Grand 'Slam!' Team of Houston Teen Poets Crowned National Champs at San Francisco Festival
Aug. 3, 2023
The 2023 Meta-Four team (photo courtesy of Writers in the Schools)
BIG NEWS! ON July 22, Houston youth poetry team Meta-Four won the national championship in the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam Festival, which took place in San Francisco. It’s a first-time first-place win for the team, which in previous incarnations, has always done well competing against other teenage teams from around the globe in semi-final slam bouts. This year, the top four teams — representing Houston, New York, Nashville and Sacramento — competed in four rounds of spoken-word performance in the historic Herbst Theater for the finals. Houston, we’re proud to say, took the top spot.
“Our students have worked so hard to get to this very moment,” said Raie Crawford in a statement. “Being able to see our students take the stage, amplifying their personal stories through performance poetry is proof of how truly diverse the arts are in the city of Houston.”
Founded in 2007, Meta-Four Houston is a program of Writers in the Schools (WITS), and each year welcomes a new combination of young poets from all over the city into its ranks. Under the tutelage of Houston Poet Laureate Emeritus Emmanuel “Outspoken” Bean, co-coach Alinda "Adam" Mac, and coaching intern Norah Rami, Meta-Four team members Adriana Winkelmayer, Samiyah Green, Myaan Sonenshein, Isabella Diaz-Mira, Ariana Lee (who is currently Houston’s Youth Poet Laureate), and Kylan Denney developed their writing and poetry performance skills. The poems they chose to deliver at Brave New Voices addressed such topics as women’s health, the refugee crisis, race relations, and the human condition.
Since 1983, WITS has partnered with authors, journalists, and spoken word performers, like Bean, to introduce young students to the power of language, be it the written word, or a poem delivered with all of the theatrical aplomb of a rock star or hip-hop artist. But tellingly, in a 2018 interview for Houston CityBook, Bean explained the opportunity for Meta-Four to compete against hundreds of other gifted teenage poets from across the world is really “a by-product” of what each poet comes away with as a member of Meta-Four. “I’m not trying to raise an army of poets,” said Bean. “I am trying to raise a crop of people who put their best efforts into whatever it may be, be it schoolwork, a protest, mentoring, whatever.”
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Lauren Salazar's 'Punchy’s' with rope, vintage weaving, hand-dyed wool and paint at Hooks-Epstein; 'Furry Cup' by Ernesto Marenco at Heidi Vaughn Fine Art
NEXT SATURDAY, AUG. 12, Houston’s Gallery Row hosts it inaugural Summer Spritzer, a mixer featuring cocktails, mocktails, and spritzers, plus live music and, of course, lots of great art, all easily accessible on foot. It’s perfect for those that are missing out on this weekend’s White Linen Night — or those who want to double down on sweaty-chic, artsy fun.
It’s the first time since the pandemic the galleries have banded together to close out the exhibition season with a fun, festival-like event open to both newbies and seasoned art lovers. The participating galleries include Dean Day Gallery, Moody Gallery and Thornwood Gallery, whose doors will open to the public from 11am to 5pm. From 11am to 8pm, visitors can check out shows at Avant-Art Gallery, Catherine Couturier Gallery, the always-provocative Heidi Vaughan Fine Art, and Hooks-Epstein Galleries, founded by the late Geraldine “Geri” Lee Epstein Hooks, who passed away in 2021.
“We’re hoping this event will be a springboard for an annual summer event for Gallery Row,” says Yvonne Garcia, owner and director at Hooks-Epstein Galleries. “We want to bring people back to the street to view art, listen to some summer tunes, and enjoy festive drinks.”
For more than two decades, Gallery Row, located at the intersection of Colquitt and Lake Streets in the Upper Kirby area, has been home to a diverse collective of galleries housed door-to-door, and a hop, skip, and a jump further down Colquitt. Some of the end-of-the-season don’t-miss shows include Houston-based artist and visual poet Ernesto Marenco’s Petite Retrospective at Heidi Vaughn Fine Art, a retrospective fantastic objects and strange sculptures that call to mind the surreal readymades of Marcel Duchamp. Moody Gallery has a great looking show of paintings by Lucas Johnson, who was a major player in the Texas art scene going back to the late 1960s. Hooks-Epstein has two shows up: Angelica Raquel’s Leyendas and Mine, a collection ofbeautiful and mysterious watercolor and mixed media paintings inspired by her childhood and Texas Mexican folklore; and an exhibit of hand-woven abstractions by Lauren Salazar titled Tethered. From 5 pm to 8 pm at Hooks-Epstein, vocalist Renee Edd "Holiday" and guitarist Nathan Kyle who perform as the duo Holiday & Vine will play two sets of jazz standards, show tunes and classic pop hits.
Speaking of music, as a child of the ’70s, back when vinyl was king, Garcia is known to play vinyl records in her gallery. “I have definitely found our visitors appreciate the tunes,” says Garcia. “Music and viewing art go hand in hand, and it gives the gallery a fresh vibe.”
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