TEXAS YOUTH WORD COLLECTIVE

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This just in:

"Jose,

I judged an Under 21 Slam for young people who will go to San Jose for the Nationals.

A young woman whose father is African-American and whose mother is Japanese did a piece of the Cho incident that was considered controversial. I gave her a 9.9 out of 10 and a high five after the performance. It was brave.

Here is the e-mail I received form the sponsors of the event:

Greg, Pam, Ric, and Roy

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! What a fantastic show! Last night's Slam Off was, by far, the most competitive, most exciting, most moving we have ever had. Every one of you were wonderful.

We can't tell you how much we appreciate your participation last night. The importance beyond the establishment of the team came when Ric gave Pravda a high five for her Va.Tech poem. She had emailed me earlier in the day, afraid to perform the poem because of the backlash she feared from the audience based on how it was received by family members. You guys judging the Slam Off validated the courage the youth exercised in speaking on the controversial issues of the day.

We hope that you will share your experience with others, especially those in position to help us raise the money to get the kids out to San Jose this summer. We really appreciate your support.

Below is the message I sent to the youth:

Wow!!! What a great show last night. The performances were the best this year. The hard work and creativity by each of you was demonstrated in your performances. We are honored to have witnessed your work, your passion, and your improvement throughout the season. It has been a pleasure to have seen so many fabulous performances.

It has been important to us to create a community of young writers and performers here in Austin. It was good to see all of you not only route for each other but to actually spend some time conversing with each other. Some of you participated in our group piece writing workshops. I encourage you to keep in touch with each other; write together, collaborate. Now that you have seen, heard, and know each others writing style, this summer might be a good time to expand your writing by working together.

Thank you again for sharing your voices with us. We greatly appreciate it. Obviously, we want to congratulate this year's Austin Under 21 Slam Champion, Shay, as well as her new teammates, Brent, Korim, and Ruby. We hope that the rest of you will keep this community alive during the summer and continue to participate in the City Wide Under 21 Poetry Slam when the new season starts.

Ron and Dr. Sheila

Ron Horne & Dr. Sheila Siobhan, Co-Directors
Texas Youth Word Collective
u21slam@yahoo.com
www.txywc.org
(512)632-5033"

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"The final frontier may be human relationships, one person to another." -- Buzz Aldrin, Astronaut