Abuela, did you ever figure out how to stay in love?
April 4, 2013 2:59 PM   Subscribe

I have found the spoken word poetry of Denice Frohman. I bring her to you. She's from NYC and works in Philadelphia. The first performance I stumbled on was Dear Straight People from her preliminary performance at Women of the World Poetry Slam 2013. Weapons, also from this year's Women of the World. She won the championship. This is the finals. The editing is terrible, but she comes on at 7:16. And the other ladies are also awesome.

Abuela (do you remember you yet?)

An anti littering campaign on local Philadelphia news in 2010 she speaks about raising awareness.

Gangsta Poetry from 2009.

She is active in the Philly Youth Poetry Movement. And at Tedx Philly she and Gregory Corbin ask how we can encourage young people?

Denice also recently performed at an immigration rally. I lost it when she said "like proper has a sound." And that's when I knew I had to make this my first post on the blue.
posted by bilabial (10 comments total) 19 users marked this as a favorite
 
"the nearby prison uses their test scores as wallpaper." -- from Weapons.

THis is good...firece...just what I need to hear today. Thanks.
posted by salishsea at 3:43 PM on April 4, 2013


Oh gosh I really enjoyed that. Thank you very much for posting this.
posted by RokkitNite at 3:58 PM on April 4, 2013


I'm not that familiar with slam poetry but this is really good. It's really affecting me. Thank you.
posted by Doleful Creature at 4:08 PM on April 4, 2013


Excellent. Another great example of how Metafilter finds things for me that i didn't even know I loved.
posted by OHenryPacey at 6:37 PM on April 4, 2013 [2 favorites]


I'm already sharing links and I'm barely halfway through this wonderful post. Thank you for bringing this artist to my attention; I love her work!
posted by Anitanola at 7:17 PM on April 4, 2013


That "this is the finals" link is possibly one of the worst and most annoying videos I have seen on YouTube (with the cuts). I'm 2:30 in. I'm going to try to skip to 7:16 and hope for the best. EDIT: Nope. Doesn't get any better. Liked the "Weapons" poem though.
posted by spock at 7:58 PM on April 4, 2013


The immigration rally performance is also really affecting, phew. Thanks for posting these.
posted by Zephyrial at 9:54 PM on April 4, 2013


Thanks so much for posting this. She does make you want to try to be a braver person, doesn't she?
posted by onlyconnect at 1:49 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


She does make you want to try to be a braver person, doesn't she?

You know, I think this is what I find so moving about her work, but I couldn't quite put my finger on calling it that.

I'm glad folks are enjoying it too, for whatever reasons. (and indeed, in hindsight I wish I could figure out if there is another recording of her piece from the finals, because that editing makes me dizzy. But I wanted to get this up before I chickened out.)
posted by bilabial at 2:38 PM on April 5, 2013 [1 favorite]


Six hours later and I've watched Dear Straight People and the immigration rally several more times. I really like her. Thanks again for this post!
posted by onlyconnect at 8:47 PM on April 5, 2013


« Older Time Spent With Cats is Never Wasted   |   The dark side of the moon Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments