waking it up
we’re rocking the boat
shouting your shit don’t float
to the top anymore
we’re here to drown it out
screaming
get the fuck out
of my head
of my body
of political lobby…
no more
do you have the right to store
your hatred
in the minds of our children
no longer advocates
of mass consumption
they will grow up in their own way
to beat you at your own game
they will say
no more can you lay claim
to our bodies
our faces
our reproductive rights
to say it aint right
for girls to fight
cause we’re fighting honey
we’re spending our money
on time and space
to congregate women
with like minds
spending time to create change
in this paradigm
we are creating a new reality
that fosters individual thought
and questions authority
creating a community
built on more
than the almighty dollar
yeah
we’re connectin’ with each other and
we’re connectin’ with our brothers
we know it takes a village
to raise a child
and it takes a nation going wild
to make big business
yeah the old boys
sit up and take notice of this noise
for them to realize
that we are wise
to their bullshit
and it’s a big job we’re taking on
but it’s a big world we’re passing on
so we make it our mission
to sharpen the vision
of each other
to sharpen the vision
of our sons and our daughters
to live responsible lives
and tear apart the lies
fed by NBC, ABC and Fox
yeah you know the lot
teaching beauty
is only Hollywood born
teaching fear and self loathing
and shame to hands warn
from worry of acceptance
of a society born
on mass media bullshit
and right wing rhetoric
teaching social safety nets
are only for the lazy ones
or that lesbians and gays
and other left wing heathens
are working some agenda
to bring the white man down
well the RIOT GIRLS
are here to amend that
saying this is our crackdown
and you can depend on it
we’re teaching beauty
belongs to everyone
tolerance and compassion
that pride belongs to anyone
with the courage to stand up
and the courage to stand out
with the courage to be different
and the courage to love out loud
to not conform to the norm
to inform themselves
to challenge what’s known
and to never postpone
celebrating diversity
because this is the key
to a better reality
yeah diversity’s beautiful
I mean unbelievably so
and this is the weapon
we will hurl in their direction
the old adage…
I’m a lover not a fighter
it belongs to our heritage
‘cause we’re modern day women
with modern day rules
and we pity the fools
that underestimate us
we’re RIOT GIRLS
and we’ll fight to the death
to change this world
using every
last breath
we have
Expose It
by Moe Clark
Last year I was at a conference holding the book: “Metis Survivors of Residential Schools” when the elder woman
sitting next to me pointed to herself on the front cover. I smiled, unaware of the contents in the book. She smiled back,
knowing I would soon find out.
**
You
are standing in a steaming hot room holding a screaming two-year old child in your arms
when all of a sudden harsh sprays of ice-cold water come streaming out over your thin body.
Cries pierce your ears
Now Expose it:
The picture
of anything less than truth
Anything more than ruthless_ness
Expose this:
Have YOU heard the story of residential school systems?
Began before the 20th century
Took half breeds and full breeds away
For better education
Better discipline
Under the arm of religion
Under the words of the
clapper-strap happy
brothers & nuns
This “ideal” infiltration:
assimilation of indigenous minds
Institutionalized them to redefine
Families without children
paid out by Indian affairs or church funds
Children without family
paid out in neglect & abuse, most often moribund
Take their picture
At Isle-a-la-Crosse, Paddle Prairie, or Edmonton.
Expose the rules that trapped them in the supposed solution:
No talking to opposite sex
No speaking native tongue
No space for child’s play
No thought for imagination
Reveal slow, develop, control
Thousands died_first year of the process
Souls swallowed up by child labour (laber)
no breath for a savoir (save yer)
Only time enough to pray _on Roman Catholic food,
Malnourishement filled their plates at dinner_time
blue milk over glue porridge,
hard brown bread rapped like knuckles on tabletop
Here in our country, not our neighbour’s ride_
People we call “founders” carried out cultural genocide
This is our history
Well I say a prediction should have been made,
so we coulda been saved.
So he coulda been saved_
from inter_generational distress.
Distrust_
That man across from you on the bus_is our brother
his mother, one of the kids from the schools
Her son a hobbling fool,
drool is medicine fix now,
Alcoholic blessing is prayer
and do we ever ask how?
He came to be this way?
Passed out in front of us
Passed off as “damn native, drunken scum,
driven to a life of sum…
What about the picture behind his slum_ber?
What about the picture they ripped in the flame,
Sacred flame that joined together families_
for many years the only heat_that nourished the child.
There’s a smudge here,
somewhere beneath the wild page
sage burns deeper than soars
and wounds can be healed
if only we take time now
don’t bow down, look me in the eye
and may this land mark my words
There’s no time like present to speak up and be heard
Expose it.
Expose THIS.
Like Rome Before
by Sabo
Even as I'm discussing what can only be described as a beautifully odd concussion
beforehand with foreheads our glass ceiling was cracked by their forefathers.
