Carlos Gomez (USA)

Carlos Andrés Gómez is a leading voice at the vanguard of the oral poetry movement and has been described as a “truth-telling visionary” by Brass Magazine and a “lyrical prophet” by the Caymanian Compass . Carlos – a slam poet, actor, and playwright – is a Russell Simmons' HBO Def poet and the 2006 International Poetry Slam Champion. A proud Latino and native New Yorker, he also co-starred in Spike Lee's hit film Inside Man alongside Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, and Clive Owen.

Carlos has performed at over 100 colleges and universities and toured North America, Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including High Desert Voices (The Wordsmith Press, 2006), The New York Times , Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century (Scarecrow Press, 2007), AWOL Magazine, Speakeasy Anthology ( University of Pennsylvania, 2002), Legendary Anthology: Stories We Tell Today, Stories Our Children Will Tell Tomorrow (Sacred Fools Press, 2008), Timeout New York , and the forthcoming Barbershop Chronicles.

Carlos first poetry album was named Spoken Word Album of the Year at the 2006 Los Angeles Music Awards. He also recently collaborated with Tony Award-winning tap dance legend Savion Glover at The Town Hall on Broadway. Their much lauded performance, featured as part of the Nuyorican Poets Café's “Aloud and Alive at 35” anniversary show, received a standing ovation from the sold-out audience.

A former social worker and teacher in Harlem, the South Bronx and Philadelphia, Carlos regularly conducts workshops and lectures on critical social and political issues. Youth empowerment, the fight against HIV/AIDS, and the unjust penal system in the United States remain central to his work.

Visit: www.carloslive.com  

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kwame Nkrumah, smuggled in a drum
 
Fela is filling up the ballroom
dance floor like a starched head scarf, his
hefty lungs like hands on all of our hips, clasping
the full width of our bodies like a chain link, we give
in to the funk and pride of this song and all fall-in-love
with each other, all over again, as if we ever had a choice.
 
Mahima is in her sari, free –
 
styling in Hindi doing a pseudo cumbia to this, Magadia
smiles her way home, hears it in Tagalog, asks her
friend if this is James Brown, the live band all Palestinian
jazz musicians doing a cover of the song that kept them alive.
 
An aboriginal father, Amaroo, takes the center of the dance
floor, holding his baby daughter up to the chandelier like a gift
to the night, the sparkling crown of the crystal-reflecting light like
a halo on her regal head
 
I have a flashback to Havana, the day I got lost off the Malecón
 
meeting a man that talked with his hands, nothing from his mouth,
all walk, like a young Mandela through the winding street,
 
I didn't know where he was taking me, thought he might take
something from me, that it was all a hoax,
as we climbed those four flights of impossibly steep stairs, half
expected to see Che laughing drunk on the bed in one of the rooms,
 
but it was just a boy
 
with a boot-legged pro tools on an old Macintosh computer stealing
electricity from the power lines across the way, remixing
a Congolese beat he downloaded, the sun carving across
our faces and the doorway like a sword knighting the
moment we were sharing
 
revealing the tag above the doorway:
 
Tupac vive.
 
 
all poems' rights remain with the authors