The Poet’s Tree Serves Up Weekly Interviews, Performance, Activities

Speaker 1: 00:00 San Diego spoken word poet Gil. So two hosts the weekly online show, the poet's tree. The event is an arts engagement program for the old globe theater, KPBS arts reporter, Beth Huck Amando speaks with so too about modern poetry and tonight's show Speaker 2: 00:18 Gil. You are the host and creator of this series. That's at the old globe theater called the poet's tree. So explain what this is. Speaker 3: 00:27 Poets tree is a interactive interview series where I get to interview some of my poetic heroes and also use them to help inspire other people to write. So it's not just something that when you listen to it or watch it, that you're going to do nothing. Like we have interactive games with our audience. We have, uh, challenges at the end of each episode where a writers write in their poetic responses to whatever the challenge from the artist is. And the artists for the following week helps me read some of those responses. So they get their poems read out loud by some of the top poets in the, in the country. And, uh, it's really just, uh, my excuse to be able to learn from the best, you know, and, and bring everybody along for that ride. Speaker 2: 01:19 This is for both people who are poets themselves, but also if somebody is just interested in modern poetry, they would also enjoy this. Speaker 3: 01:29 Yeah. And also, I would say anybody interested in just performance of any type. So the, the, the caliber of the people that I bring on vast majority of them have been HBO, Def jam poets. They've won Tonys. They have, you know, been nominated for Grammys. So just as an artist in general, I talk, I speak to them a lot about what it's like to be in an artists and pushing through your own negative self-talk. And so it's, it's centered around poetry, but I think that it really branches out. I don't think that I've ever interviewed an artist that was just strictly a poet. They're usually, uh, have a lot of different slashes in, in what they do. So it's, it's, it's really open to a lot of different genres of expression. Speaker 2: 02:19 Tell me who you're going to have on tonight for the poetry Speaker 3: 02:22 Tonight. I have Jessica care Moore. So Jessica CareMore has performed everywhere from the white house to, she was the, I think the first poet to win Showtime at the Apollo and win it multiple times is a, uh, big talent competition in, in New York. She is the founder of black girls rock this huge concert in Detroit. She's just done amazing things with poetry throughout her career. Uh, so I'm excited to really interview her last last week, we interviewed, uh, Reggie Gaines whose show was on Broadway, bring noise, bringing the funk. And the reason why I'm mentioning previous episodes is all my episodes, all our episodes, I should say, cause this, this could not have been done without the old globe are available to be viewed. And, and you can follow along with it, uh, on our Facebook page or our YouTube pages, both on Facebook and YouTube live. Speaker 2: 03:20 And what is it about poetry that appeals to you? Speaker 3: 03:23 I think that it's just because one, there are rules to it, but if you break them, it's fine. It's a form of self-expression where you can be as metaphorical as you want to be, but you can also be really straight to the point and it's still very poetical. Uh, it lends itself to songwriting and rap and storytelling and, uh, all sorts of you can mix in dance with it. So all sorts of different types of self-expression fits in very well and in tune. So when something, and if you think about it, like when they talk, describe something very beautiful, you know, whether it be in a politician speech, or, um, even like a vision, something with visual arts, they say it's very poetic and that's, it's almost like that's the epitome of what art is, you know? Um, so I love it to death. Speaker 2: 04:23 Sometimes people are a little afraid of poetry. They think, ah, you know, I don't get it or it's not really for me. What do you say to kind of those people in terms of maybe lessening their fear or opening them up to that experience? Speaker 3: 04:40 Um, when they say they don't get it, it's just, what they're really saying is that they don't get that person, you know, because it's so varied. It's so varied. Like you could turn on a episode of HBO Def jam or, or go to a local open mic and hear a poem and get it right away. It just, that individual, you may not like it, but you'll get it. And then other ones that you may like, but you need like maybe five, six more reads to really understand it, but you something about it the way he delivered it or the way she, she put the words together, you just like it. So, um, you get it that way. So it's, I, I say to those people, you just, haven't experienced to lack of a better term. You haven't experienced a lot of good poetry yet. Um, because I've performed all over the country too. Speaker 3: 05:33 And I've yet to find someone who absolutely hates all types of poetry. What I experience is someone coming to me and say, I never knew poetry could be like that. And that's the same way that I experienced it. Uh, when I first really got into modern poetry, I, they, they had it in a movie that I watched here in Hillcrest and it called slam. And when I heard that for the first time, I was like, Oh my God. Like, I didn't know, cause this is not the stuff that they teach in school. That's why I'm always so happy when I'm able to go to high schools and bring my Superfriends to perform, uh, because it really opens kids' eyes to like, Oh, it doesn't have to be like this, you know? Uh, and, and it just, it opens up a whole new world. And I mean, I could just say this and I can curse in it and I can do this. And I what's, uh, I could really just talk about, yeah, yeah. It's all good. Like, and, and, and try to craft it the way that makes it feel beautiful to you Speaker 1: 06:34 And working people get information about this, Speaker 3: 06:37 Go to the arts engagement page on the old globe, you can go to the old globe, uh, dot org, uh, first and foremost, uh, go to our Facebook page arts engagement at the old globe, uh, both on YouTube and Facebook. It's my website, Gil sotu.com, G I L L S O T u.com. So any of those places, if you want to find out, find out about the poetry, you'll get challenged. You know, we have a, every week we have a, um, we take a literary theme and a common saying, and we smash it together and you have two minutes to write one line of poetry and we have people participating every week. Uh, and then again, uh, these, these people that I have on our master teacher teachers, so they're giving you poetry prompts that really gets you going, um, and you get to ride on that and have another master teacher read your work, uh, which is great. And so, uh, it's a fun show and we have fun. We laugh a lot and, and I hope you all join us. Speaker 1: 07:40 I want to thank you very much for, uh, talking about the tree. Speaker 3: 07:43 Yeah. Thank you for having me appreciate it, Beth. Speaker 1: 07:46 That was Beth Armando speaking with Gil. So to tonight's event starts at five 30 on the old globe theaters arts engagement, Facebook page and YouTube channel. Speaker 4: 08:06 [inaudible].