Poetry New York

            I had heard the artistic styling of Sage Francis before coming to the Page Meets Stage performance at the Bowery Poetry Club.  On the other hand, I had hardly heard of Jeff McDaniels, but what I had heard was positive.

            The show was opened by Bernard Dolan. He set the stage for Francis and McDaniels with a short set of spoken word poems. In one, he played the role of a broken robot tweaking on a lack of electricity. He intentionally stuttered through words to portray this character. Dolan had energy in his work and sprayed the front row with the intensity of his poetry spitting. He ended with a piece about the use of religion in justifying terrible acts. This was portrayed with they image of Joan d’Arc and her wooden dildo named Jesus. This added a touch of comedy to a serious topic and kept the audience interested. It was a good opening act to an even better show.

Francis and McDaniels took the stage, sitting on opposite ends. Though they were supposed to represent two opposing poetic camps, they seemed very cordial towards each other. They took turns speaking.

Jeff McDaniels is a very comic poet at times. He started his set with a poem about his belief in God. He spoke about how his first God was the “Santa God.” Moments of hilarity and shuddering depravity followed. In one story, his child asked him if there were “Ghettos in the afterlife.” At that point he switched over to a story about smoking crack and getting only a slap on the wrist because of his skin color. He also talked about the power of language and how it is used for ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ He said that, as a writer, he feels “betrayed by the alphabet.”

            Sage Francis is very similar to Jeff McDaniels in his work. He makes powerful rhymes to project the humor and sadness seen in his work. He started off with a piece about God, the sun, and the moon having a rap battle. He ended the piece with a provocative line, “God ain’t a woman, He’s a bitch.” He recited another piece about the death of the middle class and the targeting of students for recruitment. It was refreshing to hear about the plight of the middle class for a change.

            The two finished out with a question and answer session and a few more poems. They’re both real characters and I enjoyed seeing them perform.