How you call them selfies, when you post them to see what other people think of you?Follow my poetry brothers new page Jay Martinez The Poet
Posted by Ace Metaphor on Sunday, August 9, 2015
We spoke with Frank "Buddy" Pitts, a key player of Metaphorically Speaking, who oversees marketing and manages the group. He talked to us about the group's community impact, as well as ways Dayton can get behind, support and see the group live and in action.
What is Metaphorically Speaking strive to achieve in Dayton?
Pitts: I would say that our overall purpose and goal—I think we have a few—would be to provide an outlet of entertainment for the city of Dayton through poetry, creative writing and public speaking. Our goal is also to educate our youth as well as young adults and old alike, through poetry and spoken word and the difference between the two as well as creative writing and public speaking, which is obviously a very expressive art form, (and) also to provide a local entertainment avenue that involves not only poetry but an infused production of poetry, dance and song.
What is spoken word?
Pitts: The traditional thing that most people know is poetry, where you have a particular rhyme scheme like Dr. Seuss' "Cat in the Hat" — that type of thing — "Green Eggs and Ham," where every word at the end of that line ends with a rhyming word and that scheme may be AABB—egg, leg, ham, cam. Or you have ABAB, or ABACC. Also with traditional poetry as well — Haiku, Tanka and Cinquain — where these have some rich history based upon some cultural things, (like) Japanese and African cultures. We call that more of the stanza, structural and technical forms of poetry.
Now, with spoken word, it uses that technique as more of an anchor point and it becomes really expressive. Spoken word is the actual expressive part of poetry. It's more about you reciting it and presenting it in front of a group of people or in front of a specific audience that may target that particular subject. What you're doing is really expressing some sort of specific tone and emotion with spoken word. It's basically a free-verse and uses the traditional techniques of poetry as an anchor point.
Describe your work in the community.
Pitts: With Dayton Baton, I've captured and grown a relationship with Jordan Hockett the Founder and originator of it—we crossed paths in high school and so we've kind of come full circle right after college. With Jordan's Dayton Baton, it was really a cool way to really see all of the other things that we do. Most people that do know us and our following comes from our brand of being out there and actually putting together a full performance, whether it be at a monthly show that's gritty at Therapy Café, or one of our annual shows at the Dayton Art Institute, Victoria Theatre or the Dayton Convention Center—those shows are obviously more planned out and more of a full stage production. With Dayton Baton we get to show our day-to-day things that we do within the community.
In addition to our work the with the Boys and Girls Club of Dayton, we also work with the libraries of Montgomery County, mainly the downtown branch where we go and do workshops and we go over creative writing skills and other techniques for poetry. We go over some of the more traditional forms of poetry and then we also go over stage presence, being confident, public speaking—quite a few different educational things that you will just need period, in your everyday life. We bring everything back to a poetry base. With Dayton Baton that gave us the opportunity to kind of showcase that in some form to this particular audience or the audience that has grown with Dayton Baton.
We do a yearly slam with the high school within the city of Dayton partnering with the Human Relations Council of the City of Dayton. We go into those high schools a few days a week for a month and a half to two weeks' time, leading up to a huge grand slam doing similar workshops but really allowing them a space to get creative feedback, really hard and analytical criticism and then also allow them a stage to compete on. From each of those high schools there is a group of winners—first, second and third place and then those winners compete in a larger grand slam to basically be that high school and citywide group champion of that particular year. What that does is it puts them on the stage with us and also in front of some other spoken word artists. It also gives them some more credibility behind their name — Metaphorically Speaking and some of the other poetry groups will endorse them. We will also recycle those same winners and participants, after they've graduated high school, into our stage productions.
How has the Dayton community responded to the group?
Pitts: I think you get a really good mix of people saying 'Man, you guys are really cool,' and sometimes you get a mix of 'Well, what do you guys really do?', and then you also get a mix of 'We just can't wait to come to your show.' I think we get a reputation for being somewhat popular, skilled, talented and creative, which I think is good. I know that we really want to focus on the education and community piece because really that's what keeps us alive. The shows are cool. Obviously at some point they do get repetitive, for us at least, but the education piece is a constantly fulfilling aspect of our work. It helps us show that 'Hey, Metaphorically Speaking is really doing something in the community,' and that we are really engaging the community to help solve issues problems and issues in the community and make the community a better place.
When's the next time, those interested, can see a performance?
Pitts: The event that we have coming up on April 2 is called Battle of the Sexes. It is our three-year anniversary show, so that's a really amazing thing. Typically in our anniversary shows, we like to showcase our artists and what we've done over the course of one year and introduce our audience to some other cool acts. This year we wanted to switch it up and pay really close attention to the theme, so this year we came up with Battle of the Sexes, which is perfect. We've done the show on a smaller scale and just the sound of Battle of the Sexes is just attractive, period. Who doesn't want to see that — man vs. woman, and vice versa? In this performance we will really focus on that and we've put a lot of effort into making this a really fun show where you will see a lot of pizazz with different characters going at each other through the artistic form of spoken word and poetry as well as dance. There's actually a lot more than just poetry in this particular show, so you'll see a lot of dance and hear a lot of music.
Want to go?
WHAT: Metaphorically Speaking's Battle of the Sexes Showcase
WHERE: 138 North Main Street, Dayton
HOURS: 8-11 p.m. Saturday, April 2
INFO: Find Tickets
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