"GV6 THE ODYSSEY deals with those Poets who write words for the page, while GV7 RANDOM URBAN STATIC  probes the reality of those Poets that write  for the stage. SPOKEN WORD has really connected with todays' youth, principally because the poetric artform speaks intimately to their love for performance art, suppressed passions, subjective psycho / social issues and the cultural attitudes concerning the world in which they live. Poetry is an invaluable tool that helps them to unravel, clarify, articulate & document their experiences. Of course hip-hop has allot to do with the flavoring of this SPOKEN WORD communication paradigm."

"I was thrilled to be able to get the Poets to decode and discuss their intimate hopes & desires, as well as their deeply personal disappointments and frustrations with the current state of hip-hop.  Not all the poets shared a deep abiding love for hip-hop in its current incarnation. Many of the Poets feel that hip-hop has within it's grasp the potential to be a positive catalyst for massive personal & social change. They feel unfortunately that its potential  has been severely underdeveloped and in some cases perversely denigrated by some of its commercial practitioners."

"But at the same time other poets in GV7 openly discuss issues of date-rape, the courage to be an artist, the psychological repression of women, How hip-hop can help or Hurt, HIV-AIDS & homosexuality, image vs. reality, obsessions, race-consciousness, anorexia, self-love, the high-jacking of black mens' masculinity & vunerability, disappointment with God, insanity, self-loathing, inspiration and salvation. Noone can say these poets tread lightly or try to avoid issues that we all, in some way or another grapple with.  It's what makes this expression so relative, "  says Filmmaker Bob Bryan.

GV7 Review by Nancy Shiffrin, PhD. (c) 

RANDOM URBAN STATIC:  The Iridescent Equations of Spoken Word
An Original Feature Length Spoken Word Poetry Documentary
Running Time: 2 hours  
 
Words that pop!  Words that crackle!  Words that explode!  Words that weep!  Words that sing and chant the urban poet's agonies and dreams.

Spoken Word is an art form that harkens back to the oral and musical origins of poetry, the time before words were written down, the time when story-tellers spoke for the people and had to remember their lines.
 
Here are 15 performers, griots, prophets.  It's not that they reject the page, only one, Mollie Angelheart, claims not to read or write, and she has help writing down the words.  It's that, as Rachel Kann points out, they came along as Rap and Hip Hop, which themselves derive in part from children's street games, from "doin' the dozens", from a black male culture which seeks to assert its power (sometimes ill-advisedly) in the face of extreme oppression and exploitation, came to dominate popular consciousness.

In fact, the DVD shows most of the artists working with the page before they come to the mike.  Because it contains a critique of the violence and sexism in Hip Hop, as well as analysis of the role of Hip Hop and Spoken Word poetry in the culture, this DVD is to be recommended as a classroom tool for writers and artists going into classrooms to share their visions and for classroom teachers who want to provoke a discussion. 

These artists COMMUNICATE big-time. 

"Black mens' strength and redemption lies in their vulnerability," Tim'M T. West asserts. Vulnerability black and white, male and female, regardless of  is the power of this artistic effort.  West talks about being educated, about degrees in Women's and Gender Studies, philosophy and modern thought, about coming out of the closet, finally dropping out of Stanford's Ph.D. Program after finding out he's HIV positive.  His epiphany, that he didn't want to write "brilliant" academic articles, that he wanted to write for his mother. 

Ironically, using the Hip Hop rhythm, he asks for more rhythmic variety in the medium. In general, the men here convey their power through a kind of self-lessness. Sekou (tha misfit) captures the looniness of infatuation with 7th Grade Girl; other men talk about suicide, immigration, obsessive compulsive behavior, using art in the classroom and in counseling situations. They also speak positively about nature, the cosmos, collective and individual responsibility.