This Thursday @ The Oasis Featuring '09 Champ Joyce Lee & VA's "Survivor"
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OaklandSlam
Sep 22, 2009, 9:40:13 PM9/22/09
to OaklandSlam
In September we're thrilled to be returning HOME to The Oasis! This
show will feature none other than our 2009 Champ Joyce Lee. Joining
her, for your pleasure is Richmond VA's Champ John "Survivor" Blake.
Both champs will be honing their work in preparation of taking on more
than 90 of the nations top individual poets in iWPS - the Individual
World Poetry Slam, this October in Berkeley.
JOYCE LEE was born in Oakland, CA and raised throughout the Bay Area
and Portland, Oregon. Writing is her second love – her relationship
with her God her first. She has been advised numerous times to assume
a "stage name" but resolutely refuses. She believes the stage is one
of the few places where all are granted complete transparency and
authenticity. Joyce walked into a poetry slam for the first time in
January of 2008 and was hooked, becoming an immediate fixture in the
thriving Bay Area Slam scene. She regularly features with Valarie
Troutt and the Fear of a Fat Planet a jazz ensemble and in the last
year has graced stages small and large in locations like San
Francisco’s world famous Yoshi's, da Poetry Lounge in LA and The
NuYorcian Poets Cafe! Her work is tailor-made to wow audiences in
everything from the Harbin Hot Springs conference center to hot rooms
in Pentecostal churches. She has proven herself amongst her peers to
be just as generous and flexible as her writing. Joyce is Oakland’s
2009 Grand Slam Champion and rep at The Individual World poetry Slam
in Berkeley in October. She considers the honor just the beginning of
a great career as a performance poet and writer. She accredits a
generous portion of her success thus far to her mother, Rolette
Findley and inspiring poet/friends such as: D. Silence, Jaylee Alde,
Jaime DeWolf, Denise Jolly and Sonya Renee Taylor.
------------------------------
JOHN "SURVIVOR" BLAKE - Once upon a time, in a land known as the Lower
East Side of a sometimes bitter apple, there was a miracle. A black
man and white woman defied their families and fell in love. SHE became
pregnant with their 9th child. After 6 months, while driving home from
eating out, on a January night, they were run off the road and beaten
nearly to death for "making half-nigger kids!" SHE was thrown into the
East River, and HE was left for dead on the FDR Drive...January
1970... Mother, father (in a coma for nearly 2 months), and Baby
SURVIVED. Born "the youngest of nine experiments in a two bedroom
cage" as he put it (in "Mother's Nature"), John Stanley "Survivor"
Blake cut through the earth like a razor, escaping the hell of two
parents addicted to dope and booze, with siblings lost; casualties to
the war at home.
By the time he was 13, John had his own drug habit. He was 14 when he
watched his oldest brother, Benny, shunned at home for contracting the
AIDS Virus. Locked out of the house; Benny died of hyperthermia within
7 days of homelessness; winter of '84, discovered sitting upright in
an abandoned car near Coney Island. By the time John was 16, his
mother was sentenced to 15 years in prison for manslaughter. meanwhile
his father contracted HIV... At 25 he buried his father, another
brother, and a sister from the deadly AIDS virus as well. Another
brother passed on, murdered in a project stairwell, another overdosed,
another sister; shot while attempting armed robbery... At 33, John's
mother came home from prison sick with Osteo miolitis ( a severe
infection of the bone marrow)... Two years later, she died... John was
all that remained. while preparing to overdose, someone asked him to
watch Def Poetry. Needle in arm, Blood cells running for
cover."Survivor" stopped when he heard "Do not let this universe
regret you!" (a line in a Marty McConnell poem)... Someone inserted a
videotaped recording of Def Poetry and hit play. Someone told John,
"all that stuff you've been writing on bar napkins; there's a show all
about it! Check this out."
