Brave New Voices 2011 **Update**

So this year I had the privilage to attend BNV. The 15 year anniversary of the youth poetry festival. I was able to meet a lot more teams than I did last year. I would greatly recommend that everyone interested should attend Brave New Voices at least twice; once as a competitor and another a somewhat fly on a wall. If you weren't slamming it was really a giant extended party the entire time. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Knowing that there are tons of people in the world who are just as creative and weird as I am. So I wrote this poem for my experience this year. And anyone else who has been able to make me feel/believe that I am not myself in my free train of thought.
(I intend on fleshing out this poem)


BNV SERIES: Episode One


Part I:
We've been looking for each other
Writing poems about finding ourselves
Being lost is appropriate when you’re 17…or 20
When everything you believed in was paused for commercials
And revolutions don’t exist because you have college
and the real world to prepare yourself for
not for change
Change is just something you say when you need
to get over the short term hurdles of everyday
So you stop writing
Stop thinking about anything outside of the destinies your current class has padlocked you in
Completely ignoring the ringing in your head
You know it’s a poem
Or an idea
But no one understands you
How could they?
You are this demigod trapped in this censored body
With the children’s crusade wrestling inside it
you find yourself roaming
Stumble upon this party of mirrors
A college campus full of people like you
Who have fallen victim to the fairytales of art in their heads
They know that they’re crazy
Little freaks with deep concepts for conversation
And alliterations for rants
You think “I can die now”
Someone else in this world understands
A summit at the Tower of Babel of Words
And they get me
However you begin to remember
How endings always happen at the beginning of happiness
It’s only a matter of time before you are misinterpreted (again)
Looking for yourself in Vacaville, or Minnesota
or someplace where people cut short the extension cords to our extended metaphors because they don’t get what we are trying to say
the tyranny of average men with computers for hearts
Old fashioned small minded opinions for ears
And outdated recycled parables for advice
You say goodbye
Promise yourself that you’ll never stop writing
No matter how wrong you are accused of being
Riding home
Uploading photos on Facebook
and videos on Youtube
You know you’re losing yourself
You know that inspiration to change the world is dwindling
The moment you claim your bags
And see the first person that can’t possibly get how you’re life has been evolved
So you look them in the eyes
Try to find yourself in their pupils
And once you see it
Hold on to it
Go over time
Revolutions don’t acknowledge time penalties anyways