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It’s the first Wednesday of the month and the Youth Speaks open mike poetry slam is in full swing at South Berkeley’s La Peña Cafe.  

One teenager after another steps to the stage – “the holy ground of poetic truth,” they call it – to spill their innermost feelings about race and racism, sex and love, politics and police.  

One after another they “spit” their “pieces,” some standing stock-still in front of the microphone, their spiral notebooks trembling in their hands; others dancing around the stage MTV-style, booming out their words to a rapid-fire, hip-hop cadence. 

The poems are mournful (“There is no hope to fight for/There just isn’t”); angry (“Your perspective of the world is emaciated, and everything you said about me will soon be reciprocated”), and bitter (“This is the land of the free, the home of the brave/No this is the land of the lost, the home of the American slave.”) 

The poems are introspective (“I wish I had a troubled life, then I’d have something to write about”), humorous (“I am deep poet/I take...dramatic...pauses”) and uplifting (“The content that lies beneath the skin is what truly matters, and I’ve learned all that from experience.”) 

Whatever words are pumping through the microphone, the audience sits in rapt attention, laughing and clapping and  

listening as one. And no matter how gloomy the poems, the poets leave the stage smiling, exchanging high fives and soaking up the hoots and hollers of appreciation. 

“I’ve seen a lot of kids come in timid,” said Safahri Ra, a teacher with Youth Speaks. “But over time they get so much love that you see those same kids, six months later, if that, coming hard. They’re so influenced by the whole thing. 

“It allows them to speak freely without any judgment,” Ra said. “It allows them to speak for themselves.” 

In addition to hosting the monthly poetry slams, Youth Speaks runs after-school programs, school assemblies and teacher workshops throughout the Bay Area, all aimed at promoting creative writing for youth. 

“It’s all about teen-aged expression,” said James Kass, Youth Speaks executive director. “We’re all about creating a space where young people can have their voices entered into the dialogue.” 

The atmosphere on Wednesday was supportive. Cries of “’Give it up,’ for first-timers” were common. If a poet hesitated or lost his place, reassuring voices would pipe in from the sidelines: “Take your time.” “You got it.” 

And if the applause at the end of a performance wasn’t deafening, well then there were the exhortations of emcee Chinaka Hodge, a Berkeley High junior, to get things back on track. 

“Number one, my man Adam just ripped it,” Hodge said at one point during the night, after a poet introduced as simple “Adam from the burbs” finished his piece. “He comes on a regular basis and you need to give it up louder for him.” 

But the crowd this Wednesday didn’t need much encouragement to make noise. Early Thursday morning Hodge and five other winners of the Bay Area youth poetry slam finals, held at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts this February, would be off to Ann Arbor, Mich., for the fourth annual National Youth Poetry Slam and Festival. Wednesday night was the send-off party, and the mood was one of celebration. 

“Make sure you bring it, make sure you sing it,” Ra rhymed to national poetry slam contestants, in an impromptu performance at the end of the night. “Make sure you say shit that you do, don’t just let any kind of words get channeled through you.” 

There is a long a respected tradition of spoken word poetry in the Bay Area, but among youth poets (13 through 19 years old), Berkeley High School is the undisputed powerhouse this year. No less than four of the six Bay Area contestants at this year’s National Youth Poetry Slam are Berkeley High students, including junior Chinaka Hodge, sophomore Nico Cary, and freshmen Gabe Crane and Katri Foster. 

Poetry has become ingrained in the Berkeley High culture, said Berkeley High teacher Rick Ayers, through monthly poetry slams held right on campus. 

“Instead of poetry being marginalized...it’s become a very hip thing to do,” Ayers said. 

“Over the years we’ve developed a tradition and bred a crew of really confident writers,” Ayers added. “It’s one of the examples of how Berkeley High is on the cutting edge in terms of cultural issues.” 

Berkeley High sophomore Adarius Bell started spoken word performing three months ago when his friends pushed him up onto the stage at a Berkeley High poetry slam. 

“I bought a poetry book a couple of months ago and I’ve filled it up pretty much,” Bell said at La Peña Wednesday, flipping through a dozen poems he’d written out in neat, careful lines. “I need to stop and start doing some homework.” 

Bell said he thinks his English grades have actually gone up as a result of his involvement in the poetry slams. But that’s not why he does it. 

“I go to get heard,” Bell said. “I like the whole scene. I like everybody in it. I never dislike anybody’s poetry.” 

Sophomore Nico Cary echoed these sentiments. 

“You really get to feel people, you know,” Cary said. “They share intimate things with you, and that’s something you really can’t get anywhere else.” 

For Pecolia Manigo, a senior at San Francisco’s Independence High School, youth poetry slams give youth a chance to air issues that adult society is too often ready to brush under the rug. 

“It empowers (youth) because there is not a mike in society for youth...As soon as it becomes something (adults) don’t want to hear, that mike gets shut off.” 

Pecolia, who volunteers at a middle school teaching kids how to organize to make themselves heard around important political issues, said a big part of what youth need today is a way of taking negative feelings and emotions and channeling them into something positive. 

“Adults say they’re about youth empowerment, but they’re not,” Pecolia said. “They don’t understand the things that youth today go through. 

“One of the biggest things that as youth we face is the whole stereotyping of us,” Pecolia continued. “Baggy jeans means you’re in a gang, or hip hop is something negative. (Or) when we get on a bus people not wanting to sit next to us ‘cause they think we’re gonna rob them...” 

Finally, for some youth, poetry is what keeps them going. 

Berkeley High’s Hodge turned to spoken word performing during her freshman year, she said, when she was “going through a rough time about my self identity.”  

If it weren’t for the chance to let off steam at poetry slams, Hodge said, she might not be able to cope with the stresses of high school. 

“I wouldn’t make it,” she said Wednesday night, shaking her head.  

And then she went home to get some sleep before the trip to Ann Arbor.