By: Maya Barillas Mohan, Staff Writer
“Turn it down?” Emcc K Ski retorted, grinning. “Well, we only have one more song. Too bad it’s the loudest.” His band, Beats Blues and Bars, played to their full velocity in the Black Student Centre, located in MBC 2270. The room is enclosed by a glass wall and furnished with gourd-coloured furniture. Perched on an ochre-coloured beanbag, I get a perfect view of the poets and academics poised behind the podium.
February 27’s Black Excellence event was designed by Lakeisha Barrington and Marlo Browne to recognize the artistic work Black students are doing at SFU and the greater community of the Lower Mainland.
After Beats Blues and Bars’s first set of original hip hop, poet and English masters student Odessa Twibill took the stage. They shared poems that are initially conversational, but become visceral and dizzying as they process through their motifs of transition and illusion in a post-colonial world. I found their reading intimately and intricately observant. I spoke to Twibill after the presentation ended to learn more about their presentation.
“‘Dear Colonizer’ is a research creation project, where every line of the poem has a citation. I basically did the equivalent of the research I would do for a paper, but for a poem instead.” Twibill continued that this project was a modified version of a research creation assignment from their undergraduate years. Focusing on Black and Indigenous literatures in their MA, Twibill explained that “Indigenous is a blanket term, and Blackness can also be understood through the lens of Indigeneity.” They said this research offers different avenues “to be able to connect and find that kinship focus.”
Next was Browne. Through a reading of his poems, Browne pointed out that Black History Month should be recognized year-round, and urged the listener to think about the scrutiny behind identity, and the role art plays in a person’s life.
When Browne’s co-organizer, Barrington, took the stage, academia and art were again closely sutured. She read the introduction to her thesis, describing the injustices that persist despite promises to dismantle them in an “apocalyptic present.”
Lastly, Chris Outten. As Outten spoke, I thought about his invocation that movement complicates belonging and identity. What happens to the body when it moves cultures? How do we hold memory? Invisibility is resisted by announcing presence, starting as a TV Outten wheeled into the room glowed to life. As his character on the screen, Kettle Man (Outten’s personification of “imposter syndrome, racial pressure, and the quiet performances”), rattled in front of an audience of entirely silent bystanders, the viewer was left to contemplate the absurd choreography with their existing ideas of performance and bodily representation. I felt bad for my reaction of confused laughing at first, but Chris opened his presentation by saying, “humour gives breath to a heavy space.”
Beats Blues and Bars resumed command of the room after a round of applause for the presenters. I can still hear their music pulsing through the glass while I finished my interview with Twibill. Participation in showcases like this is valuable because they are opportunities to share poetry, literature, and culture in a space for Black people and the close-knit SFU community. “It shows me what’s possible to do,” and “it really opens your mind.” Twibill urged the audience to be brave and talk to people that present and create connections.
“The biggest thing is to witness and take what you’ve learned with you, and share it if you can.”
— Odessa Twibill, poet and English MA student