All with low overhead.
This glass ceiling rained chards that cut into mother earth
and left her with these highway scars
fallen angels laid blame.
The plotline thickened when we tripled the double lane.
The first inclination of self-doubt will be the last of me.
I’m still striving along to save strangers to tired to keep
their eyes open long enough to see a flock of forgotten angels rise unto their feet.
But they’re all wanting to return through building concrete Babel towers.
Stackin’ skyscrapers on the fresh blood of cowards.
Sucked in by gasoline’s artificial smell of sweet,
while past generations exhale disease.
I’ve walked a dead red mile, it has yet to bore out my soles,
And yet I watch the constants turn into retractable poles
Where the underlying census prevents us from advancing still.
The power of few overstates collective free will.
Taking the fifth is mainly the faith of many,
easily pondered synchronicity squandered.
Within the best logical explanation of men,
We chronologically laid down a pathological end.
From metaphysics to parlor tricks and emotional politics.
Where a little man don’t follow the little hands to often.
It’s a shame the way these little kids are playing
I’m none the wiser, I live through what their saying.
Wide-eyed, breathless and restless from the hope inside.
Derived from the inner workings of a child mastermind.
All while plans are being laid, Bombs are being made.
Inevitably American forces continue to invade.
Allow me to interject pristine marines within this glass ball fighting with jets
And bouncing ideas off their heads.
Bringing life long dreams to those unwilling to collect.
Place your bet who you think is going to be next?
It’s time we found an anecdote that’ll cure em
from the periodic patriotic goals that fear ‘em into
takin over foreign countries that hate ‘em.
Basically rapin and pillagin’ all those that are against ‘em.
Wait a minute red state you’re empire building and
Like Rome before…destined to fold. Unwilling to let their pride top off,
makin the mushroom clouds pop off,
covering skylines with crude oil fires that won’t stop droppin’ off.
Atmospheric pressure to knock off.
Resources we don’t got often regarded as an endless option
by shallow heads of state with deepening pockets.
Woman
by Kirk Ramdath
Woman I love you
Woman I need you
Woman your rejection threw me into a pit of fire
but I am strong now because of you
When will I know your scent, woman
When will your naked breast be pressed to mine
Like the Count László de Almásy, I fast until I see the thing I want
Years in a desert to find you and now I cannot quench my thirst
My whole body drinking from you
This is not love but greed, I must have you all,
And yet you do not diminish
Are you fed by me as I am fed by you?
Of tactile body heat and words,
Like Caravaggio, to finally understand the sexual power of conversation
Kindling to ignite the flesh
Before I touched your body
I caressed your words in mine
Breath embracing breath,
vowel upon vowel
until we gave up words for sounds
Woman, in wars you always suffer most,
therefore you must do more to stop the wars.
Your sisters in the house next door are dying.
If you will not help her
then what hope is there from men?
Corporations have stolen the sexual revolution.
Now there is a thin line between freedom and commodity,
between your body and their lies
Equality is more than just the right to fuck, but you no longer fight.
Where is the Amazon that founded Smyrna and fought to win the right to vote?
Where is the warrior who raised two children
and fed them and clothed them
and sometimes she did not eat so that they eat?
I know that she is real but I do not see her on television.
Why don’t you make them put her on television?
Why am I more of a feminist than you?
Woman you have a beautiful ass
I want to put my mouth to the cleft of your buttock
Leave teeth marks in your skin; bite you so hard that every time you sit you think of
Me, with my face between your legs,
breathing long and slow to catch the fullness of your smell,
licking you like a thirsty dog laps water,
kissing you the same way that I kiss your mouth
Woman when I was younger and you threw yourself at me I was a fool
Now I am not a fool anymore and where are you?
I have not seen you in years, I still pray for you at night
I threw away your pictures and now I cannot make your image in my head,
but when I see a girl that looks like you it blows my mind
HOT TO GET A COPY OF FOURSKIN
$10.00 plus shipping. +$2.50 in Alberta, +$3.50 rest of Canada, +$5 everywhere else. Please send $CAD.
You have several options:
1. Send a cheque or money order to "FOURSKIN Chapbook, c/o Eleventh Transmission, 2741 Brecken Road NW,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2L 1H4".
2. Send an email money transfer to shone_abet@yahoo.com, password SLAM.
You can expect to be mailed a copy within 14 business days of your email money transfer. P.S. Don't forget to include
your address so we know where to send your goods.
