Charlotte Abotsi Awes at Providence Poetry Slam

When I first saw this young lady perform, I went to New Urban Arts (NUA) to see a fellow “Word!” family member perform for the youth at NUA. The Providence Poetry Youth Slam Team were opening, and this was my first time witnessing their brilliance because I missed them at AS220. The Gospel of Providence Poetry Youth slam’s potency has brush fired from coast to coast after bringing home a national title at Brave New Voices and repeatedly making it to the final stage. The relevance of this is held in the fact that the youth slam is now the main focus of Providence Poetry Slam, guiding the next generation of writer/performers into a DIY adult team culture that Providence Poetry Slam has become known for.

The youth team started super strong, then a drop in momentum a little, and then the anchors for a strong closing. The first anchor was Charlotte Abotsi. The audience erupted as if the edge of the seat wasn’t strong enough to contain the excitement she generated by her name simply being called.

She adjusts the mic, introduces herself; no one breaks the silence of that New England snow fall feel over the room. She steps back, takes a breath, takes one step forward and lets the words lean into the microphone.

During the 1830s, theatre was the pulse of the city.

A performer’s paradise.

A storyteller’s sanctuary.

In 1904, Al Jolson paints his face–
a shoe polish shine,
cleanses away his white

porcelain beauty.

He applies ugly.

Applies black.
Uncaps a tube ruby red

matte on lips
he colors outside his lines.

I was in awe. Not only did she deliver this in perfect non-slam, but syncopated cadence, her body language seemed to have the fluidity of a stream making an en passé around a beaver dam. Not to mention the complexity of the poem, relating Al Jolson to the fad of internet newscast sensations. So when it was announced that Charlotte was going to be the 5^th member of the adult slam team, there was resistance because she didn’t actual qualify, but I knew the artillery behind the pretty face.

The Providence team had already been eliminated from semi-finals by coming in fourth in the first bout, so the team, made up mostly of first time adult poetry slammers, decided it was more important to let the first timers see the stage. Charlotte again proved to be no novice. This time, without warning, she walked up to the stage and just went in. Silence wasn’t allowed in between the spaces of the audience. Almost every other line got a finger snap, a foot stomp, an ohhhh or an ahhh. Jeers of, “C’mon girl,” and ”Hurt ‘em”  seemed like she would give pause to let the audience catch up, but she gave no quarter.

In 2013, the internet is the pulse of the country.

Viral videos are a blogger’s wet dream.

A meme breathes life.

“Hide your kids, hide your wife.”

They acquire the testimony, raw with reaction, still dripping with truth:
“I got bronchitis! Ain’t nobody got time for that!”
and slow it down:
“Ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Speed it up and raise the frequency:
“I knew something was wrong, when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms.”

The audience,

explorers of the internet,
subscriber thespians of the YouTube theatre – the digital black box –

cackles at the ugly,

cackles at the black.

.

Charlotte was the highest scoring member of the Adult Providence Poetry Slam team. From what I saw that night, we can bet she will one day bring the Individual world poetry slam championship back home.