I noticed him because he was wearing a bamboo hat, hand woven and broad brimmed. I found myself looking at him just a little too long, wondering about his face when our eyes met. He was perched on a wooden bench carefully surveying the women that walked by when he gave me a long stare back, his large obsidian irises glinting with mischief and went back to scribbling in his notebook. The man looked disheveled, like he worked and slept in the clothes that swallowed his slender frame whole. His hair was dreadlocked, hanging in haphazard ropes around his shoulders. He was everything a college artist should be; unkempt, paint spattered and mysterious.
In lecture, he sat in the corner by himself, drawing sketches into his notebook, barely listening to the teacher. His eyes seemed gazed over in thought as he scribbled away. At the end of class I always made sure he walked past me so I could sniff his air. His potion of choice was a masculine blend of sandalwood and cloves.
As an excited freshman, I wanted to see and hear everything that was out there. I took any opportunity to mingle with other artists; visited galleries and checked out new exhibitions. I also started attending Open Mic nights on campus. While a few of the poets had some raw talent, most nights their poems seemed to be little more than uninspired generic raps and mediocre rhyming stanzas. The audience seemed bored.
The temperature in the room changed when the name Rhetoric was spoken. The girls ran up front to get the best view while the guys looked up from their drinks in envy. The poet confidently glided on to the stage and the crowd went into an immediate frenzy. He snatched the microphone from the cradle spilling his thoughts before the crowd in his own unique melodic phrasing.
“My birth was nothing special. A product of two sweaty bodies meeting over a bottle of Night Train.”
What I fell in love with were his words and the way that he spoke them. The sound of his voice was smoky and deep as his words were presented at full volume. He inhaled hurt and exhaled puffs of poetry that were both profane and unrepentant. There was an unmistakable beauty and power in his words. I never heard a man dance the line of vulgarity and poetics before.
“As I grew large within my mother’s body, she ignored the convention to do something about her ‘situation.’ It was 1978. I was a breech birth, telling the world to kiss my ass from the beginning.”
I felt planted in my seat, my nerve endings tingling. I watched his mouth as he spoke wondering how his thick lips would feel on my face. I thought about running my fingers through his beard. The way I felt as he spoke was unreal, my pulse moving to the very rhythm of his cadence.
The young man humbly accepted the fanatical appreciation of the audience and gracefully slipped away. After a few minutes, the applause died down just enough to hear the M.C. call out my name. I took a hurried breath and tried to relax. I knew he was going to be a tough act to follow, but I wasn’t ready to admit to him, and more importantly myself that he was the only real poet in the room.
I nervously walked up to the stage, and suddenly decided to recite my longest poem instead of the shorter piece I had rehearsed. I walked up to the stage, and asked the house band if they could play a soft beat for me. I waited for the band to begin and I started, “Sensual. Not Sexy. Creates moods with soft jazz, bare walls and an empty floor…”
As I read from my typed pages, I made sure I looked at Rhetoric each time I hit an emotional crescendo. He showed no reaction other than focused interest. The audience sat quietly as well, and I couldn’t really gauge how well I was doing. I walked off stage emotionally drained. While I didn’t receive the same enthusiastic reaction as Rhetoric, the audience seemed very pleased with my work.
I sat down and took a much-needed drink of water. I looked up to see my poetic rival approach my table. He pulled out a chair, spun it around and sat on it backwards, his dreadlocks extending wildly from his scalp. Saying nothing, I just sat there slightly stunned looking into the poet’s face, getting lost in his hooded bedroom eyes and high cheekbones. Propping his arms on the chair back, he said, “Your work moved me.” Then he extended his slender rough hand toward mine.
Catch more of PART 1 of the story tomorrow…