For almost 20 years slam poet Gayle Danley has traveled extensively, sharing poetry with young people. She shares words that she sees as strong, pulsating and powerful. On Tuesday she shared those rhythms of articulation, her poetry, with students at Country Day School on St. Croix.
Slam poetry is described as movement, voice, and drama coming together with the written word. Originating in the bars and clubs of Chicago in the late ’80s, Slam is actually a competitive form of poetry where audiences judge three-minute narratives, Danley said.
Featured on "60 Minutes" and National Public Radio, Danley is the 1996 International Slam Poet Champion. The Baltimore, Md., native warmed up to the Country Day School students with a poem titled “Round Like Bubbles.”
“Round like red lollipops, round like this yellow ball on the microphone,” Danley says as she turns her slim backside to the students. “Why can’t I have a round bottom like J. Lo?” The high school students and teachers burst into laughter.
She said she always wants to give the audience a lot of energy to give back to her for a dynamic performance.
Her poetry reflects growing up in the South, wishing she could be the perfect little girl, like her classmate Cenita Sims. “Her hair was perfectly parted and plaited, I had two little pigtails on the top of my head," Danley said. "Mama made me go to school looking like the Teletubbies.” The audience roared.
She uses her frank personal revelations in her poetry, as in “Two Pearls,” a poem about her mother dying of lung cancer at age 49.
“These two pearls shine like the memory of my mama. Mama said you know I got to die of something. Not at 49, though,” Danley said, as she used her sleeve to wipe tears from her cheeks. Danley then offered a bit of advice to the 165 students assembled: "When you see your mama’s pretty face while she is cooking Thanksgiving dinner, give her a hug and tell her you love her.” There was barely a dry eye in the pavilion.
“She really touched me,” Kahdeem de Souza said. “She made me think, "What if I lost my mother?’”
She also recited poetry on leaving an abusive marriage, with her baby daughter in tow. She then "slammed" about dancing with her father, now 85 and suffering from prostate cancer, who was barely around while she was growing up.
“I loved the poems,” Yunshan Fung said. “It was very touching.”
“I speak directly to any situation or audience and show young people the power and beauty of words,” Danley said. She said she shows young people the alternative of speaking and acting out in words–instead of acting out in a negative way, through violence for instance.
Amelia Headley LaMont, executive director of the Disability Rights Center of the Virgin Islands, said children gravitate to Danley.
“She has the ability to reach out and teach children,” LaMont said. She speaks out for and advocates for children of varying abilities with emotional disturbances or troubled children, LaMont added.
Danley was sponsored by the Disability Rights Center of the Virgin Islands, funded by a grant from the Center for Mental Health Services.
On Monday, she performed her poetry at the Youth Rehabilitation Center and V.I. Behavioral Services.
