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About Button:
Button Poetry is committed to developing a coherent and effective system of production, distribution, promotion and fundraising for spoken word and performance poetry.
We seek to showcase the power and diversity of voices in our community. By encouraging and broadcasting the best and brightest performance poets of today, we hope to broaden poetry’s audience, to expand its reach and develop a greater level of cultural appreciation for the art form.
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
my response to the executive producer of
America’s Got Talent who asks me malachi
how do you survive in detroit well love
surviving in Detroit was never an option
when that option was placed in the hands
of political Devils who decided our only
option Shelby in a game of Russian
roulette with the lives of our children
the reason we still stay in Detroit it’s
a suicide mission you will never
understand our farewell letter it’s
written in blood on picket signs raised
high enough to give our ancestors a
high-five the only choices we have in
Detroit it’s between a corner Church or
a liquor store cremation or a closed
casket
a GoFundMe post or selling dope just
Detroit it’s a jungle full of roaring
Lions who still call at home because it
is because it’s all we know and
explaining that she was beyond words you
can read in the newspaper about a 13
year old boy found dead and dumped in
the field over $75 on my art hit and ran
down in the street you know neighbors
made more Facebook posting 9-1-1 calls
or miles away someone’s child who drinks
tap water because he was thirsty and his
insides bubbles up and dies because he
was that thirsty in my city we are all
thirsty like that child for fuel
so replenish our soul that is actually
only poison provided by our killer so
that answer your question
or how we survive in Detroit we survived
like the voices that roam in our Motown
museum our back is as strong as the
bricks in our school that refuse to be
torn down our voices it’s as powerful as
the Martin Luther King I have a dream
speech still spinning on my
grandmother’s turntable still spinning
still spinning because Detroit still
spins but let me ask you a question mr.
privilege when your tour bus hit our
turf did you not see the heart in our
eyes in the spirit and our soul in the
fight and our children because if you
didn’t how the hell do you survive in
your small ass world because in our
world nothing ever dies it is only
a legacy
[Applause]
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
