"Boro teens vie for poetry crown,"
By Jake Pearson - New York Daily News

They've rhymed their way to the finals.

Some talented Brooklyn teens will perform their spoken-word poetry for a shot at a $10,000 scholarship during the final round of the annual Knicks Poetry Slam competition at Manhattan's New Amsterdam Theater on Thursday.

"The theater is enormously huge and majestic looking," said Bedford-Stuyvesant poet Ishmael Islam, 18, a college freshman at the Pratt Institute. "It's a lot of stage and a lot of history to respect."

The four Brooklyn wordsmiths beat out 500 young people, ages 13 to 19, from the tristate area who auditioned last November for a shot at the college scholarship.

Last month, they were among 75 poets in the semifinal round who performed for the final 10 slots.

Their poems range from social commentary about the gentrification of Clinton Hill to deeply personal insights about saying goodbye to a beloved and deceased relative.

"It hasn't hit me yet," said Dominique Briggs, 18, of Bushwick, who is putting the finishing touches on a poem called "Dad," a cautionary tale about the evil powers of money, that he'll perform.

"We're on Broadway, which is every performance artist's dream."

Flatbush native Kedene McLeod, 17, a junior at the Secondary School for Research in Park Slope, is the youngest of the four Brooklyn finalists - and the only girl.

"My friends say I am good with words because . . . when they have a paper, they ask me for synonyms," said McLeod, who never wrote poetry before taking a class in school last fall.

"I auditioned a piece . . . and I didn't think anything of it, but they called me back and I was on top of the world."

The untitled piece is full of advice one girl gives to another before she learns important life lessons - like how to maintain a high self-esteem - the hard way.

"So when you realize that you are healed and made in His image, then you can show your beautiful you," wrote McLeod.

Islam's poem "Clifton" is an ode to the Clinton Hill he remembers growing up in, on Clifton Place - one without Manhattan transplants and luxury condos.

"The new modernism is hitting Brooklyn hard, but it hit home even harder," wrote Islam. ". . . [H]alf the block turned into high estate condos and more to come. It's become a ghost town with gold mines of new-age buildings."

Those three and Julian Pena, 19, of Park Slope, a freshman at Kingsborough Community College, will vie for the top prize - a $10,000 scholarship. Second place takes $7,500, third $5,000, and the remaining seven will get $1,000 apiece.

"They're all extremely talented," said Mike Cirelli, 34, executive director of Urban Word, a nonprofit that teaches poetry to young people and co-sponsors the competition.

"At this point, the level of poetry and performance is so high you can literally pick winners out of a hat," he said.