Jeffery McDaniel is the author of three books. He comes out and reads from The Splinter Factory first. He sounds monotone, like he is reading words that don’t have any meaning. It’s annoying at first but then I realize it illuminates his humor. His first piece is religiously political with lines like, “I saw people with Jesus on their bumper stickers like he was running for president.”
Sage Francis, a hip hop artist, bounces off of McDaniel’s religious theme with his own words, “God’s not a woman, he’s a bitch.” He uses noise to break up his text and creates beats with the way he says the words too. He incorporates bits of singing within the performance.
Playing off of a sun/moon reference from Francis’ poem McDaniel prefaces his next piece with a story about viewing the earth as some kid’s science experiment. He takes us to “a world with inverted flashlights that shoot out darkness.” Keeping the same tone throughout the piece he says “I know the glass is half full / but it’s a shot glass / and there are four of us / and we’re all really thirsty.” On paper this isn’t nearly as funny as when he read it. Although his work seemed more “academic” in comparison to Francis’ work it isn’t boring. He takes the typical droning poet to a new level, by whipping out the soul completely so that all you’re left with is the words.
Francis let’s the words radiate in your mind a different way. His performances are charged with so much emotion- you can see it in his face, the way he moves his body, and hear it in his tone. The emotions transfer to the listener by seeing him pour so much of himself into his work. His passion is overwhelming, connecting you to the words and building them up so they hit hard. The rhythm of his poems makes you move and then you become a part of the piece.
You can feel both of their styles as they move to the topic of racism. McDaniel reads a poem about his eight year old cousin asking questions about racism. “Why don’t they build black people with bulletproof skin?” the young boy asks and McDaniel uses this to open into a story about cops not penalizing people that are white. “Officer, I’m going to be honest with you / blah blah blah” saying that he knows the officer won’t do anything because of his race. Then his cousin asks “Why don’t black people get statues?” and he replies “The white people say: well, we gave them February.” Francis speaks to this topic too, “they'll lock you up and throw away the key witness / Justice is the whim of a judge / check his chest density / It leaves much room for error / and the rest left to destiny” His piece leaves you feeling confronted with reality and desire for change. “Rich get richer til the poor get educated.”
It wasn’t all heavily political, they did a love poem too. “No one ever talks about the first straw / it’s always the last straw / that gets all the attention but by then it’s far too late” McDaniel says. Along with the monotone voice the gaps between words are essential to his work. His words have rhythm too, but not in the musical sense. In another poem he says “When I haven’t been kissed in a long time I start thinking leaches are the most romantic creatures” Francis reads a love poem saying, “You can catch me humming your nudity under my breath.” The different tone he uses within his pieces moves you through the emotions of his story.
During the Q &A Francis talks about all the work that goes into becoming a musical artist, quoting Edison he says most people miss opportunities because they don’t recognize it when it’s dressed in overalls. “Being alone a lot was very important. Society is based on constant distractions.” he says, explaining how he works. He also talks about hip hop culture’s influence on him. He says that it’s a culture that embraces homophobia and sexism and being around the spoken word crowd allowed him to move away from those things. McDaniel talks about his transition from slam poetry into more page based performance. “To some views to be accessible is fraudulent in a way.” He talks about getting caught up in “academic” writing circles and how those poets don’t accept spoken word artists.
Francis puts on an amazing show by performing. The way he uses movement on the stage is engaging. But McDaniel was equally as captivating. It was refreshing to see “page” based writing that was still interesting to listen to out loud. Francis transformed his songs into spoken word and McDaniel transformed his written work into a performance so in a way both artists were pushing themselves outside of how their work is normally presented.
