PHOTO/ADAM GOTTLIEB
CHICAGO, IL —A raised fist holding a pen, with a mic in the foreground: that is the logo for this year’s Louder Than A Bomb festival (LTAB). Organized by Young Chicago Authors for 15 years now, LTAB remains the largest youth poetry slam in the world and it is growing. This March it brought together over 1,300 young people from all parts of the city, suburbs, and beyond. The festival symbolizes to many an artistic renaissance happening in Chicago, and—as can be seen from the logo—the spirit of revolution.
This year’s logo was chosen in homage to “Brother Mike” Hawkins, an educator at YouMedia Center who mentored a generation of up-and-coming Chicago emcees. Mike died on December 3, 2014, at the age of 38. He is deeply missed and widely remembered for empowering young people to speak out against injustice. (In one of his poems, he says: “I want to plant seeds in revolutionaries.”) The day after Mike passed, Chance The Rapper tweeted: “He would say, “Power to the People” and Youmedia would say, “Right on!” and know exactly what it meant. Rest in peace Brother Mike”. In honor of this, the theme for LTAB 2015 was #PowerToThePoets.
Indeed, LTAB seems to get more political every year, and the ages at which students address issues of race, gender, and class seems to keep getting younger. One remarkable line I heard this year came from a young man on the Kuumba Lynx team: “We won’t win until this game is ours.”
Here is what a few members of the community had to say about LTAB:
“The safe space and the creative space that LTAB creates is something that isn’t really found in education . . . and it should be . . . Every kid has the potential to write poetry, to be an artist, but they aren’t in spaces that encourage them.”
—Daisy Maass, 15, poet
“It’s beautiful how this gathers people from disparate parts of the city . . . to listen to each other and to develop empathy by hearing each other’s stories… I think it’s a model for education and what we’d like the city to be.”
—Brady Gunnink, coach
“If it wasn’t for these programs, I don’t know where my mindset would be—I could have conformed to something that is completely opposite of what I believe in now . . .
“I feel like Chicago is in a renaissance right now . . . I feel a movement coming . . . I feel it in my soul that something is creating, stirring up, something is manifesting, and I think that begins with giving power to the poets, power to the children, power to the youth . . .
“I think maybe in terms of . . . “American history” we don’t see leaders as the youth . . . which is obviously problematic.”
—Kaina Castillo, 19, LTAB organizer
Learn more about LTAB at youngchicagoauthors.org
