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Kool B

  • Kool B's Wordville 1330
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Kool B

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Black Shakespeare

Black Shakespeare 

Somewhere 
underneath 
a forgotten rainbow 
a colored boy sighs 
fresh out of tries 
crosswise 
with the weight of postulating worlds 
pearling in his wide-eyed gaze 
betangled by an amusing maze of letters 
coffee stained sweater 
sky falling all around him 
nerves provoked 
changing texture 
as he writes 
in pencil 
scratching 
well-fashioned cursive 
mismatching signals 
frozen to a moment of secrets 
Black Shakespeare 
takes in every impression 
under the Emerald City lights 
somewhere 
underneath 
a forgotten rainbow 
residing in his wide-eyed gaze 

calculating canons of mathematic delights 
three, six, nine, 
stressed unstressed worded lines 
intertwined pentameter 
Finger snapping insights 
he scores 
changing texture 
Perhaps it's pariah 
clairvoyance 
and its slow-motion affect 
that projects off the skyline 
amplifying his color 
saturating brilliance 
sky falling all around him 
crystallite chameleon 
Black Shakespeare 
takes in every impression 
under the Emerald City lights

10/05/2020

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For Alvin LeBlanc, a.k.a. Kool B, a veteran of poetry slams going back to 1990, the South is nothing less than “a literary haven,” with Houston in particular “primed” for poetry. “People in the South talk,” says the 54-year-old LeBlanc, who grew up in Lafayette, La., and came to Houston to study sociology at Texas Southern State University. “They see you down the street, and they want to say something. Southern people are also used to listening to orators, preachers. From all of that, poetry has an ear.” 

LeBlanc, an instructor at the Adult Reading Center, brings his poetry to the people as producer of the online show Wordville and a member of the DJ collective Rebel Crew. In performance, LeBlanc recites his poetry in a way that is fluid, yet sounds unrehearsed, as if the words were being pulled out of thin air. In a performance at the Jazz Church of Houston, with his visor wrapped around his long, braided hair, the bespectacled LeBlanc moves gracefully as he speaks, illustrating each line with slow, simple gestures, like a Tai Chi master talking jazz: A village of windblown desperados in pursuit of a gold train loaded down with precious metals, pressed into bullions that grow like sunset, Texas to California dreamin’… It was the sound of black thunder and gallop that made the canyons quake. Let’s make no mistake about it: There’s no honor among thieves and siege is how the west was won. 

Though poetry has always been a tool for political protest, LeBlanc believes the art often reveals more commonalities than differences. “It brings the races together,” says LeBlanc. “Coming from rural Louisiana, where you would get chased home if you didn’t stay on your side of the city, poetry has shown me that people can work together, that people do have the same heartbreaks and the same anger. Poetry is where you can hear the humanness in people.”

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