Lamar Should Have Won!

The Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Slam was amazing!

This young poet made me cry. Twice. He should have won. This isn't the best footage of him and certainly doesn't capture his live performance of this poem, titled "Generation X"; he ended the poem last night by connected "us daily" to Mayor Daley, and he addressed Chicago's Mayor, stating that facing the problems of the African-American communities who keep being displaced/quarantined and generally moved to the margins of the city to be made invisible and to ignore, is more important than vying for the opportunity to host the 2016 Olympics in Chicago.

I love the section in the middle of the poem where Lamar "The Truth" claims that "this is not a poem" and then he begins to unpack what a poem is, and what he is doing.

He is very young, but I loved watching his adjustment in the final round of the slam.

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu9C46swSA8&feature=related