Team. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see information on how to obtain a copy of the chapbook for yourself. Sixty
pages of poetry from four of Calgary's rising stars of spoken word poetry. Here are a few poems from the book. Enjoy!
riot girls
by Shone Abet
we’re RIOT GIRLS
and we’re here to make noise
forget about poise
we’re here to wake shit up
we’re here to break shit up
we’re here to make change
and rearrange priorities
set by authorities
created by money
and not by democracy
yeah we’re here to make noise
break poise
wake the big boys
tell them their decoys
have been detected
and we’re defecting
from their ploys for our money
see we grew up in nations
shaped by corporations
have eaten mouthfuls of lipstick
and now we’re spitting it up
ripping it up
shaking it up
waking it up
we’re rocking the boat
shouting your shit don’t float
to the top anymore
we’re here to drown it out
screaming
get the fuck out
of my head
of my body
of political lobby…
no more
do you have the right to store
your hatred
in the minds of our children
no longer advocates
of mass consumption
they will grow up in their own way
to beat you at your own game
they will say
no more can you lay claim
to our bodies
our faces
our reproductive rights
to say it aint right
for girls to fight
cause we’re fighting honey
we’re spending our money
on time and space
to congregate women
with like minds
spending time to create change
in this paradigm
we are creating a new reality
that fosters individual thought
and questions authority
creating a community
built on more
than the almighty dollar
yeah
we’re connectin’ with each other and
we’re connectin’ with our brothers
we know it takes a village
to raise a child
and it takes a nation going wild
to make big business
yeah the old boys
sit up and take notice of this noise
for them to realize
that we are wise
to their bullshit
and it’s a big job we’re taking on
but it’s a big world we’re passing on
so we make it our mission
to sharpen the vision
of each other
to sharpen the vision
of our sons and our daughters
to live responsible lives
and tear apart the lies
fed by NBC, ABC and Fox
yeah you know the lot
teaching beauty
is only Hollywood born
teaching fear and self loathing
and shame to hands warn
from worry of acceptance
of a society born
on mass media bullshit
and right wing rhetoric
teaching social safety nets
are only for the lazy ones
or that lesbians and gays
and other left wing heathens
are working some agenda
to bring the white man down
well the RIOT GIRLS
are here to amend that
saying this is our crackdown
and you can depend on it
we’re teaching beauty
belongs to everyone
tolerance and compassion
that pride belongs to anyone
with the courage to stand up
and the courage to stand out
with the courage to be different
and the courage to love out loud
to not conform to the norm
to inform themselves
to challenge what’s known
and to never postpone
celebrating diversity
because this is the key
to a better reality
yeah diversity’s beautiful
I mean unbelievably so
and this is the weapon
we will hurl in their direction
the old adage…
I’m a lover not a fighter
it belongs to our heritage
‘cause we’re modern day women
with modern day rules
and we pity the fools
that underestimate us
we’re RIOT GIRLS
and we’ll fight to the death
to change this world
using every
last breath
we have
Expose It
by Moe Clark
Last year I was at a conference holding the book: “Metis Survivors of Residential Schools” when the elder woman
sitting next to me pointed to herself on the front cover. I smiled, unaware of the contents in the book. She smiled back,
knowing I would soon find out.
**
You
are standing in a steaming hot room holding a screaming two-year old child in your arms
when all of a sudden harsh sprays of ice-cold water come streaming out over your thin body.
Cries pierce your ears
Now Expose it:
The picture
of anything less than truth
Anything more than ruthless_ness
Expose this:
Have YOU heard the story of residential school systems?
Began before the 20th century
Took half breeds and full breeds away
For better education
Better discipline
Under the arm of religion
Under the words of the
clapper-strap happy
brothers & nuns
This “ideal” infiltration:
assimilation of indigenous minds
Institutionalized them to redefine
Families without children
paid out by Indian affairs or church funds
Children without family
paid out in neglect & abuse, most often moribund
Take their picture
At Isle-a-la-Crosse, Paddle Prairie, or Edmonton.
Expose the rules that trapped them in the supposed solution:
No talking to opposite sex
No speaking native tongue
No space for child’s play
No thought for imagination
Reveal slow, develop, control
Thousands died_first year of the process
Souls swallowed up by child labour (laber)
no breath for a savoir (save yer)
Only time enough to pray _on Roman Catholic food,
Malnourishement filled their plates at dinner_time
blue milk over glue porridge,
hard brown bread rapped like knuckles on tabletop
Here in our country, not our neighbour’s ride_
People we call “founders” carried out cultural genocide
This is our history
Well I say a prediction should have been made,
so we coulda been saved.
So he coulda been saved_
from inter_generational distress.
Distrust_
That man across from you on the bus_is our brother
his mother, one of the kids from the schools
Her son a hobbling fool,
drool is medicine fix now,
Alcoholic blessing is prayer
and do we ever ask how?
He came to be this way?
Passed out in front of us
Passed off as “damn native, drunken scum,
driven to a life of sum…
What about the picture behind his slum_ber?
What about the picture they ripped in the flame,
Sacred flame that joined together families_
for many years the only heat_that nourished the child.
