February event round-up

It’s not too far into February, so I figured I’d list many of the events going on in February that you might want to check out.

Tomorrow night (2/8), MSU’s Black Poet Society will be stopping by The Advantage Takeover to perform some uplifting and inspiring poetry. 7:45pm In Conrad Hall at MSU.

Thursday night (2/10), MSU’s Black Poet Society, with the help of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, will be doling out some warm drinks and poetry at our “Hot Chocolate” event. This is our main event for February, so be sure to come on out and support us.

Friday night (2/11), Ignite Lansing is taking place at the Capital Region International Airport. The event can be summed up as a bunch of people giving short talks on topics they feel passionate about.

Saturday night (2/12), the Lansing Derby Vixens will be hosting a bout at the Lansing Center. Doors open at 6pm and the ladies will go flying around 7pm. I’ve got a couple coworkers that skate and referee for the Derby Vixens, so be sure to come out and show some love.

Saturday, February 19, is MobiDevDay Detroit. The event was started to educate Detroit and Southeast Michigan software developers about building applications on mobile platforms.

That rounds out my list of events for February. Do you know of an event that I missed?

…and we… ARE BPS

Every week I am happy to hear and see more poetry coming out of the members of the MSU Black Poet Society. Last week featured many poets during the open mic session.

I uploaded three new videos to show off from two of our newer members: Resheid Jackson and Erika Crawley.

Our next event will be on Tuesday night at 8pm at The Advantage Takeover program in Conrad Hall. Come on out and get some inspiration.

106 & Parks: I Have A Dream Top Ten Countdown

Last night I was pretty busy helping run MSU’s Black Poet Society event on campus. The event was titled “106 & Parks: I Have A Dream Top Ten Countdown” and was modeled off of the show on BET. The event had multiple facets:

• Poetry slam with 6 poets
• Music performances
• “Throwback joint of the day” was “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
• Crowd participation battles and more

The poetry slam design was a great idea. To keep the format in a “top ten countdown” style, we started with six poets. Then the top three moved on to the second round. From there, the best poet performed one more piece. This design made for 10 performances, all increasing in quality.

I want to give a shout out to Terrance Grantham and Kenya Abbott Jr. as they were the hosts for the night (playing the role of AJ and Free). We had about 200 people show up, and we know we’ll see a lot of familiar faces at our next event.

I recorded most of the performances and have embedded them below. The event ended in a tie and the two winners were @MACKdaPOET and @DeonteOsayande. Mack is a new member of the Black Poet Society, and Deonte is real involved with the Detroit slam poetry scene.

MSU’s Black Poet Society never stops!

I’ve been uploading even more videos of MSU’s Black Poet Society on to YouTube. Since the last time I’ve put up a blog entry, we have had a slam competition in Hubbard Hall, an event with Def Poet Gemineye, and our weekly meetings with Open Mic sessions at the end of each meeting.

New Videos of MSU’s Black Poet Society

I uploaded some more videos of MSU’s Black Poet Society today. Here is one of the clips of Def Jam Poetry’s Gemineye performing with us at Gone Wired Cafe in Lansing, MI for the MSU College Of Law Diversity Week Celebration:

See more of these videos after the jump…