mr. yak shauvik dealer L&R come on
glad I’m a Kakuna Koga this works but a
young poet performer I called Jess two
winters ago I saw Jess perform standing
in the middle of a tight-knit circle in
a newly refurbished classroom
there was a blackboard and chalk in use
and a stove in the corner for heating
and blank walls around us but for this
hand run poster of 2pac all through
Jess’s performance people in the circle
kept snapping the fingers the snapping
of the fingers is a sign we used to
signal to the poet we love what they’re
saying it meant I hear you I get you I
see you I met Jess at a new spoken word
poetry program in a Macedonian prison
which is a part of my research at
Cambridge which tries to understand the
lives of young men and what performing
poetry means in their lives and spoken
what poetry is poetry performed live to
an audience it hails from poetry slams
hip-hop culture and music and jazz in
the US and the new program in the prison
was a space which was creative where
young men were able to perform and
compose poetry together with other
artists and educators and Jess was one
of the poets participants whereas I was
one of the poets educators just struck
me as this warm laid-back kid with an
ability to make a conversation flow we
bonded over a shared appreciation for
Macedonian hip-hop artists but as we
spent more time together I realized that
rap meant very different things to us at
one point Jett said to me I was
listening to these songs and
and here it was everything that I was
going through someone else has lived
through it and wrote about it
I was looking at rap lyrics
whereas jazz was experiencing rap as
life-affirming and what did I know about
Jesse’s life during one of the long
conversations at the program just told
me that before he was arrested the
police searched his room and treated him
badly where they found drugs in the room
and to explain how he felt about it just
selected this image it is a Dixit card
with a boy trapped in a music box the
floor littered with music notes a year
after the program as I was lying in bed
I caught a glimpse of the card lying on
my bookshelf and had this visceral
response to it it was gut-wrenching
I was afraid to explore it but the next
week I found myself writing poetry in
response to the card it was research
through spoken word poetry research
through poetry was essential in gaining
new knowledge into the emotional depths
of Jesse’s experience research through
poetry enabled me to challenge my own
prejudices about young men in prison and
I connected to Jess as the person and
powerful poetic voice he is and I wish
to share with you today all this through
Jess’s own poetry and spoken word poetry
as research in this performance I weave
together just a self authored poem with
the research poem and
I assumed the voice of an invented
character that is just a sister and as a
researcher I felt an easy writing from
this perspective but as a poet I knew I
had to take the risk and explore
possibilities ever since I was a kid I
discovered that writing poetry could
provide answers to some of my questions
and to do this I usually rely on three
main things first I trust my gut feeling
second I pluck up the courage to explore
emotions even though they may be
unsettling and third I allow myself to
be playful and messy without worrying
too much what others may think and in
this poem just his sister waits for Jess
to return the night before he was
arrested and Jess’s lines are his own
words and also his self authored poem is
rendered here in English translation
solemn with a smile on your face you
beguile and ride along in your tall lean
friend’s Jeep with a cheer your crafty
hand searches the back pockets of the
jeans filled the tip on your lip voice
airing through jagged tea cigarette lit
each night as if out of smoke your body
glides through doors how is it a body
believes it is a fast-forward down the
stairs the whole way of another universe
smuggled leaved Goods folded letters
into the ether
music turn down past my bedtime past
curfew not really doing homework but
waiting for you in this room where you
drew plans on walls with fluorescent
pens against that swill against all odds
hoping to see you home brother
falling asleep on your folding armchair
your legs are great fast feet Bengal
numb my eyelashes flickered and fade
into walls like multiple clock hands
what’s left is ways of my own gaze
sundown you’re out and about 12:00 a.m.