There’s a smudge here,
somewhere beneath the wild page
sage burns deeper than soars
and wounds can be healed
if only we take time now
don’t bow down, look me in the eye
and may this land mark my words
There’s no time like present to speak up and be heard
Expose it.
Expose THIS.
Like Rome Before
by Sabo
Even as I'm discussing what can only be described as a beautifully odd concussion
beforehand with foreheads our glass ceiling was cracked by their forefathers.
All with low overhead.
This glass ceiling rained chards that cut into mother earth
and left her with these highway scars
fallen angels laid blame.
The plotline thickened when we tripled the double lane.
The first inclination of self-doubt will be the last of me.
I’m still striving along to save strangers to tired to keep
their eyes open long enough to see a flock of forgotten angels rise unto their feet.
But they’re all wanting to return through building concrete Babel towers.
Stackin’ skyscrapers on the fresh blood of cowards.
Sucked in by gasoline’s artificial smell of sweet,
while past generations exhale disease.
I’ve walked a dead red mile, it has yet to bore out my soles,
And yet I watch the constants turn into retractable poles
Where the underlying census prevents us from advancing still.
The power of few overstates collective free will.
Taking the fifth is mainly the faith of many,
easily pondered synchronicity squandered.
Within the best logical explanation of men,
We chronologically laid down a pathological end.
From metaphysics to parlor tricks and emotional politics.
Where a little man don’t follow the little hands to often.
It’s a shame the way these little kids are playing
I’m none the wiser, I live through what their saying.
Wide-eyed, breathless and restless from the hope inside.
Derived from the inner workings of a child mastermind.
All while plans are being laid, Bombs are being made.
Inevitably American forces continue to invade.
Allow me to interject pristine marines within this glass ball fighting with jets
And bouncing ideas off their heads.
Bringing life long dreams to those unwilling to collect.
Place your bet who you think is going to be next?
It’s time we found an anecdote that’ll cure em
from the periodic patriotic goals that fear ‘em into
takin over foreign countries that hate ‘em.
Basically rapin and pillagin’ all those that are against ‘em.
Wait a minute red state you’re empire building and
Like Rome before…destined to fold. Unwilling to let their pride top off,
makin the mushroom clouds pop off,
covering skylines with crude oil fires that won’t stop droppin’ off.
Atmospheric pressure to knock off.
Resources we don’t got often regarded as an endless option
by shallow heads of state with deepening pockets.
Woman
by Kirk Ramdath
Woman I love you
Woman I need you
Woman your rejection threw me into a pit of fire
but I am strong now because of you
When will I know your scent, woman
When will your naked breast be pressed to mine
Like the Count László de Almásy, I fast until I see the thing I want
Years in a desert to find you and now I cannot quench my thirst
My whole body drinking from you
This is not love but greed, I must have you all,
And yet you do not diminish
Are you fed by me as I am fed by you?
Of tactile body heat and words,
Like Caravaggio, to finally understand the sexual power of conversation
Kindling to ignite the flesh
Before I touched your body
I caressed your words in mine
Breath embracing breath,
vowel upon vowel
until we gave up words for sounds
Woman, in wars you always suffer most,
therefore you must do more to stop the wars.
Your sisters in the house next door are dying.
If you will not help her
then what hope is there from men?
Corporations have stolen the sexual revolution.
Now there is a thin line between freedom and commodity,
between your body and their lies
Equality is more than just the right to fuck, but you no longer fight.
Where is the Amazon that founded Smyrna and fought to win the right to vote?
Where is the warrior who raised two children
and fed them and clothed them
and sometimes she did not eat so that they eat?
I know that she is real but I do not see her on television.
Why don’t you make them put her on television?
Why am I more of a feminist than you?
Woman you have a beautiful ass
I want to put my mouth to the cleft of your buttock
Leave teeth marks in your skin; bite you so hard that every time you sit you think of
Me, with my face between your legs,
breathing long and slow to catch the fullness of your smell,
licking you like a thirsty dog laps water,
kissing you the same way that I kiss your mouth
Woman when I was younger and you threw yourself at me I was a fool
Now I am not a fool anymore and where are you?
I have not seen you in years, I still pray for you at night
I threw away your pictures and now I cannot make your image in my head,
but when I see a girl that looks like you it blows my mind
HOT TO GET A COPY OF FOURSKIN
$10.00 plus shipping. +$2.50 in Alberta, +$3.50 rest of Canada, +$5 everywhere else. Please send $CAD.
You have several options:
1. Send a cheque or money order to "FOURSKIN Chapbook, c/o Eleventh Transmission, 2741 Brecken Road NW,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2L 1H4".
2. Send an email money transfer to shone_abet@yahoo.com, password SLAM.
You can expect to be mailed a copy within 14 business days of your email money transfer. P.S. Don't forget to include
your address so we know where to send your goods.
