His head explores his cache of words,

too heated with all these college people packed in,

seated in the Bean Cycle and weak knees ensue, dude.

Nostrils tingle as coffee beans crumble and people mingle,

humbled by the last poet’s punch line about political times,

while intricate art straight from aching hearts hangs inside wall frames.

And Brent Adams is too cool to fumble over any broken words,

his verbs in action, sparking flames fueled by reactions from fans,

new-comers, new experiences.

But Adams, slipping rhymes into people’s minds through the mic,

Simply sees it to unite by turning writing into insight,

his right mind transforms his left views to something new,

something the community can use—

And as the last lines fall off his lightning quick lips, his words cease.

The crowd pleases him with screams of applause, oohs and ahs.

This is the scene of the Fort Collins Poetry Slam at the Bean Cycle. This is where people unite on the first Friday of every month to see these poets perform. Language is transcended and transformed into art, and people come to freely express their voice.

Brent Adams, 24, is a Colorado State University graduate student, majoring in ethnic studies, and he has written poetry since middle school.

“People feel small and insignificant in addressing issues in the world,” Adams says. “If you’re just one person in a sea of violence, thinking about these problems, it can wear you down. But poetry offers the community a chance to hear voices that normally can’t be heard.”

Adams has not only found a way to express his thoughts through poetry, but he has found it to be empowering. While working with eighth grade kids at the Sexual Assault Victim Advocate Center in Fort Collins, Adams says that sometimes he doesn’t know if what he does really helps; thus, why he writes poetry.

“If we can get together and show that more of us care, it makes me feel like we do have power in the community,” Adams says. “Poetry gives me a sense of efficacy.”

Efficacy, to project and definitively speak to minds

that feel they to find and communicate thoughts,

and to connect in an authentic way,

Where the oppressed are heard,

And voices are found.

Kimberly “Infinite” Ford, a junior ethnic studies major, also finds her voice through poetry.

“I think [slam poetry] is a great way to communicate thoughts,” she says. “People who are not heard in political arenas, such as everyday people like us, are given a chance to be heard through poetry.”

Along with Adams, Ford performs at the poetry slam in early April. Women’s rights. Removing distrust in people. Abandonment. These are the issues that strike a cord when voiced through her spoken word. She wants people to listen, and wants to hear others as well.

“We have equal respect for each other’s words,” she says, alluding to the poetry slam. “Whether it’s the audience or the other poets, it creates a feeling of community when people are able to freely and openly express their voice.”

Sasha Steensen, a CSU assistant English professor, is fond of poetry, but feels that the poetic voice can get lost in the sea of technology.

“There are so many demands upon our attention,” she says. “You’ve got Internet, e-mail, billboards — an information overload. Poetry presents and looks at these things from different angles and helps us decide how to process these things as a culture and as individuals.”

She describes language as a “way to communicate a particular meaning.” If something needs to be described or communicated, we use words to symbolize that particular feeling or object. But with poetry, a poem is an object itself, and the reader has to engage with how the words sound and look in relation to each other, rather than each individual meaning.

“Try to think without using language and usually it comes in immediately to label whatever it is we are thinking about,” she says. “Poetry, on the other hand, requires a certain kind of engagement and asks the reader or listener to be critical and pay attention.”

Steensen always tries to accept an invitation to read, and enjoys how the performance enhances the poetry. She says that the performance can expand the possibilities of poetry for the listener.

This is where Larry Holgerson comes in to play…on words, that is.

Holgerson, who is known as the “slam master” or “booger,” is a well-known face in the slam poetry world. Holgerson is also the person responsible for organizing the slam at the Bean Cycle and has been doing so for the last five years.

“We always fill up [the Bean Cycle], and people may have to sit on the floor,” Holgerson says. “When those 16- and 17-year-olds come in, along with the college kids, and speak their truths, they can say something that simply devastates you. They’ve been thrown a world of crap, and find a way to speak through it all. Their day to day dealings, concepts and aggressions are portrayed through their poetry.”

Aggression, curved.

Politics, diverge.

Human rights, for sure.

Expression, through verbs.

Action, reaction, thinking, writing, stinging, fighting and overall uniting,

All because of the spoken word.

Sounds absurd?

Yes, but still it occurs,

and all we want is our voices heard.

We are poetry. We are poetic. We are people. But most of all, we are.

“It doesn’t take a degree, employment, permission [to write poetry],” Adams says. “You just need guts.”

“It stems from oppressed communication, oppressed voices,” Ford says.

“We don’t have any engagement with the world that doesn’t involve language,” Steensen adds.

“Culture is an operating system and we need the one in Fort Collins to be heard and feel eloquent about the way we do it,” Holgerson says.

They all speak, hear, listen, voice their opinions and lead individual lives. They all live in Fort Collins and involve themselves in the community. They all have something to say about poetry. And if you listen very closely, you might catch the meaning behind their spoken words. This is the motion of poetry, deep in the heart of Fort Collins.

But this quest in literature is dwindling because competing technologies are elbowing out the culture of books and reading – that is – unless you own a Kindle, eReader, Nook, iPad or a similar digital reading device.

I don’t own a “digital reading device” – even that terminology sounds wrong because I read what are called “books” on printed pages. Now, don’t get me wrong, people should read in any format they’re comfortable with because books are a struggling medium. For me, I prefer books in print because there are too many things that get lost in the digital translation; namely, the culture of books, which is exactly what this blog is trying to avenge.

And that fight is one that the novelist and poet Sherman Alexie believes in, too.

In an interview with Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report Dec. 1, 2009, Alexie claims that the digitization of books is deteriorating the literary world for not just authors, but communities as well.

“The celebration of books inside each community is gone, the localized appreciation of books is gone,” Alexie said. “It amazes me that people who want to eat locally [and] live locally never think about buying locally [and] never think about the local value of a book.”

While he makes a valid argument, I find it hard to agree that the celebration of books is completely gone. It isn’t – at least in Fort Collins because of the support of the Be Local movement and booksellers like Old Firehouse Books, Reader’s Cove and the Matter Bookstore.

Along with booksellers, book publishers, writers, readers, professors and community members in Fort Collins are also reviving the “almost loss” of our book culture by taking the time to read books in print, to support local authors and to believe in the culture of books – which we need in order to thrive.

According to Goethe, and I agree, “The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.”

We cannot ignore digitization, but what we can do is work with it by blogging about the news, events and material of our CSU and Fort Collins book culture because that culture is here, alive and waiting for you to seek the authenticity in your life through literature.