he know I know what you’d say Jess it
takes a jeep and a young man to get lost
in this broad foot city of a capital and
I want to believe you heartless and
stealthy there are nights there’s a bit
of graffiti I would have never thought
it could be a life chance for what is
the distance you can walk without
bending over as if baying can be
contained at the small of your back each
cloud crack within a short ear cartilage
like to the touch of rolled up paper
strips fingers snap then yield to clutch
a hand your head rests napping in a
girl’s lap 1 a.m. rooftop 3 boy’s eyes
rolling breeze running through naught
swimming pool you know this that boy it
from down the block the one who talked a
lot in school we used to share choco
biscuits on the steps in elementary he
got so height tonight was his first time
got ferociously clingy I had to hit him
the bust is Joe in front of our door –
am I am turning in bed and you are a
no-show the lines of time passing by are
being drawn into the blackboard of a
sleepless night it’s been no sound no
after the police searched your room with
relentless grasp in their hands your
contact lens a periscope the muted
sounds from the stereo a platinum record
in your mind this room of pricey rhymes
a music box in what you said on your way
it’s okay this it’s okay if someone asks
just say I go in and out of prison just
like that only for a day if someone asks
just say in and out as if out of thin
air there are not so many words and
teeth in a ma brother to let it all slip
because lips flick a sound in solitaire
that cannot spell itself out and even
though you say school is not your thing
you were right at all in your poetry the
whole day I was at home but when you’ve
got half a kilo weed lying around you
cannot sit still your head keeps
spinning adjoint doesn’t work on its own
so I called up a few of my friends not
to be alone their whole day we’d kept
burning spliff after spliff night fell
deep I was chilling with two of my kids
riding in the Jeep that vehicle got
really rundown we were laughing out loud
but the feeling was like a last breath I
got back home at 5 at 5:10
I heard police vans outside and got up
to check through the peephole I unlocked
the door there was no one on a floor
just the pitch-black darkness in the
court hallway if I have to describe it
it will be gray the next day in broad
daylight some awful and pretty nasty
things took place in which I was
arrested all neighbors saw the way I was
treated dangerous gangs bad influence if
you want to say state
true you will be screwed they see me as
a tough man a drug lord a junkie instead
see me as no one it was noon as I was
floored mom popped up by the window
on the first floor so me lying on the
ground and months from then she said I
wanted to jump straight down and put my
this research poem showed me that I’d
failed to see the scope of Jess’s trauma
and the loss of dignity he went through
being subjected to police brutality and
public shaming Jess was able to voice
his trauma during the performance at the
open mic with dignity and respect from a
creative community and I still grapple
with questions how poetry as research
can be truly empathetic while also bear
in mind how I work for my own
stereotypes and how crime affects the
lives of other people but unmistakeably
prisons are places that harbor trauma
and we fail young people when as people
and as researchers we refuse to listen
to them and refuse to place emotions at
the core of exploring young lives and
poetry as research has the capacity to
open up lives in an insightful
humanizing curious ways challenging
prejudices and poetry is a research
method will not have answers to many
other questions but we need a
multiplicity of research methods and
cultivating poetry as research and
research through poetry can enable us to
multiplicity of voices and viewpoints
the first time I saw Jess he said school
is not really my thing the last time I
saw Jess he said to me
maybe this here the program was some
sort of school for me it was the day he
went back home to his family
and I came back to Cambridge to write
about Jess’s life how do I do this
I am told to be objective to further
knowledge whose knowledge what kind of
knowledge why not just as subjective
knowledge why not knowledge obtained
through poetry as research if I want to
get to know you if I care to know you I
would have to know your emotional truth
and poetry as research gets at an
emotional truth that can change a world
views and make us connect as people thank
glad I’m a Kakuna Koga this works but a
young poet performer I called Jess two
winters ago I saw Jess perform standing
in the middle of a tight-knit circle in
a newly refurbished classroom
there was a blackboard and chalk in use
and a stove in the corner for heating
and blank walls around us but for this
hand run poster of 2pac all through
Jess’s performance people in the circle
kept snapping the fingers the snapping
of the fingers is a sign we used to
signal to the poet we love what they’re
saying it meant I hear you I get you I
see you I met Jess at a new spoken word
poetry program in a Macedonian prison
which is a part of my research at
Cambridge which tries to understand the
lives of young men and what performing
poetry means in their lives and spoken
what poetry is poetry performed live to
an audience it hails from poetry slams
hip-hop culture and music and jazz in
the US and the new program in the prison
was a space which was creative where
young men were able to perform and
compose poetry together with other
artists and educators and Jess was one
of the poets participants whereas I was
one of the poets educators just struck
me as this warm laid-back kid with an
ability to make a conversation flow we
bonded over a shared appreciation for
Macedonian hip-hop artists but as we
spent more time together I realized that
rap meant very different things to us at
one point Jett said to me I was
listening to these songs and
and here it was everything that I was
going through someone else has lived
through it and wrote about it
I was looking at rap lyrics
whereas jazz was experiencing rap as
life-affirming and what did I know about
Jesse’s life during one of the long
conversations at the program just told
me that before he was arrested the
police searched his room and treated him
badly where they found drugs in the room
and to explain how he felt about it just
selected this image it is a Dixit card
with a boy trapped in a music box the
floor littered with music notes a year
after the program as I was lying in bed
I caught a glimpse of the card lying on
my bookshelf and had this visceral
response to it it was gut-wrenching
I was afraid to explore it but the next
week I found myself writing poetry in
response to the card it was research
through spoken word poetry research
through poetry was essential in gaining
new knowledge into the emotional depths
of Jesse’s experience research through
poetry enabled me to challenge my own
prejudices about young men in prison and
I connected to Jess as the person and
powerful poetic voice he is and I wish
to share with you today all this through
Jess’s own poetry and spoken word poetry
as research in this performance I weave
together just a self authored poem with
the research poem and
I assumed the voice of an invented
character that is just a sister and as a
researcher I felt an easy writing from
this perspective but as a poet I knew I
had to take the risk and explore
possibilities ever since I was a kid I
discovered that writing poetry could
provide answers to some of my questions
and to do this I usually rely on three
main things first I trust my gut feeling
second I pluck up the courage to explore
emotions even though they may be
unsettling and third I allow myself to
be playful and messy without worrying
too much what others may think and in
this poem just his sister waits for Jess
to return the night before he was
arrested and Jess’s lines are his own
words and also his self authored poem is
rendered here in English translation
solemn with a smile on your face you
beguile and ride along in your tall lean
friend’s Jeep with a cheer your crafty
hand searches the back pockets of the
jeans filled the tip on your lip voice
airing through jagged tea cigarette lit
each night as if out of smoke your body
glides through doors how is it a body
believes it is a fast-forward down the
stairs the whole way of another universe
smuggled leaved Goods folded letters
into the ether
music turn down past my bedtime past
curfew not really doing homework but
waiting for you in this room where you
drew plans on walls with fluorescent
pens against that swill against all odds
hoping to see you home brother
falling asleep on your folding armchair
your legs are great fast feet Bengal
numb my eyelashes flickered and fade
into walls like multiple clock hands
what’s left is ways of my own gaze
sundown you’re out and about 12:00 a.m.