The Oakland Poetry Slam & Open-Mic
Thursday September 24th
Doors/List @ 7:30
Show @ 8:00 - 11:30
The Oasis Restaurant & Bar
135 12th st (@ Madison)
$10
<a href="http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/projectilepoetry/?
action=view¤t=microphonecheck.jpg" target="_blank"><img
src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/projectilepoetry/
microphonecheck.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
show will feature none other than our 2009 Champ Joyce Lee. Joining
her, for your pleasure is Richmond VA's Champ John "Survivor" Blake.
Both champs will be honing their work in preparation of taking on more
than 90 of the nations top individual poets in iWPS - the Individual
World Poetry Slam, this October in Berkeley.
JOYCE LEE was born in Oakland, CA and raised throughout the Bay Area
and Portland, Oregon. Writing is her second love – her relationship
with her God her first. She has been advised numerous times to assume
a "stage name" but resolutely refuses. She believes the stage is one
of the few places where all are granted complete transparency and
authenticity. Joyce walked into a poetry slam for the first time in
January of 2008 and was hooked, becoming an immediate fixture in the
thriving Bay Area Slam scene. She regularly features with Valarie
Troutt and the Fear of a Fat Planet a jazz ensemble and in the last
year has graced stages small and large in locations like San
Francisco’s world famous Yoshi's, da Poetry Lounge in LA and The
NuYorcian Poets Cafe! Her work is tailor-made to wow audiences in
everything from the Harbin Hot Springs conference center to hot rooms
in Pentecostal churches. She has proven herself amongst her peers to
be just as generous and flexible as her writing. Joyce is Oakland’s
2009 Grand Slam Champion and rep at The Individual World poetry Slam
in Berkeley in October. She considers the honor just the beginning of
a great career as a performance poet and writer. She accredits a
generous portion of her success thus far to her mother, Rolette
Findley and inspiring poet/friends such as: D. Silence, Jaylee Alde,
Jaime DeWolf, Denise Jolly and Sonya Renee Taylor.
------------------------------
JOHN "SURVIVOR" BLAKE - Once upon a time, in a land known as the Lower
East Side of a sometimes bitter apple, there was a miracle. A black
man and white woman defied their families and fell in love. SHE became
pregnant with their 9th child. After 6 months, while driving home from
eating out, on a January night, they were run off the road and beaten
nearly to death for "making half-nigger kids!" SHE was thrown into the
East River, and HE was left for dead on the FDR Drive...January
1970... Mother, father (in a coma for nearly 2 months), and Baby
SURVIVED. Born "the youngest of nine experiments in a two bedroom
cage" as he put it (in "Mother's Nature"), John Stanley "Survivor"
Blake cut through the earth like a razor, escaping the hell of two
parents addicted to dope and booze, with siblings lost; casualties to
the war at home.
By the time he was 13, John had his own drug habit. He was 14 when he
watched his oldest brother, Benny, shunned at home for contracting the
AIDS Virus. Locked out of the house; Benny died of hyperthermia within
7 days of homelessness; winter of '84, discovered sitting upright in
an abandoned car near Coney Island. By the time John was 16, his
mother was sentenced to 15 years in prison for manslaughter. meanwhile
his father contracted HIV... At 25 he buried his father, another
brother, and a sister from the deadly AIDS virus as well. Another
brother passed on, murdered in a project stairwell, another overdosed,
another sister; shot while attempting armed robbery... At 33, John's
mother came home from prison sick with Osteo miolitis ( a severe
infection of the bone marrow)... Two years later, she died... John was
all that remained. while preparing to overdose, someone asked him to
watch Def Poetry. Needle in arm, Blood cells running for
cover."Survivor" stopped when he heard "Do not let this universe
regret you!" (a line in a Marty McConnell poem)... Someone inserted a
videotaped recording of Def Poetry and hit play. Someone told John,
"all that stuff you've been writing on bar napkins; there's a show all
about it! Check this out."
The Oakland Poetry Slam & Open-Mic
Thursday September 24th
Doors/List @ 7:30
Show @ 8:00 - 11:30
The Oasis Restaurant & Bar
135 12th st (@ Madison)
$10
<a href="http://s22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/projectilepoetry/?
action=view¤t=microphonecheck.jpg" target="_blank"><img
src="http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b312/projectilepoetry/
microphonecheck.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
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