Open Letter to the Community from Worcester Youth Poetry Slam Director Alex Charalambides

Dear Community,

September is upon us, a new season of the Worcester Youth Poetry Slam is set to begin on September 24th. I’d like to take this opportunity to briefly outline & explain a new course of direction for our program, while allowing space for community input.

Since 2003, I’ve done my best to create an engaging, dynamic youth based poetry series, from weekly shows at the old Worcester Artist Group Space on Harlow Street, to our current monthly series at Clark University, I’ve worked hard to bring diverse, talented artists to our stage, I’ve raised money, (spent my own when I had no time to raise it), coached, hosted, reached out, and tried my best to connect with the national youth community through the Brave New Voices Festival, while trying to build a strong local scene.

There have been successes and mis-steps, re-organizations and do-overs. I want this season to be a successful one, but for my part, I have a new focus and very much wish to put my energy where it will best serve the most youth writers possible.

I love Brave New Voices. I’ve attended every festival since 2004, have chaperoned 8 teams (including 26 teen poets) and seen it grow, more than doubling in size! Even though the 2011 Worcester team tasted our first tournament success this year (making semi-finals), I’ve been proud of every team I’ve taken, bringing fresh, innovative, engaging work. We don’t always score well, but we’ve always been good sports, connected and have received respect from our peers. I’ve learned a great deal about mentoring, organizing, writing and flat out being a person. I count these festivals as a huge part of what keeps me going in the performance poetry scene. I haven’t always agreed with certain aspects of the festival, but have always kept from openly criticizing the festival and national network. It’s a huge undertaking, it involves a lot of thankless work. I always told myself I’d refrain from that type of engagement until I was ready to offer specific solutions, or an alternative for youth to pursue the art of performance poetry elsewhere.

Organizing our annual trip to Brave New Voices has always been a challenge. Countless people have made personal contributions. We’ve gotten some community support, either through local cultural council grants, performance opportunities, merchandise sales, etc. But it’s been getting more difficult every year. (We fell over $2,000 short of our overall goal this year). I’m going to try to organize a few fund raisers to recoup this personal loss, but dealing with this current debt is forcing me to re-evaluate my position. It is what it is. I begin a slam season, promising to being a team to Brave New Voices, and I do everything in my power to live up to that personal commitment.

I don’t like to make decisions based on reactionary negative circumstances, but there is another new circumstance that is also playing into my current thinking. A very positive one in fact. That is MASS L.E.A.P. (Massachusetts Literary Education & Performance) a collective that I’ve co-founded this past year. Working with this group of creative, committed, talented people has made me realize the potential for greater community building right here in the Commonwealth. We’re getting a large following, support from Mass Poetry (a state-wide non-profit, responsible for the annual Mass Poetry Festival), creating working groups, receiving funding and mobilizing big plans to create school residencies, spoken word event series and a state-wide youth poetry slam festival, modeled after the Louder than a Bomb Festival in Chicago.

There WILL be a 2012 Worcester Youth Poetry Slam Team. We will hold weekly workshops and monthly poetry slams. However, the Worcester Youth Poetry Slam is now going to become a MASS L.E.A.P. Series. The 2012 Worcester Youth Poetry Slam Team will represent our community at the inaugural Louder than a Bomb / Massachusetts Festival, (slated for March / April 2012) participating and connecting with young writers from around the state. We’re going to work together and share our words, crossing town, city and neighborhood lines to build a state-wide community that I feel, will quickly blow up into a youth scene that can measure up to any in the world! This is where I want to put my energy. This is an organization that’s going to build in a way I’ve always dreamed of. I’ve already spent a huge part of my year helping to build the ground work and I plan to invest further. I believe in this.

As for Brave New Voices? This is no longer my end-all / be-all goal. I am currently connecting and working hard to create something that can measure up to the opportunities provided by Brave New Voices. If we can provide programming and stages and audiences right here, then that’s an opportunity I can’t pass up. I enjoy Brave New Voices, but so much energy and resources go into the planning, yet the annual trip only really benefits 4-6 teens in our community. I can do better. We can do better. I want to include more voices in this movement.

This is where I am at. Brave New Voices is a worthy festival and taking Worcester Area Voices there is a worthy goal, but not one I’m willing to invest in at his time, especially if I can work towards creating a real alternative that could benefit so many more youth in our community.

If the community wishes to send a team to the 2012 Brave New Voices Festival, I’m all ears and will admit that these two goals CAN co-exist. However, I am not personally working towards this goal in the upcoming months unless the community meets me (more than) halfway. I will hold monthly slams through December of this year. If the community can raise (or figure out how to raise) $3,000 by January 2012, I will get on board and work towards BOTH goals. But I will not be leading this charge. If this is something the community wants, then I will listen to proposals, offer advice, attend events, etc. I just will not hold myself responsible for organizing it.

No “you know what you should do”s only “here’s what we got planned…. here’s what we can do”s Fund-raisers, community event performances, investment in new merchandise, personal donations. Tell me HOW, show me YOUR commitment and it’s fully possible to offer BOTH opportunities to our young poets.

I want to thank all the friends who I’ve brainstormed this over with. I want to thank everyone who’s ever donated, volunteered, cheered our teams on. I feel blessed that I’ve been able to steer this for so long, but I feel this new direction is needed. I do not wish to burn out and walk away. I want to do this for a living, for a life, for the right reasons and for the potential I see every time a brilliant young person rocks a microphone. It really keeps me going on so many levels, and this is the only feasible way I can see for it to keep keeping me going. I will work harder to welcome new volunteers, new ideas, new energy, new strategies. But this needs to be more of a collective action. As much as I personally want to return to Brave New Voices next year and build off the hard earned success of last year, I can’t reasonably expect that to happen under the current circumstances. I want to be CLEAR on this before the 2011/2012 season begins so that I can live up to my own personal commitments. This can only happen if you want it to happen.

Thank You,

Alex Charalambides