he know I know what you’d say Jess it
takes a jeep and a young man to get lost
in this broad foot city of a capital and
I want to believe you heartless and
stealthy there are nights there’s a bit
of graffiti I would have never thought
it could be a life chance for what is
the distance you can walk without
bending over as if baying can be
contained at the small of your back each
cloud crack within a short ear cartilage
like to the touch of rolled up paper
strips fingers snap then yield to clutch
a hand your head rests napping in a
girl’s lap 1 a.m. rooftop 3 boy’s eyes
rolling breeze running through naught
swimming pool you know this that boy it
from down the block the one who talked a
lot in school we used to share choco
biscuits on the steps in elementary he
got so height tonight was his first time
got ferociously clingy I had to hit him
the bust is Joe in front of our door –
am I am turning in bed and you are a
no-show the lines of time passing by are
being drawn into the blackboard of a
sleepless night it’s been no sound no
after the police searched your room with
relentless grasp in their hands your
contact lens a periscope the muted
sounds from the stereo a platinum record
in your mind this room of pricey rhymes
a music box in what you said on your way
it’s okay this it’s okay if someone asks
just say I go in and out of prison just
like that only for a day if someone asks
just say in and out as if out of thin
air there are not so many words and
teeth in a ma brother to let it all slip
because lips flick a sound in solitaire
that cannot spell itself out and even
though you say school is not your thing
you were right at all in your poetry the
whole day I was at home but when you’ve
got half a kilo weed lying around you
cannot sit still your head keeps
spinning adjoint doesn’t work on its own
so I called up a few of my friends not
to be alone their whole day we’d kept
burning spliff after spliff night fell
deep I was chilling with two of my kids
riding in the Jeep that vehicle got
really rundown we were laughing out loud
but the feeling was like a last breath I
got back home at 5 at 5:10
I heard police vans outside and got up
to check through the peephole I unlocked
the door there was no one on a floor
just the pitch-black darkness in the
court hallway if I have to describe it
it will be gray the next day in broad
daylight some awful and pretty nasty
things took place in which I was
arrested all neighbors saw the way I was
treated dangerous gangs bad influence if
you want to say state
true you will be screwed they see me as
a tough man a drug lord a junkie instead
see me as no one it was noon as I was
floored mom popped up by the window
on the first floor so me lying on the
ground and months from then she said I
wanted to jump straight down and put my
this research poem showed me that I’d
failed to see the scope of Jess’s trauma
and the loss of dignity he went through
being subjected to police brutality and
public shaming Jess was able to voice
his trauma during the performance at the
open mic with dignity and respect from a
creative community and I still grapple
with questions how poetry as research
can be truly empathetic while also bear
in mind how I work for my own
stereotypes and how crime affects the
lives of other people but unmistakeably
prisons are places that harbor trauma
and we fail young people when as people
and as researchers we refuse to listen
to them and refuse to place emotions at
the core of exploring young lives and
poetry as research has the capacity to
open up lives in an insightful
humanizing curious ways challenging
prejudices and poetry is a research
method will not have answers to many
other questions but we need a
multiplicity of research methods and
cultivating poetry as research and
research through poetry can enable us to
multiplicity of voices and viewpoints
the first time I saw Jess he said school
is not really my thing the last time I
saw Jess he said to me
maybe this here the program was some
sort of school for me it was the day he
went back home to his family
and I came back to Cambridge to write
about Jess’s life how do I do this
I am told to be objective to further
knowledge whose knowledge what kind of
knowledge why not just as subjective
knowledge why not knowledge obtained
through poetry as research if I want to
get to know you if I care to know you I
would have to know your emotional truth
and poetry as research gets at an
emotional truth that can change a world
views and make us connect as people thank
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