Washington, D.C.: Busboys and Poets

The Last Poets album cover for This is Madness. Source: CD and LP.

While in South Louisiana, I became entranced by spoken word artists, introduced to me by Festival of Words and then expanded upon by Alex Johnson's (aka Poetic Soul) Lyrically Inclined. I told my hostess, Suzanne, that tapping into the spoken word scene in D.C. would be nice. So one evening we checked out a poet at one of the Busboys and Poets - at 5th and K. 


Sidebar: Unbeknownst to me at the time, the South Louisiana artists who introduced me to today's spoken work spoiled me. Their power and artistry grabbed me by the viscera and made me drop my jaw in admiration. My subsequent encounters with spoken word in Boulder, Colorado, and in D.C. were pale, pale.

The featured poet at Busboys and Poets. Good stuff, for the most part. Not memorable. Not like South Louisiana's girl, Shacondria iCon Sibley, who is blow-you-away good, as you can see below:

There was also a singer who performed at Busboys and Poets. Kameron Corvet. One of the two videos I took below:

The video also gives you a sense of the venue's ambiance.

Smooth.